Steven Johnson on Derrida
The author Steven Johnson has an essay in the New York Times today, I Was an Under-Age Semiotician, about his younger years as a Semiotics major at Brown. It’s worth a read for anyone who did or still does philosophy or “critical theory,” to use an annoying term. But I want to pull out a specific excerpt from Johnson’s essay:… read more
An essay on flying
I will fly more than 200,000 miles this year. It routinizes, like an extended commute. The suburbanite knows every moment of the drive: on-ramp, lane-change, morning-show, cup-holder. I’m like that, but on a global vector: freeway, parking lot, door S-3, South security checkpoint, wallet, shoes, laptop, zip-lock, escalator, train, SkyClub, jetway, seat, jacket, bourbon, nap, tarmac, sky, sky, sky. We… read more
Tod Papagorge on the Ontology of Photography
Apropos of two of Levi’s recent posts about materialism and fictions, I thought I’d share this excerpt from an interview with photographer Tod Papageorge. He’s responding to a question about the need for photography to have a moral responsibility, something Susan Sontag had suggested. It’s always been puzzling to me that capacious minds like Sontag’s, to say nothing of those… read more
Gamification and Operational Closure
Two seemingly unrelated things happened to me yesterday, which further reflection revealed to have surprising connections. First, I spoke on a panel at the Online News Association conference about games and news. Julia Schmalz (now of Bloomberg, formerly of USA Today) and Rajat Paharia (of gamification vendor Bunchball) were the other panelists. I presented my approach to newsgames and offered… read more
Video and transcript of my talk at the Third Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium
Below is the video for my talk at the Third Object-Oriented Ontology symposium, which I delivered remotely by video. I intended the video as the way to experience the content, but upon request I’ve also posted a transcript of the material for those who prefer to read it that way. For a larger sized video, watch on Vimeo or select… read more
First, Levi Bryant’s treatise on object-oriented ontology, The Democracy of Objects, is now available to read online. Print and PDF editions forthcoming. Congrats to Levi for its unveiling. Second, the third object-oriented ontology symposium will take place tomorrow (14 Sept) at the New School. As I mentioned earlier I’m in China at the World Economic Forum, but I’ve left a… read more
A fresh look at computer games as a mature mass medium with unlimited potential for cultural transformation.
This book is available in digital or physical format. Buy from Amazon In recent years, computer games have moved from the margins of popular culture to its center. Reviews of new games and profiles of game designers now regularly appear in the New York Times and the New Yorker, and sales figures for games are reported alongside those of books,… read more
Brief thoughts on Steve Jobs's Resignation
Steve Jobs is a fascist. That’s what everyone loves about him: he tells us what he wants, and he convinces us we are going to like it. And we do, not because he’s right (despite popular opinion), but because it’s so rare to get such definitive, brazen, top-down, abusive treatment in this era of lowest-common-demoninator wishy-washiness. It doesn’t matter if… read more
Part 2: The Digital Humanities
If we accept the premise that the humanities should orient toward the world and not toward a private, scholarly sanctuary, then what trends are already facilitating that process? One candidate is the “digital humanities,” a topic about which I have remained silent for too long, despite the fact that I direct a digital media graduate program and teach in a… read more
Now Shipping!
My latest book, How To Do Things With Videogames is now shipping from Amazon.com in the US. For those of you in Europe, it’ll be a little while longer. And before you ask, a Kindle edition has been created and should show up Amazon any day now. The book is a little different from my others. It offers a tiny… read more