2021
Santos, Victoria Dos; Thibault, Mattia; Buruk, Oğuz 'Oz'; Buruk, Seda Suman; Hamari, Juho
Isaura: el future Tecnopagano de la ciudad entre Transurbanismo y trascendencia Book Section
In: Valdivieso, Humberto; Parma, Lorena Rojas (Ed.): Next: imaginar el postpresente , pp. 247-267, Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, 2021, ISBN: 978-980-439-038-8.
Abstract | Links | Tags: Avatarization, Posthumanism, Technopaganism, Transhumanism, Transurbanism
@incollection{Santos2021,
title = {Isaura: el future Tecnopagano de la ciudad entre Transurbanismo y trascendencia},
author = {Victoria Dos Santos and Mattia Thibault and Oğuz 'Oz' Buruk and Seda Suman Buruk and Juho Hamari},
editor = {Humberto Valdivieso and Lorena Rojas Parma },
url = {https://trepo.tuni.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/137595/Dos_Santos_Thibault_Burutc_et_al_2021_Isaura.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
https://trepo.tuni.fi/handle/10024/137595},
isbn = {978-980-439-038-8},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-12-31},
urldate = {2021-12-31},
booktitle = {Next: imaginar el postpresente },
issuetitle = {Filosofía, arte y tecnología en la cultura digital},
pages = {247-267},
publisher = {Universidad Católica Andrés Bello},
abstract = {Spirituality has always played a major role in cities, affecting deeply every aspect of urban life. But what about the future? Will the development of technology diminish the importance of spirituality? Or, on the contrary, will post- and transhumans be profoundly spiritual beings? In this paper we make use of speculative design and of pastiche scenarios to investigate the role of spirituality in a transurban future. In particular, we imagine Isaura, a city imbued with transhuman augmentations and technopagan ideals where people can cast themselves in the body of animals. The scenario allows us to reflect on the possibility of an animistic future based on avatarization technologies, seen in the framework of Descola’s ecology of relationships.},
keywords = {Avatarization, Posthumanism, Technopaganism, Transhumanism, Transurbanism},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {incollection}
}
Spirituality has always played a major role in cities, affecting deeply every aspect of urban life. But what about the future? Will the development of technology diminish the importance of spirituality? Or, on the contrary, will post- and transhumans be profoundly spiritual beings? In this paper we make use of speculative design and of pastiche scenarios to investigate the role of spirituality in a transurban future. In particular, we imagine Isaura, a city imbued with transhuman augmentations and technopagan ideals where people can cast themselves in the body of animals. The scenario allows us to reflect on the possibility of an animistic future based on avatarization technologies, seen in the framework of Descola’s ecology of relationships.
Apperley, Thomas H.; Ozimek, Anna (Ed.)
Special Issue on Disco Elysium Collection
2021.
Abstract | Links | Tags: Absurdity, Affect, Digital distribution, Disco Elysium, Dissonant development, Estonia, Film noir, Game production, Game production studies, Gothic fiction, Hermeneutics of objects, Political economy, Polyphony, Posthumanism, Rhizome, Software commons
@collection{Apperley2021,
title = {Special Issue on Disco Elysium},
editor = {Thomas H. Apperley and Anna Ozimek
},
url = {https://sciendo.com/issue/BSMR/9/1},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-12-14},
booktitle = {Baltic Screen Media Review},
volume = {9},
issue = {1},
abstract = {Disco Elysium is a highly praised game that is widely recognized for its innovation and quality. In December 2019, writing for Time magazine, Matthew Gault named Disco Elysium one of the ten most important games of the decade (2010–2019) along-side the likes of Fortnite (Epic Games 2017–), Minecraft (Mojang 2011), and Pokémon GO (2016). Gault (2019) characterizes the dec-ade as one in which “artists broke free of the business side and produced works of astounding beauty on par with any prestige television show.” Disco Elysium is included on his list as “proof” that “all video games are art” (ibid.). While critical and commer-cial success, as well as the invocation of “art,” are not themselves crucial reasons for scholars to explore a particular digital game, in the case of Disco Elysium there are many other ways that it is significant.},
keywords = {Absurdity, Affect, Digital distribution, Disco Elysium, Dissonant development, Estonia, Film noir, Game production, Game production studies, Gothic fiction, Hermeneutics of objects, Political economy, Polyphony, Posthumanism, Rhizome, Software commons},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {collection}
}
Disco Elysium is a highly praised game that is widely recognized for its innovation and quality. In December 2019, writing for Time magazine, Matthew Gault named Disco Elysium one of the ten most important games of the decade (2010–2019) along-side the likes of Fortnite (Epic Games 2017–), Minecraft (Mojang 2011), and Pokémon GO (2016). Gault (2019) characterizes the dec-ade as one in which “artists broke free of the business side and produced works of astounding beauty on par with any prestige television show.” Disco Elysium is included on his list as “proof” that “all video games are art” (ibid.). While critical and commer-cial success, as well as the invocation of “art,” are not themselves crucial reasons for scholars to explore a particular digital game, in the case of Disco Elysium there are many other ways that it is significant.
