SOSN E02 - Katharine Neil - Satire, Marxism, and Stolen IPads

Something Old Something New

This is the second episode of Something Old Something New, a new podcast from Hannah Nicklin. Using the old western wedding rhyme as a formal construct off which to hang a conversation with interesting folk she knows from the realms of games, performance, criticism, writing, and the spaces in between these things. In each episode Hannah will invite the interviewee to talk about cultural phenomena/artefacts of interest/important to them: Something Old (that has been with them for a while); Something New (recently discovered); Something Borrowed (stolen or recommended to them); Something YOU are working on (what are they making right now?). In this second episode Hannah chats with game developer Katharine Neil in a cafe during the AMAZE International Independent Videogames Festival in Berlin. (Apologies in advance for the wildly varying sound quality) Katharine describes herself as a games industry ‘hack’ - dismissing the term ‘veteran’ which she reckons should be used by "people who have achieved more recognisable success". Katharine started working in games sometime around 1998, NZ born, she grew up in Australia, and is currently living/struggling as a game dev freelancer in Paris. A background in music led her to work as an audio engineer, and gradually she became more about making and designing games than just the audio. As well as working for large game studios on things like “racing and pony games”, she’s pursued her own radical games projects, including Escape From Woomera (2004) - which used a half-life mod to depict an escape attempt from the Woomera internment camp; and co-founding the FreePlay Games Festival, one of the first festivals to attempt to discuss videogames as culture. Katharine’s deadpan delivery of her account of her work underplays her affect on the landscape of games, although the impact of her most famous work isn’t uncomplicated, so perhaps it’s hard to tell the story of her practice. Good job there’s a whole 40 minute podcast to get into that. Thanks to Hannah's Patreon backers for supporting the ongoing making of the podcast, plus zines and articles about games. If you'd like to join their merry band of folk, donate monthly (from $1) at patreon.com/hannahnicklin @hannahnicklin ?@haikus_by_KN Music by the peerless Daniel J Harvey of internet misanthrope extraordinaires Olympians. @onwardolympians on Twitter. Buy their music at olympians.bandcamp.com/