MAGNET: Bridging the Gap Between Technology and Culture


The new Media and Games Network (MAGNET) on the campus of the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) is a strikingly sleek space—complete with glass walls, and cutting-edge equipment. Among the most arresting features is the extensive but decidedly low-tech collection of classic board games in the Open Library. “You wouldn’t try to write a book before reading one,” Dylan McKenzie, the Program Coordinator of NYU’s Game Center, now located at MAGNET, said. “In the same way, we want our students to be familiar with all types of games before trying to design one. We expect a basic cultural literacy.”

Bridging the gap between technology and culture, MAGNET co-locates NYU’s teaching and research programs in both game design and digital media design; games as a creative art form, computer science, and engineering. It brings under one roof faculty and students from NYU-Poly; the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; the Tisch School of the Arts; and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.

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