2020
Arjoranta, Jonne
Playing the Nonhuman: Alien Experiences in Aliens vs. Predator Book Section
In: Karkulehto, Sanna; Koistinen, Aino-Kaisa; Varis, Essi (Ed.): Reconfiguring Human, Nonhuman and Posthuman in Literature and Culture, pp. 108-124, Routledge, 2020, ISBN: 978-0-367-19747-6.
Abstract | Links | Tags: Alien vs. Predator, Experience, Game characters, Posthumanism, Video games
@incollection{Arjoranta2020c,
title = {Playing the Nonhuman: Alien Experiences in Aliens vs. Predator},
author = {Jonne Arjoranta},
editor = {Sanna Karkulehto and Aino-Kaisa Koistinen and Essi Varis
},
url = {http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-202011166657},
doi = {10.4324/9780429243042},
isbn = {978-0-367-19747-6},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-07-30},
booktitle = {Reconfiguring Human, Nonhuman and Posthuman in Literature and Culture},
pages = {108-124},
publisher = {Routledge},
abstract = {What is it like to play a nonhuman character? In his classic essay, philosopher Thomas Nagel (1975) argues that we are fundamentally unable to imagine what it is like to be a bat, because our senses and cognition are structured in a way that is uniquely human – whereas bats’ senses and cognition have a uniquely bat-like configuration. In spite of this, media genres from fantasy to science-fiction routinely strive to imagine and show what it could be like to be something other than human. What is more, different media achieve this effect by different means: literature provides textual descriptions, audio-visual media rely on moving images, and comics employ different kinds of multimodal compositions, as discussed in the previous chapter. In the fifth chapter, Jonne Arjoranta continues investigating these medium-specific imaginations by examining how video games portray the nonhuman, what kind of assumptions they make about being nonhuman, and what kind of tools and techniques they use to convey the (imagined) experience of nonhumanness. The analysis focuses on Aliens vs. Predator (2010, Rebellion Developments), which features three different but intertwined campaigns that allow the player to play as a human, an alien, and a predator. The game thereby evokes two playing experiences that are supposedly nonhuman, and enables direct comparison between them and the “normal” experience of playing as human. The discussion around these playing experiences is further complemented with examples from other games that present playable nonhuman characters and, like the previous two chapters, draws theoretical support from the notion of embodied cognition.},
keywords = {Alien vs. Predator, Experience, Game characters, Posthumanism, Video games},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {incollection}
}
What is it like to play a nonhuman character? In his classic essay, philosopher Thomas Nagel (1975) argues that we are fundamentally unable to imagine what it is like to be a bat, because our senses and cognition are structured in a way that is uniquely human – whereas bats’ senses and cognition have a uniquely bat-like configuration. In spite of this, media genres from fantasy to science-fiction routinely strive to imagine and show what it could be like to be something other than human. What is more, different media achieve this effect by different means: literature provides textual descriptions, audio-visual media rely on moving images, and comics employ different kinds of multimodal compositions, as discussed in the previous chapter. In the fifth chapter, Jonne Arjoranta continues investigating these medium-specific imaginations by examining how video games portray the nonhuman, what kind of assumptions they make about being nonhuman, and what kind of tools and techniques they use to convey the (imagined) experience of nonhumanness. The analysis focuses on Aliens vs. Predator (2010, Rebellion Developments), which features three different but intertwined campaigns that allow the player to play as a human, an alien, and a predator. The game thereby evokes two playing experiences that are supposedly nonhuman, and enables direct comparison between them and the “normal” experience of playing as human. The discussion around these playing experiences is further complemented with examples from other games that present playable nonhuman characters and, like the previous two chapters, draws theoretical support from the notion of embodied cognition.