Mathias Fuchs - Böcker

Recognizable, recurring spatial settings in video games serve not only as points of reference and signposts for orientation, but also as implicit sources of content. These spatial archetypes denote more than real-world objects or settings: they suggest and bring forward emotional states, historical context, atmospheric “attunement,” in the words of Massumi, and aesthetic programs that go beyond plain semiotic reference.In each chapter, Mathias Fuchs brings to the fore an archetype commonly found in old and new digital games: The Ruin, The Cave, The Cloud, The Portal, The Road, The Forest, and The Island are each analysed at length, through the perspectives of aesthetics, games technology, psychoanalysis, and intertextuality. Gridding these seven tropes together with these four analytical lenses provides the reader with a systematic framework to understand the various complex considerations at play in evocative game design.

Recognizable, recurring spatial settings in video games serve not only as points of reference and signposts for orientation, but also as implicit sources of content. These spatial archetypes denote more than real-world objects or settings: they suggest and bring forward emotional states, historical context, atmospheric “attunement,” in the words of Massumi, and aesthetic programs that go beyond plain semiotic reference.In each chapter, Mathias Fuchs brings to the fore an archetype commonly found in old and new digital games: The Ruin, The Cave, The Cloud, The Portal, The Road, The Forest, and The Island are each analysed at length, through the perspectives of aesthetics, games technology, psychoanalysis, and intertextuality. Gridding these seven tropes together with these four analytical lenses provides the reader with a systematic framework to understand the various complex considerations at play in evocative game design.

Mathias Fuchs stellt individuelle Stimmen vor, um exemplarisch die Vielfalt an Persönlichkeitsentwürfen unter Seniorinnen und Senioren aufzuzeigen, die im Laufe ihres Lebens nach Deutschland eingewandert sind.

Digital Culture & Society is a refereed, international journal, fostering discussion about the ways in which digital technologies, platforms and applications reconfigure daily lives and practices. It offers a forum for critical analysis and inquiries into digital media theory and provides a publication environment for interdisciplinary research approaches, contemporary theory developments and methodological innovation.The second issue »Quantified Selves | Statistical Bodies« provides methodological and theoretical reflections on technologically generated knowledge about the body and socio-cultural practices that are subsumed, discussed, and criticized using the key concept »Quantified Self«.

»Digital Culture & Society« is a refereed, international journal, fostering discussion about the ways in which digital technologies, platforms and applications reconfigure daily lives and practices. It offers a forum for critical analysis and inquiries into digital media theory and provides a publication environment for interdisciplinary research approaches, contemporary theory developments and methodological innovation.The third issue »Politics of Big Data« edited by Mark Coté, Paolo Gerbaudo, and Jennifer Pybus, critically examines the political and economic dimensions of Big Data and thus details its contestation. The contributions focus on the materialities and processes which manifest Big Data and explore forms of value beyond the state and capital. These range from open data initiatives, social media metrics, machine learning algorithms, data visualisation to data dashboards, critical data analysis, and new modes of data action research and practice.

»Digital Culture & Society« is a refereed, international journal, fostering discussion about the ways in which digital technologies, platforms and applications reconfigure daily lives and practices. It offers a forum for critical analysis and inquiries into digital media theory and provides a publication environment for interdisciplinary research approaches, contemporary theory developments and methodological innovation.This issue, edited by Anna Lisa Ramella, Asko Lehmuskallio, Tristan Thielmann and Pablo Abend, discusses the mobility of people, data and devices from the perspective of digital mobile practices. As the authors of various empirical case studies show, these need to be studied both situationally, and on the move.With contributions by Marion Schulze, Jamie Coates, Geoffrey Hobbis, Samuel Gerald Collins, among others, and an interview with Heather Horst, David Morley, and Noel B. Salazar.

»Digital Culture & Society« is a refereed, international journal, fostering discussion about the ways in which digital technologies, platforms and applications reconfigure daily lives and practices. It offers a forum for critical analysis and inquiries into digital media theory and provides a publication environment for interdisciplinary research approaches, contemporary theory developments and methodological innovation.This special issue discusses theoretical and artistic investigations on citizen engagement, digital citizenship and grassroots information politics. The articles reflect on the role of the digital citizen from the perspectives of (digital) sociology, science, technology and society (STS), (digital) media studies, cultural studies, political sciences, and philosophy.

