Set theory ontology as an approach to gaming’s composite form

This paper will explore the possibilities that mathematical set theory has to offer the scholarly study of videogames. Videogames are highly heterogeneous objects of study, comprising what Linderoth (2015) has called a ‘composite form’: complex arrangements of material, symbolic and computational capacities. This composite is becoming ever-more heterogeneous, ‘recruiting’ increasingly volatile bodies and relations as computing resources are newly distributed throughout both built and natural environments to create locative, alternate and virtual realities that have been used by designers in various ways (Pokemon Go being only one example)

Covid-19 and the Hopeless University at the End of the End of History

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ICS Materials. Towards a re-Interpretation of material qualities through interactive, connected, and smart materials.

The domain of materials for design is changing under the influence of an increased technological advancement, miniaturization and democratization. Materials are becoming connected, augmented, computational, interactive, active, responsive, and dynamic. These are ICS Materials, an acronym that stands for Interactive, Connected and Smart. While labs around the world are experimenting with these new materials, there is the need to reflect on their potentials and impact on design. This paper is a first step in this direction: to interpret and describe the qualities of ICS materials, considering their experiential pattern, their expressive sensorial dimension, and their aesthetic of interaction. Through case studies, we analyse and classify these emerging ICS Materials and identified common characteristics, and challenges, e.g. the ability to change over time or their programmability by the designers and users. On that basis, we argue there is the need to reframe and redesign existing models to describe ICS materials, making their qualities emerge

Postdigital interfaces and the aesthetics of recruitment

This paper analyses reconfigurations of play in emergent digital materialities of game design. It extends recent work examining dimensions of hybridity in playful products by turning attention to interfaces, practices and spaces, rather than devices. We argue that the concept of hybrid play relies on predefining clear and distinct digital or material entities that then enter into hybrid situations. Drawing on concepts of the ‘interface’ and ‘postdigital’, we argue the distribution of computing devices creates difficulties for such presuppositions. Instead, we propose thinking these situations through an ‘aesthetic of recruitment’ that is able to accommodate the intensive entanglements and inherent openness of both the social and technical in postdigital play

Testing possibilities: on negotiating writing practices in a 'postdigital' age (tools and methods)

The exponential growth of new media technologies presents opportunities and challenges for writers. Fast-paced change - featuring what can seem like perpetual updates of hardware and software - undermines the possibility of growing attached to particular tools and practices. Collaboration is key to social media and many of the new technologies, and not something that sits easily with the traditional image of the writer as someone working alone. This article considers how writers can negotiate the demands of a ‘postdigital age’. Adopting a teacher-practitioner stance, it proposes that the remediation of a writer’s own practice is key. As well as considering how a writer can work to remediate his or her own practice, whereby - as new challenges and opportunities arise - a writer looks to existing skills and prior experience and adapts or applies them in new contexts as part of a process of, in effect, collaborating with him or herself, this article begins to explore whether such remediation can be taught. An aim is to reach a new theoretical position on how individuals can approach the creative potential of writing in the 21st century and more effectively embrace existing and emerging opportunities provided by interactive digital technologies

Handmade films and artist-run labs. The chemical sites of film’s counterculture

This article addresses handmade films and especially artist-run labs as sites of hands-on film culture that reactivate moments and materials from media history. Drawing on existing research, discourses and discussions with contemporary experimental filmmakers affiliated with labs or practicing their work in relation to film lab infrastructure, we focus on these sites of creation, preservation and circulation of technical knowledge about analog film. But instead of reinforcing the binary of analog vs. digital, we argue that the various material practices from self-made apparatuses to photochemistry and film emulsions are ways of understanding the multiple materials and layered histories that define post-digital culture of film. This focus links our discussion with some themes in media archaeology (experimental media archaeology as a practice) and to current discussions about labs as arts and humanities infrastructure for collective project and practice-based methods