Thanks to UCI Informatics and organizers, Professors Bo Ruberg and Aaron Trammell, for hosting me on Friday, November 23. I presented my new research on George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and its impact on the medium of video games. This research is forthcoming from from Cambridge University Press in a forthcoming anthology edited by Nathan Waddell. [photo credit:
Upcoming Talk: UCI Informatics 2019
Looking forward to my visit to the UCI Department of Informatics seminar series!
ToDIGRA 2018 Essay Published
I’m pleased to announce the publication of ToDIGRA Vol 4, No 3 (2019) The Game is the Message, Selected Articles from the2018 International DIGRA Conference which includes my essay on whiteness, crisis, and video games. A very special thanks to Martin Gibbs, Matteo Bittanti, and Riccardo Fassone, editors! Find it for free here: http://todigra.org/index.php/todigra/article/view/102
Mike Henderson Review @ SquareCylinder
See my new art review of Bay Area artist Mike Henderson on @SquareCylinder here:
https://www.squarecylinder.com/2019/10/mike-henderson-sfai-haines/
Modestly tacked to the wall at SFAI’s Walter and McBean Galleries is an unexpected manifesto-like statement that captures the spirit of Mike Henderson’s mini-retrospective, Honest To Goodness. It reads: “I believe that an artist must be free of culture, geography, self, philosophies, theories, goals, tools, histories, and all the preconceived ideas. However, the artist must know all of these things in order to be free of them…What I paint comes from the freedom this idea brings.”
What unfolds in the gallery is a lifelong testament to this aspiration: that is, the constant negotiation and mastering of influences and aesthetic indulgences, the shedding of ideological crutches and prejudicial concepts that interfere with grasping one’s creative potential. To some degree, the exhibition is an alumni homecoming for the SFAI-trained artist, a sampling of his work from more than 50 years, including figurative and abstract paintings, works on paper, films and archival materials related to his musical career. The work feels searching and expressive, even while that expressiveness assumes vastly different manifestations across time. En masse, it conveys a sustained endeavor to dodge a creative comfort zone…
Contemporary Art Reviews @ SquareCylinder.com
In a return to my origins in art theory, history and criticism, I’ve been writing reviews for Northern California’s SquareCylinder. Check out my latest co-authored review of artist @thecatewhite with #DerekConradMurray : https://www.squarecylinder.com/2019/08/cate-white-mills/ Also see earlier reviews of robotic sculpture artist #AlanRath @SanJoseICA and global sensation #RinaBanerjee @SJmusart
Through the Black Mirror – Anthology Out Now
Very excited to announce my inclusion in Terence McSweeney and @DrStuartJoy’s new #BlackMirror anthology, Through the Black Mirror (Palgrave 2019)! I look at the Playtest episode, and am in great company with @henryjenkins and many others.
From the essay:
the episode suggests the seductiveness and annihilative potential of VR and AR technologies to the body and mind. But on another level, the casting of key characters of color within the scenario operates as subtext, pointing back to this troubled period and smartly poking at a fresh wound within game culture.
ROMchip Inaugural Issue
What could the history of games be? The first issue of ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories is out today! @miaC @whitneypow @sorayamurray @austin_walker @kevindriscoll @arsavium @Woodlandstaar @circuitlions @criticalplay @ProfessorTMR @sethgiddings @marco_wargamer @jesperjuul @kcisbister @mbgarda @rshelbycobra @docetist and others answer the question!
http://romchip.org/index.php/romchip-journal/index