Carlo De Gaetano
What can Cultural Game Jams offer to the youth?

Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences @ Hilversum

Abstract

Information designer Carlo De Gaetano describes the EPIC-WE project as "challenging". Cultural game jams offer youth relational experiences in stimulating environments like museums, connecting them with professionals across disciplines. The pressure-cooker setting deepens peer relationships and breaks barriers between creative industries, research, and institutions. It creates space for game design driven by cultural questions and societal issues rather than profit, allowing the creative industry to experiment with alternative approaches.

Speaker bio

Carlo De Gaetano (IT) is an artist-researcher and information designer working with the Visual Methodologies Collective at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. He is currently pursuing a Professional Doctorate with the project Rising Tides, Shifting Imaginaries: Participatory Climate Fiction-making with Cultural Collections.

In his artistic research, De Gaetano uses fiction as a method to spark reflection and dialogue about our interconnectedness with more-than-human worlds. He works with audiovisual materials from archives and online environments, curating and recombining them to explore narratives surrounding Dutch waters and their ecosystems. Through participatory workshops, he activates these collections in collaborative fiction-making processes that invite participants to imagine alternative futures for living with water and other beings in a changing climate.