James August Luhrs

Adjunct Instructor

headshot of August Luhrs

I'm August Luhrs (he/they). I'm all about using interactive tech to make wild and absurd participatory art and to help bring communities together through play. In my past life in Los Angeles, I wrote and produced immersive theater, designed and built escape rooms, fabricated interactive installations, worked with three art collectives, and ran a participatory art camp at Burning Man. Then, at ITP my thesis was on “Communal Transcendence Through Physidigital Play” — using networked devices in offline experiences to foster joy and connection in groups as they collaborate to overcome a challenge. Now, in the quarantine times, I'm doing my research on the flipside of Physidigital Play -- how can we take the best parts of being together in meatspace and combine those with networked virtual environments to help people feel more connected?