Samantha Gorman is an interdisciplinary scholar and artist who specializes in digital forms of Storytelling/Narratology, Directing for Digital Performance/Live Art, and the history, theory, and practice of immersive media (AR/VR).
She is known for projects that make critical, creative interventions in form/technology (e-readers, mobile VR, AR, machine learning, biometrics), while also functioning as commercially released entertainment and providing R&D for emerging platforms and partnerships. Many of her projects deal with speculative design futures; to this end, the close marriage of critical narratives and user experience design is meant to foster a reflective/informed viewership of the medium being consumed. Her work has been written about in The New York Times, Vice, BBC radio, The Verge, Forbes, Wired, The LA Times and Engadget.
She releases projects under the indie art/game studio she co-founded “Tender Claws.” Her work with Tender Claws has launched nearly every major immersive platform and has been acknowledged by industry awards and accolades starting with PRY (one of Apple’s 25 best apps of 2015). Virtual, Virtual Reality (VVR) – which draws on her eighteen years of experience designing for Virtual Reality – was a 2017 Google Play Award winner for “Best VR Experience, “ a Unity Awards Finalist, and won “Best VR Game” and “Best Mobile VR” at Raindance. In 2018, Tender Claws partnered with Google AR/VR to release Tendar an AR/sentiment analysis game that premiered at Sundance New Frontier. In 2019, Tender Claws partnered with Oculus for The Under Presents: a hybrid long-form VR and remote immersive theater game with live performers inhabiting the world everyday from November 2019 to December 2020. The Under has been up for several awards including a SXSW Gaming Award and was a Juried Award finalist for an Emmy in Innovation.
Her current projects include “Tempest” one of the world’s first ticketed, remote VR plays (running everyday July 2020 to September 2020) and an unannounced narrative game that examines the closing of popular online and virtual communities like Club Penguin. Samantha received an MFA from Brown University and her PhD in Media Arts and Practice from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. She is pleased to join the faculty of CAMD Art+Design: Games Program.
