Biography

Sam Hinton is a senior lecturer in media and course convenor for the Media Arts and Production degree at the University of Canberra. He teaches units in introductory media production, motion graphics and 3D animation. This places him in the enviable position of being able to teach what he loves: using the computer as a creative tool. Sam's key academic interests include the sociological aspects of computer games and computer technologies, technical aspects of computer games, computer generated 3D graphics, the generation of procedural worlds and narratives, data visualisation (especially in relation to cultural materials), the philosophy and history of technology and network histories. (more...)

Sam is a past graduate of the professional writing degree here at the University of Canberra, but his interests in computers and computing has taken him in strange and different directions. After graduating Sam worked briefly with The Canberra Times, then as a technical writer for an IT company. During this time he developed an interest in hypertext and the Internet, which at the time (1993) was only just emerging as a serious public medium in Australia. These interests led him to take up a job as publications officer for the Centre for Networked Information and Publishing at the Australian National University(ANU), where he was involved in a lot of early web design and development work at that institution. 

Following his work at the ANU, Sam became involved in a federal government committee that established the basic guidelines for the publication of government information online. Sam left the ANU in 1998 to begin a PhD at La Trobe University in Melbourne. Sam's PhD, is about the early development of the Internet in Australia. 

From 1998 to 2003 Sam was also heavily involved as a programmer in the development of a modification ( or "mod") for the computer game Quake 3. At the invitation of Id Software (the people who make Quake), Sam flew over to Mesquite, Texas twice for Id Software's annual Quakecon where he helped his fellow mod team members showcase their mod. 

In 2003 Sam joined the University of Canberra as a lecturer.  He was awarded his PhD from La Trobe University in 2006 and has since been developing his research interests.  He is currently working on research involving cultural interfaces as part of the Digital Design and Media research cluster with in the Faculty of Arts and Design as well as a number of other personal projects.


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