The Art and research of Dr. Merlin Seller, Lecturer In Design and Screen Cultures, University of Edinburgh

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Applying theory to play - The Game Studies Musings of Merlin Seller MA Mst (PhD) Lecturer University of Edinburgh

Posts tagged phenomenology
Dear Player: The Sensing Sim

This abstract proposes we look more deeply at how mechanics in games can articulate novel kinds of sense-perception at the edges of ludic and narrative experiences, and in forms distinct from the previous scholarship more concerned with the experiential implications of virtual reality (Helsel, Meckler 1991 et al). I’m interested in games which wrestle with Haraway’s cyborg and Bogost’s Alien Phenomenology seriously and conceptually in a world where we all too often see sensory augmentation as instrumental progress.

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Dear Player: SOMA and the Body

Videogames can offer us a vast range of sensory experiences, but we tend to talk about them in terms of text: narrative and code, signifiers and rule sets. What does it mean to see or touch a virtual world? Focusing on SOMA, and drawing on Deleuze and Haraway, I want to explore how this game configures bodies and sensation.

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