Bart Simon

Dr. Bart Simon is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and Director/Co Founder of the Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology at Concordia University in Montreal. He is also co-founder and former director of the Technoculture, Art and Games research centre (TAG). In addition, he is co-founder of the Concordia Ethnography lab and the Machine Agencies research group at Concordia. Bart Simon has a PhD in Science Studies and Sociology from UC San Diego. His areas of expertise include game studies and design, science and technology studies and cultural sociology. His publication record includes 1 monograph, 3 edited and co-edited collections and 18 peer reviewed single and co-authored papers on topics as diverse as scientific controversies, posthumanism, satellite technology, AI in Games, Minecraft, the cultural economy of independent games, and surveillance studies. He has also been involved in substantial research-creation projects in game design, most notability, a two-player proximity sensor game, Propinquity, which has been presented at several festivals and venues and in several publications. His current game design project with colleague Lynn Hughes is a hybrid immersive theatre role playing game that takes place in a real market.

Almost all of Dr. Simon's research career has focused on interdisciplinary research and collaboration across the social sciences, humanities and design and he has pressed his particular ethnographic, materialist and post-humanistic sensibility with research and graduate training in areas of digital games, surveillance technology, AI and machine learning, and the production of immersive experiences.