Heyo!

Hand Eye Society has been working incredibly hard to continue to keep the videogames non-profit org you know and love operating and we’ve made a few adjustments with how things will work going forward.

First, we would like to thank everyone in the community who supported us with our recent fundraiser. You really came through for us and your impactful contributions put us in a much better position to continue supporting game developers and providing new opportunities for the game curious public. Thank you all!

Additionally, Hand Eye Society has undergone some staff changes lately, so we figured now would be a great time to re-introduce our team!

Meet the Hand Eye Society Team

Victoria Kucher

As our shiny new Executive Director of Hand Eye Society, Victoria is an arts leader and accomplished filmmaker with over 20 years of experience. Her passion for arts and culture has propelled her to create a recognized and respected profile both locally and internationally. Previously as the Head of Production with Secret City, leading new immersive games, and currently with the Canadian Film Centre guiding emerging creators, Victoria puts story and mentorship at the centre of her work. With expertise in programming, producing, marketing/communications, strategic planning, fundraising, and management, Victoria has established herself as a versatile and influential figure in the arts industry.

Brendy Lehman

Brendan ‘brendy’ Lehman, our Artistic Director, is a neuroscientist, game developer, media artist, arts programmer, and bicycle messenger based in Toronto, Canada. Their projects in biodata-driven software development, interactive installation, and game curation all aim to capture contexts of togetherness and help people connect with themselves, each other, and their natural environment in new and meaningful ways. They first started at HES in 2017, have worked in neurotechnology and on music festivals, and have taught workshops for MIT Media Lab, Neos VR/Resonite, Interaccess, and others. They recently started a worker-owned game studio called Dream Bike Game Co-operative to connect their love of games and cycling.

Jordan Sparks

Jordan Sparks is the Director of Technology & Workshop Coordinator of the Hand Eye Society. With his expertise in games and other mediums, Jordan seeks to explore how media, technology, and interactive experiences can both entertain and spark social change through his artistic practice and his indie studio Shining Spark Entertainment. He also is well known as an educator that has taught game development skills as well as other creative and tech subjects to over 15,000 people throughout Canada and the world through the Hand Eye Society, the Royal Ontario Museum, Humber College, Interactive Ontario, Toronto Metropolitan University, and many other spaces. Jordan has worked with Hand Eye Society since 2017 and is eager to host new programs, events, workshops, and broadcasts.

Rokashi

Rokashi is a writer, Developer Designer and Educator. Making the jump from Journalism to the games industry, they’ve participated in game jams, working as a consultant for the games and comics industry as well as starting their own independent studio, Hedgehog Dreams. They love narrative games and will annoy anyone to make their first game as people don’t realize how easy it is.

Now that you’ve met the team, here’s the really important stuff that you need to know. We’ve made some major changes as to how Hand Eye Society Memberships will work moving forward, and we want to make sure that you’re all well aware of all changes as our non-profit organization moves into the future with bigger goals and ideas than ever before.

First up, instead of three membership tiers, we now have five. Please see the below on our all-new tiers as well as price changes + perks for each one moving forward or via our Membership page. If you have any questions, feel free to email us at info ‘at’ handeyesociety.com

Student/Senior Membership [$10/month or $120/annual]

Emerging Membership [$15/month or $180/annual]

Full Membership [$20/month or $240/annual]

Studio Membership [$2,160/annual]

Institution Membership [$4,550/annual]

Super FESTival III

Also, don’t forget that SuperFESTival is back again this year and we have our submissions open (Extended until Friday Aug 9)! You can read about what we’re looking for, what has changed for this year and the application process there! Hand Eye Society Members–be on the look out in your email to receive a discount code! We’re so excited! Like, you don’t even understand. For you elder Hand Eye Society friends, remember the Hand Eye Society Ball? Yeah, you read that right–it’s back and it’s going to be GRAND. But we’ll release more information on that soon enough so stay tuned!

Workshops

We always have a rotating variety of workshops offered so check out what we have and sign up! Our workshop tickets now start at $40 per person. All current workshops are entirely online, so anyone can sign up! Don’t forget to tell a friend! If you miss out on an opportunity to attend a workshop, no worries! They’re all recorded so we can provide them for you if you miss out, or we can get you seated at the next one! All of our workshops taught by Hand Eye Society staff or experienced developers in our community.

We have several workshops coming up. Not only do we have reruns of many of our several previous workshops, but we have 3 new workshops as well: Intro To Ren’Py, Intro to Unreal Engine, and Legal Considerations for Game Creators. Our new Legal Workshop is created in partnership with ALAS and is absolutely free, so look forward to that on August 29. You can find out more about our workshops below!

Oh, and don’t forget that if you’re a Hand Eye Society Member, you get permanent discounts on ALL workshops with our special membership promo code. Subscribe to our newsletter to make sure so you don’t miss out when we add more awesome workshops in the upcoming months!

Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.ca/o/the-hand-eye-society-15539055266