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Untitled
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 ZZ: Your work in computers developed by way of your interest in theatre. How did those two fields intersect for you?
BL: I started acting seriously in junior high and have done so ever since, and my graduate education was in theatre. When I started -- back in 1977 -- the rage was interactive theatre, where you would ask the audience to help characters make choices. So the step from that to computer games seemed very natural to me.
ZZ: How was it going from the artistic realm to the technological?
BL: I don't feel like I crossed over from art to technology. I'm still an artist in the sense that I design experience. That involves designing character and story, and thinking about how a representation is affecting the participants and the viewer.
ZZ: Was it challenging to make that leap into the technological?
BL: One of the disabilities that I have as the result of growing up a girl in the '60s is that by the time I was a junior in high school, I was the only girl in math class and I dropped out. It was hard to be a nerd in the '60s!
So I had to make up a lot of that education later on when I got involved in the game business. You know, study math in the dead of night from little books that you order... [laughter]
ZZ: As an artist, was it difficult to find acceptance within the tech-based computer world?
BL: When I started in the computer game business, I was an oddity because I was a woman in the computer game business, not because I was an artist. And women have made their way into this profession primarily through the gateway of graphic arts, animation and content production. Now they find themselves running companies and things. That's a pretty new experience.
ZZ: Which is exactly what happened to you with your company Purple Moon. What was the most challenging part of that?
BL: I think I've always had good instincts, but people are always ever so ready to tell you, "Don't worry your pretty little head about that," if you're an artist. And if you don't have really strong self-esteem, it's really easy to believe them! So part of the growing-up process in this business for me has been to say, "Hey, wait a minute, I really do understand this. Don't talk down to me, because I know what's involved here in more than just an artistic way."
On the flip side of that, the artistic community I think perennially has a battle inside of itself. There's one contingent that says that if you engage in popular culture, you're not an artist. You lose your artist credentials. Or God forbid that you should make any money. And my view is quite different from that.
I see art as a practice of laying out values and injecting new material into the culture. For me it's a profoundly political process and a social one, and it's the way we as a species evolve. So you have to, I believe, as a socially responsible artist, look at maximizing the impact of your work.
So it's interesting. I get it from both sides. I get labeled an artist by the business people and I get labeled as a crass purveyor of popular culture by the arts community. But I'm doing what I want to do and I feel pretty good about it! [laughter]
Next page | Hearing a better picture
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In this clip, Brenda talks about making the jump from acting to technology.
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Brenda Laurel
;)
