VGA presents the first ever HARDCORE / CASUAL: An Evening to Support VGA Gallery, co-chaired by VGA Board members Ross Hersemann and Jen Rhodes. The evening includes games, art, music, food, drinks at Emporium Arcade Bar and support for exhibitions and programs in VGA Gallery's 2015-2016 season. Game designer, artist, and educator Katie Salen Tekinbaş is honored with the VGA Global Illumination Award for her many rich contributions to the medium of gaming. Music by Pizza Pals.

Global Illumination Award: Awarded to one individual each year by VGA Gallery, the Global Illumination Award honors the recipient for deep and significant contribution games and computational art.

Katie Salen Tekinbaş: Katie is a Professor in the School of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul University, and former Director of the Center for Transformative Media at Parsons the New School for Design, a research center focused on emerging trends in design and media. She locates her work in the field of game design and was the founding Executive Director of a non-profit called the Institute of Play that is focused on games and learning. Katie led the team that founded Quest to Learn in 2009, a 6-12th grade public school in New York City, and is helping to remix the model in Chicago at a new charter school called ChicagoQuest. Katie is co-author of Rules of Play, a textbook on game design, The Game Design Reader, Quest to Learn: Growing a School for Digital Kids, and editor of The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning, all from MIT Press. She has worked as a game designer for over 10 years and is a former co-editor of The International Journal of Learning and Media. She was an early advocate of the then-hidden world of machinima and continues to be interested in connections between game design, learning, and transformative modes of play.

@ Emporium Arcade Bar, 1366 N Milwaukee Ave Chicago, IL 60622.