Ken Eklund


Ken Eklund is an American game and experience designer known as Writerguy. He is perhaps most famous for World Without Oil, an early "serious game" in the alternate reality game genre he created and ran in 2007. His recent projects "explore the positive social effects of collaborative experiences and open-ended, creative play. "

Philosophy

Eklund creates immersive games that intend to have a socially relevant, transformative effect and to be informal learning experiences and crowdsourcing for good. Much of his recent transmedia work explores how contributing to 'authentic fictions' engages people directly in real-world issues by allowing them to have fun collaborating on storymaking, positive solutions and action. By creating "barely fictional" gameful situations he creates a new kind of space for negotiating reality, where the candor afforded by interacting with fictional characters presenting the reality of social issues is seemingly more impactful than the realities themselves.
As an artist, Eklund's emphasis on response plus respect for diversity "charges notions of the 'vox pop' with an appealing edge as a tool for transformation 'from the inside'. He speaks on how to use alternate reality experiences and other playful "what if?" spaces in pursuit of serious goals and the potential for gamelike activities to help solve global problems.

Works

DateAward
2022Peabody Award for World Without Oil project
2014The Webby Awards finalist
Category: Net Art for
201122nd Annual MUSE Awards
Category: Games and Augmented Reality
Award: Silver for Giskin Anomaly
2008South by Southwest Interactive - Award for Activism for World Without Oil
2008The Webby Awards, finalist, Games category, for World Without Oil
2008Zero1.org, Honorable Mention, for World Without Oil
2008Stockholm Challenge, Honorable Mention, for World Without Oil