2025 Speakers
John Sharp, Professor of Games & Learning, The New School
John Sharp is the Professor of Games and Learning in the School of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design. His research focuses on game and play aesthetics, pedagogies of creative practice, and the intersections of ethics and aesthetics. John is a member of the game design collective Local No. 12, creators of Dear Reader (2019), The Metagame (2010-15), and Backchatter (2009). John is the author of Works of Game: On the Aesthetics of Game and Art (2015), and the co-author of Games, Design and Play: A Detailed Approach to Iterative Game Design (2016) with Colleen Macklin; Fun, Taste, & Games: An Aesthetics for the Idle, Unproductive, and Otherwise Playful (2019) with David Thomas; and Iterate: Ten Perspectives on Creativity and Failure (2019) with Colleen Macklin. John has curated a number of game- and play-centered exhibitions including "Spacewar!: Videogames Blast Off” (2012) and “A Whole New Ball Game: Playing through 60 Years of Sports Video Games” (2018) at the Museum of the Moving Image, co-curator of "XYZ: Alternative Voices in Game Design" at the Museum of Design-Atlanta (2013), and co-curator of “Shall Make, Shall Be: The Bill of Rights at Play” (2022).
