About

Hello, I am Dr Ben Kirman and I'm an experienced creative technologist, game designer and Senior Lecturer (Assoc. Prof) in Interactive Media in the School of Arts and Creative Technologies at the University of York in the UK. My pronouns are he/him.

Research

I specialise in the design and implementation of interactive playful experiences that interfere with the edges of technology, culture and sensibility. I’m interested in the application of playful design to create radical, unusual and challenging social and locative experiences in ways that are critical, magical, irreverent and, most importantly, fun. I especially like working on projects about social justice, interactive/immersive theatre, Animal-Computer Interaction, location-based games, social games and weird microelectronic devices. I’m a fan of using speculative design, design fiction, critical design, adversarial design and other buzzwords about design.

The projects page contains a good overview of selected work – however I have published lots of words in the fields of Human-Computer Interaction and Games Studies. My work, especially the weirder stuff, has often been covered by traditional media, including the BBC, New Scientist, Wired, The Guardian, TIME, Metro, the New York Times, the Lincolnshire Echo and Your Cat magazine.

I'm irregularly on Bluesky @ben.kirman.org and even less frequently on Mastodon at @benki@mastodon.sdf.org

Teaching

I teach on the undergraduate BSc (Hons) Interactive Media at the University of York. This is an incredible course, with a fiercely interdisciplinary perspective, bringing design, development, and critical analysis together around interactive technology. I particularly love the diverse interests our students have, including programming, music, game design, filmmaking, UX, graphic design, writing, philosophy and more. It makes for a great community and some really fascinating and varied projects.

My teaching varies each year but often includes game design, mobile development, and project supervision.

Postgraduate Students

I supervise postgraduate students in the MSc/MA by Research in Interactive Media, and PhDs through the Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence (IGGI), or directly through the department in both research and creative practice.