susana ruiz

About me

The bio of Susana Ruiz, Ph.D. Play Design, Digital Storytelling, Art Practice, Media Activism & Pedagogy. I am an Assistant Professor of film and digital media at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where I hold research, teaching, and service positions in several programs, including the Film and Digital Media Department, the Digital Arts and New Media Program, the Games and Playable Media Program, and the Social Documentation Program. I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in art and media production, history, and theory. I also teach and co-teach workshops from time to time for other non-academic audiences. I advise undergraduate, M.F.A. and Ph.D. students. I hold an M.F.A. from the Interactive Media and Games Division (IMGD) at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts (SCA). I also hold a Ph.D. from USC’s Media Arts + Practice Program (iMAP), which has the mission to empower scholar-practitioners in the interpretation and design of experiences to communicate effectively and ethically in a world of ubiquitous media.

“My creative and scholarly work explores how the intersection of art practice, game/play design, and storytelling might enable new and helpful approaches to social activism, aesthetics, and public pedagogy.  My work is inherently collaborative and interdisciplinary, blending theory and practice into a hybrid form. The cinematic and the playful are central to my creative practice, while a commitment to collaborative ethics and social justice guides my process. ”
WorkPage_CorkBoard_01.png

media artist

My research spans the field of Media Arts and encompasses “serious,” documentary, and “art” games; ubiquitous and locative experience design; animation; worldbuilding; Extended Realities (VR, AR, XR); game-based learning; empathic, value-centric and participatory design; and the artistic application of theories of social justice such as anti-oppression, intersectionalism, narrative power analysis, and ethical spectacle. With the launch of the multiple award-winning game Darfur is Dying, I co-founded Take Action Games, a studio that created linkages between gameplay and the histories and practices of documentary filmmaking and socio-political advocacy. Take Action Games has garnered several awards, including the Games For Change Audience Award, the Adobe MAX Award for Social Responsibility, Honoree status in the Webby Award’s Activism Category, and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences prestigious Governors Award in collaboration with the MTV Networks' Sudan media campaign (the Emmy’s highest honor). My work has been reviewed in numerous academic publications and covered by press outlets such as National Public Radio, the New York Times, TIME magazine, the Washington Post, Gamasutra, Jezebel, and Mashable.

educator

As a first-generation middle school, high school, and college graduate, I was fortunate to attend and earn my B.F.A. from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, an institution with a radically progressive history founded on the belief that advanced education should be free. It was here that my nascent interest in community building conceptually merged with art practice, media-making, and humanities scholarship, thereby laying a foundation for research into creative approaches to social problems.

“Reach out if you’d like to discuss a possible collaboration, see my CV, or invite me to present my work.”