Teddy Pozo
Teddy Pozo is a nonbinary trans* scholar and artist studying haptic media: touch, intimacy, and bodies in video games, media history, and virtual worlds.
Biography
Pozo's work on haptic media-- from electricity and vibration to feminist aesthetic strategies of intersubjective embodiment-- focuses in particular on queer and trans* digital artistry and hybrid installations. Born and raised in Raleigh, NC, Pozo studied at Swarthmore College and the University of California, Santa Barbara before living in the San Francisco Bay Area and becoming one of the organizers of the Queerness and Games Conference from 2015-2018. They previously taught in the Modern Culture and Media department at Brown University and the Computer Science and Media Arts and Culture departments at Occidental College.
Pozo's writing on gender and sexuality in digital culture has appeared in such publications as the international journal Game Studies, and Camera Obscura journal of feminism, culture, and media studies, the anthologies Digital Love and Rated M for Mature: Sex and Sexuality in Video Games, the Encyclopedia of Video Games and the Routledge Encyclopedia of Film Theory. Their current book project is titled Haptic Media: Video Games and Other Touchy Objects.
Pozo's teaching combines technology and art, theory and practice, reaching from the early history of electricity and pre-cinematic toys, to cinema, television, popular culture, and video games, to virtual reality and the metaverse. Their students have presented projects made using accessible game design tools such as Twine, Bitsy, and Ren'Py in public physical and virtual exhibits, created alternate reality games and digital archives, and written works at the intersection of queer theory and computing, among other projects. Their mentorship style is collaborative, focused on supporting students to discover their unique creativity, passion, and goals. They love collaborative and narrative tabletop and role-playing games, humorous games, art games, JRPGs, visual novels, fumblecore, racing games, and hearing about whatever game, show, movie, or meme has you excited right now.
Pozo was a Bennington faculty member for 2022-2023.