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Joseph DeLappe
Pronouns
He/him
Date and place of birth
b. 1963, San Francisco, CA
Current location
Dundee, Scotland
Year(s) of residency and/or fellowship
2008, Project Resident

Joseph DeLappe is the Professor of Games and Tactical Media at Abertay University in Dundee, Scotland where he relocated early in 2017 after 23 years directing the Digital Media program at the University of Nevada, Reno. A native San Franciscan, he has been working with electronic and new media since 1983; his work in online gaming performance, sculpture, and electromechanical installation has been shown throughout the United States and abroad ‐ including exhibitions and performances in Australia, the United Kingdom, China, Germany, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Mexico, Italy, Peru, Sweden, and Canada.

In 2006 he began the project dead‐in‐iraq , to type consecutively, all names of America’s military casualties from the war in Iraq into the America’s Army first person shooter online recruiting game.

In 2013, he rode a specially equipped bicycle to draw a 460-mile-long chalk line around the Nellis Air Force Range to surround an area that would be large enough to create a solar farm that could power the entire United States.

More recently he developed the concept behind “Killbox”, an interactive computer game about drone warfare created with the Biome Collective in Scotland. Killbox was recently nominated for a BAFTA Scotland (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) as “Best Computer Game”. His project “Elegy: GTA USA Gun Violence” was an honoree for the 2019 Webby Awards in the Net Art category.

He has lectured throughout the world regarding his work, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He has been interviewed on CNN, NPR, CBC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and on The Rachel Maddow Show on Air America Radio. His works have been featured in the New York Times, The Australian Morning Herald, Artweek, Art in America and in the 2010 book from Routledge entitled “Joystick Soldiers The Politics of Play in Military Video Games” among many others. He has authored two book chapters, including “The Gandhi Complex: The Mahatma in Second Life.” Net Works: Case Studies in Web Art and Design, (New York, Routledge 2011) and “Playing Politics: Machinima as Live Performance and Document”, Understanding Machinima Essays on Filmmaking in Virtual Worlds, (London, UK, Continuum 2012).

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