Mimesis: An Integrated Social Networking Application and Computer Game for Exploring Social Discrimination

Game characters and social networking profiles potentially can be used to help people better understand others’ experiences. However, merely customizing graphical representations and text fields is insufficient to convey actual identity experiences. As a step toward conveying richer identity experiences, we implemented an interactive narrative game for iOS called Mimesis to allow players to explore identity phenomena associated with discrimination. Mimesis is an outcome of the NSF-supported Advanced Identity Representation (AIR) Project (Harrell, Principal Investigator) to develop new computational identity technologies informed by theories of cognitive categorization and social classification. An ICE Lab interactive narrative platform called GeNIE is used to implement the game. We propose to present and discuss Mimesis. (Source: Author's abstract, 2012 ELO Conference site)