Pedro Mota is a filmmaker, lecturer, and narrative designer, currently a PhD candidate conducting cooperative doctoral research at the Cologne Game Lab as part of his research in the interdisciplinary graduate program PPGHDL at the Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH) at the University of São Paulo (USP). His academic background from Brazil includes an MA in Audiovisual Media and Processes from the School of Communication and Arts (ECA/USP), in São Paulo, and a BA in Cinema and Audiovisual from the Federal Fluminense University (UFF), in Rio de Janeiro, including a bachelor’s exchange period at the Lisbon Theatre and Film School (ESTC/IPL), and a doctoral research exchange at the Mediadesign Hochschule Berlin (mdh). He is also a member of the Laboratory for Arts, Media, and Digital Technologies (LabArteMídia), an audiovisual arts research and innovation group linked to the Department of Cinema, Radio and Television at ECA/USP. His research is situated at the intersection of narratology, semiotics, game studies, and media studies. In his ongoing practice-based theoretical PhD, entitled “RHIZOLUDENS SEMIOPHAGIAS: Semiotic Borders of Narrative Ecosystems in Collaborative Rhizomes,” he investigates how complex narrative ecosystems challenge cognitive understanding and can be better understood through interdisciplinary and game-based collective play.

Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Gundolf S. Freyermuth, his current research, “Project Plot – Play a Story Network,” at the CGL is an interactive Unity 3D educational software prototype and analytical tool that transforms complex storyworlds into navigable semantic networks. This prototype is developed through online collaboration with alumni, bachelor’s students, and master’s students, as one of the projects developed at the Research Department of CGL. Developed as the practical component of his doctoral research, the project explores how transmedia narratives can be mapped, compared, and reconstructed by users, enabling them to systematically map character arcs and compare story structures across different media formats using tags, filters, and media fragments, ultimately reconstructing story plots by navigating a story network through play. During his time researching at the Cologne Game Lab, he received CAPES and DAAD scholarships from April 2023 until January 2024.