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Baskin School of Engineering
Computational Media
Assistant Teaching Professor
Faculty
Regular Faculty
Digital Arts
Performance
Virtual Reality, Immersive, and Augmented Reality Environments
Digital Humanities
Writing
Direction (Theater)
Literature
Video Games, Game Design, Game Studies
New Media
Engineering Building 2
E2-255
SOE3
Samantha Gorman is an interdisciplinary writer, director and artist who does practice-based research in interactive narrative, games, digital performance/theater, and the theory and practice of immersive media (AR/VR). Since 2014, she has been the co-lead of established art/game studio Tender Claws.
She is known for projects that make critical, creative interventions in form/technology (e-readers, mobile VR, AR, machine learning, biometrics), while also functioning as commercially released entertainment and providing R&D for emerging platforms and partners such as Google and Meta. Many of her projects deal with speculative design futures; to this end, the close marriage of critical narratives and user experience design is meant to foster a reflective/informed viewership of the medium being consumed. Her newest project launching in November 2023 in partnership with Netflix and Meta is Stranger Things VR.
As co-lead of Tender Claws her studio has launched nearly every major immersive media platform and has been written about in The New York Times, Vice, BBC radio, The Verge, Forbes, Wired, The LA Times and Engadget. Projects by Tender Claws have also been acknowledged by industry accolades: starting with PRY (one of Apple’s 25 best apps of 2015). Virtual, Virtual Reality (VVR) – which draws on her eighteen years of experience designing for Virtual Reality – was a 2017 Google Play Award winner for “Best VR Experience, “ a Unity Awards Finalist, and won “Best VR Game” and “Best Mobile VR” at Raindance. In 2018, Tender Claws partnered with Google AR/VR to release Tendar an AR/sentiment analysis game that premiered at Sundance New Frontier. In 2019, Tender Claws partnered with Oculus for The Under Presents: a hybrid long-form VR and remote immersive theater game with live performers inhabiting the world everyday from November 2019 to December 2020. The Under has been up for several awards including a SXSW Gaming Award and was a Juried Award finalist for an Emmy in Innovation. Most recently, “Tempest” one of the world’s first ticketed, remote VR plays was nominated for a DICE award.
Samantha received an MFA from Brown University Literary Arts and her PhD in Media Arts and Practice from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts.
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