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)