Hello! I’m Christy Dena!
Christy Dena (she/they, pronunciation Dee-na),is me. I’m a storyteller, educator, and researcher who is living and making for a more kind, just, and creative world.
I’m about emancipatory design, which involves:
— emancipatory design processes & methods
— for liberating creatives, for liberated creatives
— for liberating audiences/players, for liberated audiences/players
A bio:
Christy is a writer-designer-director of multi-artform and interactive projects. She has worked on installations, Apps, live games, tabletop, ARGs, VR, films, theatre, and TV shows. Her (prosocial prefigurative) cooperative storytelling game DIYSPY was featured on Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and selected for CHIPlay & ACMI, CanCon, and PAXAU. Her commissioned (esoteric reverse escape room) game Magister Ludi toured Australia as an installation for Experimenta’s New Media Arts Biennial, was Official Selection for Babycastles in New York for Cara Ellison’s launch for Embed with Games, a book in which Christy is interviewed about the game, Official Selection for Parallels (Freeplay), and Finalist for WA Premier’s Book Awards and International New Media Writing Prize. Her (radio drama and web search) game AUTHENTIC IN ALL CAPS (a whydidit about investigating the meaning of death) won Australian Writers’ Guild and a WA Premier’s Prize, Finalist in the Freeplay Independent Games Festival Awards, Official Selection for the Electronic Literature Organization’s Media Arts Showcase, and was covered in Wired, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Times, Polygon, The Literary Platform, Courier Mail, ARGNet, Cinema Autopsy, Litopia After Dark and more. Her (robot personhood) installation Robot University was commissioned for a Digital Writing Residency funded by the Australian Literature Board and QUT, and has been on rotation at QUT’s Science & Technology Centre. Her commissioned live-game Backers of Anarchy played at PopUp Playground @ ACMI. Christy wrote and designed a serious game (on self-efficacy, democracy, and environmental relations) for South Australia University, and co-designed an international private branded alternate reality game The Hunt for Cisco with LA-based NoMimes Media, which was covered in Wired. Christy has consulted for Nokia on the Emmy-nominated global alternate reality game Conspiracy for Good, directed by Tim Kring, written, designed, and produced by The company P; as well as ABC’s alternate reality game Bluebird AR; as well as SBS Australia-commissioned VR project The Thin Black Line, directed by Douglas Watkin, with VR direction by Oscar Raby and art by acclaimed Aboriginal artist Vernon Ah Kee. More consulting clients include Les Produits Frais for Michael Beets, Bangarra Dance Company, Guildhouse, Cementa, Australia Council for the Arts, Wieden+Kennedy, and more.
Christy has given keynotes, speeches and workshops at events around the world, including Transmedia Hollywood (LA), Power to the Pixel, London Film Festival (London), International Women in Digital Media Summit (CAN), Game Developers Conference (San Francisco), Whistler Film Festival (British Columbia), and more. Christy has been a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (Emmys), AWG, ADG, and a board member of Carnegie Mellon’s ETC Press. Christy has mentored at labs such as Power to the Pixel (London Film Festival), Screen Australia’s Indigenous Cross-Over Lab, ABC Laboratory of Advanced Media Production, and designs and runs international and interdisciplinary labs, including Forward/Story, Crafting Intangibles, Telematic Studio, Transmedia Victoria, and the Extended Experiences Lab.
Christy has written for Cordite Literary Review, The Conversation, Meanland, RealTime, ABC, Writing Queensland Magazine, Queensland Writers Centre Connect, among other publications. She has written non-fiction chapters for books such as The Routledge Companion to Transmedia Studies (2018, Routledge); Copyfight (2015, New South Publishing); The Emerging Writer (2012, Emerging Writers’ Festival); New Perspectives on Narrative and Multimodality (2009, Routledge); Space Time Play (2007, Birkhauser). Christy has been interviewed in books such as A Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling (2012, McGraw-Hill), and contributed short pieces for books such as Cross-Media Communications (2010, ETC Press).
Christy has written reviews for publications such as After the Art, British Science Fiction Association’s journal Vector, RealTime, Electronic Book Review, ABC New Media, Australian Book Review (ABR), Cyberculture Studies, and Second Life Arts & Total Entertainment Magazine.
Her background is in theatre as a performer, writer, and director, which included a Director’s Secondment at Playbox Theatre Company, and touring the Melbourne Comedy Festival and further from her Monash Student Theatre roots. She moved to producing digital effects for film & TVCs at digital production studios Planet X and Imagine IF, with clients such as Artist Services; Jonathan M. Shiff Productions; Uncle Toby’s, Omo, Crown Casino, Tattslotto, Telstra, Goodyear, Mars, McCain, Myer, Australian Rugby Union, and Toyota.
Christy holds a Bachelor of Arts (Visual & Performing Arts, Monash Uni), Post-Graduate Diploma in Creative Writing (Uni of Melb), and a PhD in Media, Narrative & Game Studies (Uni of Syd). Christy is currently part-time Professor II of Cross-Media and Interactive Narratives at the Norwegian Film School; developing and freelancing on interactive projects, developing public-facing education work, and writing many books redesigning narrative design. Christy creates on/with unceded Bunurong Country of the Kulin Nation.
Email christy at this domain.
Connect with me through my LinkedIn.
[Note: I do not do sponsored posts.]