There's No Place Like Home: Dwelling and Being at Home in Digital Games

This chapter considers the presence, in digital games, of experiences of dwelling. Starting with an engagement with the philosopher Edward S. Casey's distinction between hestial and hermetic spatial modes, the chapter argues that the player's spatial engagement with digital game worlds has tended to align with the hermetic pole, emphasizing movement, traversal and exploration. By contrast, hestial spatial practices, characterized by centrality, lingering and return, are far less prevalent both in digital games themselves and in discussions on spatiality in the game studies discourse. To counter this lack, this chapter draws upon philosophical work on space by Casey, Martin Heidegger, Yi-Fu Tuan and Christian Norberg-Schulz, using these as a conceptual lens to identify spatial structures and practices in digital games that diverge from the hermetic mode. Attention is paid to games that invite pausing and lingering in place, games where the player's relation to place is structured around practices of building, the phenomenology of home and dwelling in games, and familiarity and identity as experiential characteristics of being at home. Minecraft and Animal Crossing: New Leaf are examined in detail as case studies, though the chapter also refers to examples from other games

Anticipating Deep Mapping: Tracing the Spatial Practice of Tim Robinson

There has been little academic research published on the work of Tim Robinson despite an illustrious career, first as an artist of the London avant-garde, then as a map-maker in the west of Ireland, and finally as an author of place. In part, this dearth is due to the difficulty of approaching these three diverse strands collectively. However, recent developments in the field of deep mapping encourage us to look back at the continuity of Robinson’s achievements in full and offer a suitable framework for doing so. Socially engaged with living communities and a depth of historical knowledge about place, but at the same time keen to contribute artistically to the ongoing contemporary culture of place, the parameters of deep mapping are broad enough to encompass the range of Robinson’s whole practice and suggest unique ways to illuminate his very unusual career. But Robinson’s achievements also encourage a reflection on the historical context of deep mapping itself, as well as on the nature of its spatial practice (especially where space comes to connote a medium to be worked rather than an area/volume). With this in mind the following article both explores Robinson’s work through deep mapping and deep mapping through the work of this unusual artist

Musical Navigation: Cultural Hybridity and Indigeneity among Islands of the Ryukyus and Taiwan

Ph.D

Creative journeys: Enlivening geographic locations through artistic practice

Creative Journeys contribute to our knowledge of how practical ontology navigates multi-perspectives through an auto-ethnographic journey with material. I investigate how it may be possible to navigate geographic locations – Norway, Britain and Spain – through knitting as an approach to practical and philosophical exploration. In Creative Journeys I am in a process of reflexive practice, engaged in external and internal dialogue, haptic encounters, challenges and creative action. My thesis suggests that engagement with material is a fluid process and understanding evolves, so too does my journey in life. In such circumstances material functions as a mediator; creates a bridge between hand, movement, time and space. Material transcends boundaries, assists orientation and facilitates articulation of aesthetics, reminiscence, symbols, patterns, colour, sensory appreciation; all of which contribute to an understanding of relationships. Body is material and being conscious of body movement with the rhythm of diverse locations enables me to make connections through daily events, to attune to different atmospheres. In such a journey there are moments of harmony and misunderstanding, discord and adjustments; interruptions occur with energy and disrupt patterns of life. These are crossing points which enable me to experience myself through the perspective of the other; to understand how situated knowledge changes in relation to diverse perspectives; and to understand how I may contribute to the social fabric of life of diverse locations through the art of paying attention to detail. Creative Journeys are investigated through three questions: How do I relate to the world? How do art subjectivities manifest themselves through art practice? How does art evolve through relations? The questions are examined within the perspective of situated knowledge; subjectivities; material of location and practice. Investigating material in the context of these questions provides opportunities to develop capacities to navigate social, cultural and political orientation, economy, health, race, gender and belief, which all impact on the journey. My approach to the thesis evolved through my relations with creative works of knitted artefacts which I documented in personal journals. The components of practice have woven threads of inquiry through theory and reflective critical practice and form an aspect of the viva voce examination. Along with the illustrations they contribute to 20% of the written component of the thesis.N/

