10th April 2025, at 18:00 The Fabrication Lab, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster
The Anthropocene, the geological epoch marked by human impact on the environment, is putting life itself at risk. This lecture examines some minimal and almost invisible moments in which players and game makers have responded to videogames that challenge the centrality of the human. It explores what videogame consumers can teach us about the time we have left on this planet, when both the real world and its simulations no longer function as expected. Gaming the Post-Anthropocene explores the value and meaning of leisure time when there is no time left.
Paolo Ruffino is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Curation and Computational Creativity at the department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London, UK. Ruffino has been investigating the independent production of videogames, labour unions in the videogame industry, and nonhuman and posthuman play in the digital age. He is the author of Future Gaming: Creative Interventions in Video Game Culture (Goldsmiths/MIT Press 2018), editor of Independent Videogames: Cultures, Networks, Techniques and Politics (Routledge, 2021) and author of articles for Games and Cultures; Convergence; Television and New Media; Critical Studies in Media Communication; and GAME The Italian Journal of Game Studies. He is also one of the four founding members of the artist group IOCOSE. Website: www.paoloruffino.com
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