Nathalie Lawhead is an independent net artist and

video game designer Video game design is the process of designing the content and rules of video games in the pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the production stage. Some common video game design subdiscipline ...

residing in

Irvine, California Irvine () is a Planned community, master-planned city in South Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the 1960s and the city was formally incorporated on ...

Life and career

Lawhead's background is in net art, their work often invokes the iconography of 1990s-era web design and computing, particularly moments of technical failure, including pixelated lo-fi imagery, glitches, pop-up ads, and error messages. Lawhead's ''Tetrageddon Games'' is a compilation of short experimental games that playfully subvert norms of taste in web and game aesthetics. Their more recent project, ''Everything is Going to be OK'', was described by Lawhead as an "interactive

zine A zine ( ; short for '' magazine'' or '' fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to writ ...

," and combines short poems, games, and animations to express personal experiences with trauma.

Harassment

Lawhead was subjected to online and offline abuse and harassment following their discussion of their game '' Everything is Going to be OK'' at

Double Fine Double Fine Productions, Inc. is an American first-party video game developer of Xbox Game Studios based in San Francisco, California. Founded in July 2000 by Tim Schafer shortly after his departure from LucasArts, Double Fine's first two game ...

Day of the Devs Double Fine Productions, Inc. is an American First-party developer, first-party video game developer of Xbox Game Studios based in San Francisco, California. Founded in July 2000 by Tim Schafer shortly after his departure from LucasArts, Double ...

event, and sustained further harassment after publishing an article, entitled "YouTube Culture is Turning Kids Against Art Games", on

Venture Beat Venture may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music *The Ventures, an American instrumental rock band formed in 1958 *"A Venture", 1971 song by the band Yes *''Venture'', a 2010 EP by AJR Games * ''Venture'' (video game), a 1981 arcade ga ...

, which discussed their experiences with harassment. As a result of this harassment, Lawhead further revised and expanded ''Everything is Going to be OK'' to include these experiences and comment on how gaming culture, and culture in general, enables abusers.

Notable works

Awards

* 2015 - Winner, IGF

Nuovo Award The Nuovo Award or Innovation Award is an award given at the Independent Games Festival (IGF), an annual event that takes place during the Game Developers Conference, one of the largest gatherings of the indie video game industry. The award is ...

for ''Tetrageddon Games'' * 2017 - Winner,

Indiecade IndieCade is an international juried festival of independent games. IndieCade is known as "the video game industry's Sundance."Fritz, Ben"IndieCade, the video game industry's Sundance" Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2009, accessed July 21, 2011 ...

Interaction Award for ''Everything is Going to Be OK'' * 2017 - Winner, A MAZE Digital Moment Award for ''Everything is Going to be OK'' * 2018 - Finalist, IGF

for ''Everything is Going to Be OK'' * 2018 - Honorable Mention, IGF

Seamus McNally Seamus may refer to: * Séamus, a male first name of Gaelic origin Film and television * Seamus (''Family Guy''), a character on the television series ''Family Guy'' * Seamus, a pigeon in '' Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore'' * Seamus Mc ...

Grand Prize for ''Everything is Going to Be OK''

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lawhead, Nathalie American video game designers indie video game developers internet art living people women video game developers year of birth missing (living people)