Between World Views: Nascent Pacific Tourism Enterprise in New Zealand

This thesis considers the dynamics of entrepreneurship at the 'pre-tourism' stage of tourism development. It is written from the point of view of potential tourism hosts, diasporan Pacific peoples resident in New Zealand. The central question is 'that societal marginality can be a positive position from which to develop tourism enterprise and cultural product'. The author used a collaborative action approach (Lopez Potter, 2001) to respond to a community, rather than an academic agenda. The research question reflects the aspirations of the Waitakere Pacific Board (WPB), an organisation which advocates for and undertakes projects to move towards economic, social and cultural equality with the mainstream western population, on behalf of nine diasporan Pacific communities. It tacitly assumes that the nine 'Pacific' communities share common views and values and are all at a similar stage of integration or hegemony and that the WPB speaks on their behalf. It further assumes that Pacific ethnic communities in Waitakere are in fact marginalised and that they all wish to and are capable of initiating commercial enterprise and tourism product. Also, there is an expectation that non-Pacific peoples consume products and services that are based upon Pacific cultural knowledge and resources. But most importantly, assumes that tourism can be as viable in a diasporan New Zealand non-indigenous context as it is in the Islands today. The core thesis is underpinned by three other questions. Specifically, what are the diasporan Pacific community's aspirations for tourism and cultural enterprise to support tourism? What factors enable or inhibit interaction at the interface between diasporan Pacific communities and tourism product/cultural enterprise? What happens at the interface between diasporan communities and consumers? Contemporary non-instrument navigation is used as a metaphor for the research voyage, the structure of the thesis, and each community's journey in diasporan social worlds

Law and the Fourth Estate: Endangered Nature, the Press, and the Dicey Game of Democratic Governance

Building upon the story line of a current book project on the Tellico Dam case, this Essay explores a challenging reality of modern public interest lawyering – the critical role of public perceptions and of the Press’s role in shaping them. Most public interest attorneys come to realize that their lawyering must move simultaneously on two different tracks that determine outcomes – law and public opinion. This double task can be difficult and sometimes impossible. Both tracks require the organization and presentation of facts, but the two contexts can be quite different. A legal case requires proof of each technical element of the cause of actions. On the other hand, the public’s perception of the controversy is instead likely to be shaped by common sense facts that are selected and given meaning by the “perceptual frame” context in which the Press delivers them. The way information is initially presented shapes the frame through which it will thereafter be perceived by the public and the Press itself. Once established, frames tend to hold. New facts contradicting the frame are more likely to be unperceived than to change the frame. The central case study in this Essay is the notorious “snail darter” litigation. Farmers and environmentalists in Tennessee, outsiders to the political marketplace establishments, tried to use preservation of an endangered fish species as leverage to block the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Tellico Dam project. Over a period of seven years of extraordinary efforts, the environmental plaintiffs were successful in the legal process, but in the realm of the Press and public opinion were disastrously unsuccessful in getting across the dramatic facts that would have shown that good ecology made good economic sense. From this frustrating experience the Essay offers some analytical conclusions and some wistful suggestions for possible systemic improvements

Free Words

"FREE WORDS is a book which belongs to whoever finds it. 3000 copies have been produced by artist Sal Randolph and are being distributed free worldwide. The books are placed on the shelves of bookstores and libraries creating an art situation that infiltrates public and commercial space." -- Artist's website

Where we are : where we thought we were going

In this thesis I will discuss ideas of place, space and repurposing as they relate to my paintings. By tying these ideas back to specific hometown sites, I will trace the evolution of ideas back to their genesis to provide context for the aesthetics of the work. I reference the texts of Robert Smithson and Tim Cresswell, who wrote about transitive notions of place, as well as David Joselit, who’s “Painting Beside Itself” essay focused on painters concerned with the question of how painting enters a network. I hope to use these texts, in conjunction with personal descriptions of sites in Akron, to help articulate conceptions of the liminal or intermediary space I am after in my paintings and how they relate to contemporary life