Games, Virtual Technologies, and STS - II

Abstract

Games are flexible epistemic objects, variously constructed as entertainment, military and logistics simulations, communications technologies, scientific apparatuses, cultural artifacts, art, and media. With a few notable exceptions, however, academic analyses of games and game development practices tend to be the domain of media and cultural studies scholars, which produce vibrant—but disciplinary-inflected—research practices, perspectives, and interpretations.

This panel seeks to understand what games and virtual technologies mean from an STS perspective, as well to connect STS’s strengths analyzing knowledge practices, situated knowledges, and the mutual shaping of technology & society to the thriving communities of games studies scholars in media studies, interpretive textual studies, and critical code studies. What does STS have to contribute, and how can STS reconfigure its own boundaries about what “counts” as scientific and technical practice to better address games, media technologies, and virtual spaces?

This panel track welcomes submissions on games and their interrelated virtual technologies, including VR and simulation systems, game development engines, software/hardware interfaces and platforms, graphics technologies, and real-time code. We especially welcome papers that address games and virtual technologies as political knowledge systems and practices, and papers that adopt feminist/decolonial science studies and critical technology studies stances in their analyses.

Individual Presentations

• Bales of Amber: Exploring Humanity and Ecological Disasters in a Video Game - Jennifer Anne Bourke, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

• Making the Board: Participatory Game Design for Environmental Action - Katherine Ball, Arizona State University; Kirk Jalbert, Arizona State University

• STS Theoretical Approaches and Video Game Localization: Innovating Ideas - Marina Fontolan, Universidade Estadual de Campinas; Léa Maria Leme Velho, UNICAMP; Janaína Pamplona da Costa, UNICAMP; James Malazita, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

• Virtual Reality and the Social Imaginary: Real and Imagined Experiences in the Public Library - Negin Dahya, University of Washington; Jin Ha Lee, University of Washington; Kung Jin Lee, University of Washington; W.E. King, University of Washington

Session Organizer

• James Malazita, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute