Brandon‘s wild, pure, simple life has seen him acting as artist, programmer, and indie record label head, as well as writer, columnist and editor for outlets like Edge magazine, Gamasutra, Offworld and Boing Boing. He also serves as Chairman of the Independent Games Festival, the world’s largest and most influential yearly showcase of indie games. You can follow him on Twitter for his latest takes on the intersection of art, music, and videogame culture.
Mike Plante is a Short Film Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, where he has worked since 2001. He also helps coordinate the New Frontier lounge with Senior Programmer Shari Frilot, helping to both select and setup the lounge’s art installations each year. At CineVegas, Plante worked as a Programmer from 2002-2009, helping select the film program and work with Roger Erik Tinch on the art and design of the festival. Plante also produces the Lunchfilm series, where he buys a filmmaker lunch in exchange for a short film to be made for the cost of the lunch.
Works on the disputed borderlands between fantasy and reality, exploring the uneasy and otherwise unconscious connections between physical existence and electronic simulation. His work explores new modes of narrative and documentary, experimental computer game design, fantasies of technology and history, and cross-cultural representation in computer games, film, and online media. He works in various media including computer software, hardware and game design, kinetic sculpture, performance, and film and video production. His short machinima films include Sheik Attack, Vietnam Romance, Landlord Vigilante and Deathstar. He is the founder of the now retired cooperative C-level wherehe co-produced the physical computer gaming projects Waco Resurrection, Tekken Torture Tournament, Cockfight Arena, and the internet meme conference “C-level Memefest” He is currently developing the new sensory deprivation game Darkgame and is a professor at UCLA.
