Ida Marie Toft

ISEA Bio(s) Available:

ISEA2020

Ida Toft is a PhD candidate studying digital games and media arts. Their current work investigates technologies for felt and mechanical vibrations such as phone notifications and rumble in video game controllers. As an artist, Ida engages with diverse contexts, from academic conferences, art galleries, play festivals, and game culture’s underground scenes (especially the queer and the progressively feminist). Earlier, Ida has worked on interactive systems catering for not-quite-human-bodies and cross-species environments as a way of thinking about companionships, alliances and kinship relations across standardized affiliations. Ida holds a M.Sc. in Design and Communication from the IT University in Copenhagen (DK) and is currently affiliated with Hexagram and the Milieux Institute at Concordia University in Montreal (CA).

ISEA2016

Ida Marie Toft is a Copenhagen/Montreal based media artist and PhD student at the Technoculture, Art and Games (TAG) research centre. Ida creates site specific games, and develops game technologies that allow for games to happen in unusual contexts. As a member of the Copenhagen Game Collective they work to create an environment for experimental game production in Copenhagen and beyond. In 2013 they co-organized an expedition of game designers and art curators to the Maldives to create games and street play events with local artists and the community. The project was initiated by an invitation from Maldivian artist Amani Naseem. Several of the works, including their own “bite sized water games”, were exhibited at the 55th Venice Biennale.

Ida’s PhD research explores conventions and politics of skills, craft-traditions and materials involved in the creation of digital games. Their recent game Lovebirds, developed in the context of the Bird Game Collective Indiebeaking, presents game design as a craft and part of a parallel process of developing community rituals and creating materials which together engender a space of frictions for interesting social dynamics. Lovebirds has been shown at game convention, art events and play festival in Denmark, Sweden, UK and The Netherlands.

Ida holds a Master’s of Science from the IT University of Copenhagen. During their studies, they worked on user-centered design and playful interaction design. Together with Amani Naseem they wrote their final project “It Is Homely” on designing technologies for teenagers, territorialization and (risky) family communication. Ida holds a Bachelor’s of Social Science and Communication from Roskilde University. They finished the degree with the project: “My teachers says … that you actually recycle your own pee: A Communication Project about Children and Recycling”.