Abstraction-- the process of generalizing a phenomenon in order to gain new perspectives and understanding-- has been a vital tool for creating experiences in nearly all art forms. Games themselves are of course abstract systems, but as a medium, we do not take full advantage of all the ways other arts use abstraction to approach their art forms and to expand their expressive potential. John Sharp will look at the ways painters, animators, poets, comic artists, decorative artists and dancers use abstraction to expand, deepen and give new shape to their artforms.