Thursday, May 28, 2009

Cadence Weapon in “Reality Game”

The Canadian city of Edmonton named 23-year old hip-hop artist Roland Pemberton, AKA Cadence Weapon, as the City’s third poet laureate.   See if you can identify all of the old school video game characters in his video “Sharks”.

We’ve seen glimpses of games that meld the virtual and augmented realities including:

Tresling: Tetris + Arm Wrestling,
Pong by trackpad,
Frogger by Dance Pad

This announcement is important in many ways because it helps bring hip-hop to the real dinner table of writing and performing arts.  In his statement Pemberton stated that he wants “to change people's perceptions about poetry.” and that is what we are trying to do with active video games being a healthy alternative to sedentary activities.  At the Games for Health conference coming we will be exploring the benefits and downfalls of exergames and Health eGames for people of all ages and abilities.  There will also be presentations about the importance of music in video games and this is where the post finally comes full-circle. Music, physical activity, self-expression, dance, and the arts in general are the areas that seem to get the least amount of attention in today’s educational system. Why is that?  What can we do to turn things around to help the next generation be more grounded, well-rounded, happy and healthy.

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