home, sweet home

Charlie Breindahl
Part-Time Lecturer
Department of Film and Media Studies
University of Copenhagen
Njalsgade 80
DK-2300 Copenhagen S

Phone: +45 35 32 81 14
Mobile: +45 51 92 15 98

E-mail: hitch@hum.ku.dk

My career in new media started one sleepy afternoon in 1983. I was at a monochrome terminal, working on an assignment on a Sperry Univac 1100, which I was using in my training to become a systems operator. Then I stumbled upon the program Super Star Trek.

At the time, most people I knew thought computers were necessarily unpleasant, yet very useful instruments for rationalizing bureaucracies. Those who didn't think that way were blissfully ignorant about computers per se.

When I left the computer room after several hours of intergalactic warfare, I was ashamed that I had become so enraptured. The assignment now seemed completely irrelevant. But assignments would lead to exams and exams to employment. Assignments were important, I kept telling myself. Games were not important. Games were a waste of time.

Since then I have wasted thousands of hours playing Adventure (Colossal Cave,) Lode Runner, Harpoon, Railroad Tycoon, Lemmings, Master of Orion, Privateer, Civilization, Starcraft, Age of Empires, Gran Turismo, Grand Theft Auto, and FarCry. I still tell myself that my assignments are important, though. My recent work focuses on two fields: Internet-dating and Aesthetics of new media.

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