Digital Culture & Society is a refereed, international journal, fostering discussion about the ways in which digital technologies, platforms and applications reconfigure daily lives and practices. It offers a forum for inquiries into digital media theory, methodologies, and socio-technological developments.This issue presents empirical studies as well as theoretical and methodological reflections on inequalities and divides in digital cultures. From various (inter-)disciplinary perspectives, the authors examine three main themes – inequality of access, inequality by design and discursive divides, and inequality by algorithms – while suggesting ways for research to move beyond these.

This double issue of Digital Culture & Society addresses the complex thematic field of the dialectics of play and labour. We will take a closer look at the problem of play and work from two overlapping, albeit not mutually exclusive, perspectives: laborious play and playful work.The term laborious play points to practices and processes that turn playful activities into hard work. Laborious play happens whenever playfulness turns into work, and may be observed in such activities such as e-sports, excessive play, »goldfarming«, and Twitch gameplay broadcasting, amongst many others.A complementary phenomenon to that of laborious play is the practice and concept of playful work. The promises of a joyful and rewarding working experience have been promoted as »gamification« while critical voices denounce such attempts as ideology, exploitation or simply »bullshit«.

As DIY digital maker culture proliferates globally, research on these practices is also maturing. Still, particular terminologies dominate beyond their Western contexts, and technocultural histories of making are often rendered as over-simplified technomyths that render invisible diverse local practices. This special issue brings together contributions that highlight how historicising plays a role in mythmaking and the creation of social imaginaries. The peer-reviewed articles present cultural-historical perspectives, technology and design histories and historiographies, and alternative histories related to postcolonial resistance. The contributions illustrate the relevance of craft to making as a reparative practice after the Salvadoran Civil War and as a leisure activity to spark »innovation« in mid-century corporate culture; the political-economic background to the diffusion and differentiation of community workshops in contemporary Spain and post-war Germany; and the various aesthetics and politics of technology culture manifestos over the years.The issue features an interview with Peter Harper of the Alternative Technology movement by Simon Sadler, as well as an interview with Felix Holm and Suné Stassen on the antecedents of making and design in South Africa. The special issue is rounded off with six short alternative (hi)stories of DIY making including multiple practices, geographies and temporalities.

The design and use of metadata is always culturally, socially, and ideologically inflected. The actors, whether these are institutions (museums, archives, libraries, corporate image suppliers) or individuals (image producers, social media agents, researchers), as well as their agendas and interests, affect the character of metadata. There is a politics of metadata. This issue of Digital Culture & Society addresses the ideological and political aspects of metadata practices within image collections from an interdisciplinary perspective. The overall aim is to consider the implications, tensions, and challenges involved in the creation of metadata in terms of content, structure, searchability, and diversity.

This double issue of Digital Culture & Society addresses the dialectics of play and labour, taking a closer look at the problem of play and work from two overlapping, albeit not mutually exclusive, perspectives. After the first issue explored the notion of laborious play, this second one studies the concept of playful work.The contributions feature critical inquiries into various phenomena of playful work – ranging from interfaces of play and work in the BDSM subculture over labour in digital gaming to high frequency trading. Alongside the articles, the issue features an interview with Fred Turner, Chair of the Department of Communication at Stanford University. He talks about the Bauhaus in the US, countercultural cybernetics, technology and consciousness, and work in the Silicon Valley.

What happened to the 1960s ideas of machine art, cybernetic art, »algorithmic revolution«, and the hopes for a democratization of the art market? How do contemporary art practitioners cope with the political situation and with the attempts of the Silicon Valley giants to appropriate algorithmic generation of art-like artefacts?This issue aims to discuss how the early concept of computer art is now being reframed as digital, post-digital or algorithmic art under the prevailing conditions of big data, smart AI, an almost all-encompassing surveillance technology and the political state of neo-liberalism.

The cultural fascination with ruins is nothing new. Architects, poets and commentators like Rose Macaulay (1953), Christopher Woodward (2002) and Robert Ginsberg (2004) have extensively and critically investigated the significations of ruins in Western culture. In our lived environments, our media landscapes, and our social media feeds, we are surrounded by ruination: the ruins of war, ecological disaster, post-industrial decline, austerity, social collapse, and infrastructural decline. This issue of Digital Culture & Society addresses the complex thematic field of ruination and decay in contemporary culture.