Fetid and Fragrant Futures for the Humanities
In a reflection on all the recent hubbub about the sordid state of the humanities and the recently proposed possibility of a cure in the form of the “digital humanities,” Cathy Davidson offers the following lament: When I think of what the humanties offer…it is astonishing to me (and tragic) that we are not central. We are very, very good… read more
Paper written with Nick Montfort for Digital Arts and Cultures 2009
In this paper, we describe and respond to six common misconceptions about platform studies, an approach to the study of computational creativity. â??Platform studiesâ? is a new focus for the study of digital media, a set of approaches which investigate the underlying computer systems that support creative work. In 2009, the first platform-focused book about creative digital media was published:… read more
A colloquium with Espen Aarseth, Fox Harrell, and Janet Murray
The School of Literature Communication and Culture at Georgia Tech is hosting what is sure to be a great colloquium next week, “How to Think About Narrative and Interactivity.” It will be held 4:30-6pm on Tuesday October 20th in the Skiles building on campus (map), room 002 on the ground floor. The colloquium will feature the following speakers and topics,… read more
Thoughts on Kickstarter
A relatively new service called Kickstarter, which describes itself as a funding platform for artists. Writers, filmmakers, musicians, and other creators can post projects to the site with attached budgets, which visitors can fund via pledges. If the budget is met within the specified time, the project gets funded. Otherwise, all funds are returned to the patrons, like a challenge… read more
Cultural Studies, Politics, and Realism
If you’re the kind of person who is the subject of Michael Bérubé’s scathing critique of cultural studies in last week’s Chronicle of Higher Education, then you’ve probably read it already. To summarize via citation, Bérubé argued that the impact of cultural studies “has the carbon footprint of a unicorn,” and yet nobody within the field notices or cares. If… read more
Schroeder played the piano and all of the girls loved him.
I’m not a big fan of fanfic, but I am quite enamored of appropriations of pop culture that shed surprising new light on their source material. For some time, my favorite example of this sort of thing has been Garfield Minus Garfield. By removing the titular cat from each comic strip, Dan Walsh exposed “the existential angst of a certain… read more
On the aftermath of an accidental racial slur in Scribblenauts. From my "Persuasive Games" column at Gamasutra.
The distinctive feature of 5th Cell’s critically-acclaimed Nintendo DS game Scribblenauts is its enormous dictionary of terms, any of which can be written to summon objects to solve puzzles in the game. Just about anything you might want to write, from “acai berry” to “zygote,” gets transformed into a functional object. With well over twenty thousand words represented, some are… read more
On The Beatles: Rock Band
Last week, the NY Times published Seth Schiesel’s effusive review of The Beatles: Rock Band. Calling the game a “transformative entertainment experience,” Schiesel argued that it “may be the most important video game yet made.” Schiesel’s logic is sensical: the combination of Beatles + videogame gives baby boomers something concrete to share with their kids and grandkids. Harmonix, a company… read more
My DiGRA 2009 Keynote, on Videogames and Ontology
What follows is the text of my keynote at the 2009 Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) conference, held in Uxbridge, UK September 1-4, 2009. The text corresponds fairly accurately to the address I gave at the conference. In a few cases, I’ve added some clarifications in square brackets, where additional context or commentary was relevant. Videogames are a mess So… read more
On The Human-Centered Objection
Over on Larval Subjects, Levi raised some concerns about Nate’s recent post about zombies and speculative realism. Specifically, Bryant expressed a worry that treating humans as zombies might suggest that object-oriented ontology sees humans as lesser forms than other objects, rather than as one of many objects on equal footing. As I mentioned in the subsequent discussion, I didn’t read… read more