Out in November 2024: Toy Theory: technology and imagination in play. The MIT Press A novel interpretation of the history and theory of technology…
Tag: technoculture
re-imagining the gallery with AI
A short article on a recent-ish pilot project, Chatbots in the Gallery, in Re:Action, the University of Southampton’s research magazine.
Toy Theory – update
Toy Theory: technology and imagination in play will be out in November. No cover image yet, but here is the draft marketing blurb: A…
A Toy Theory of Drawing
My contribution to the Ordinary Things exhibition: A toy theory of drawing: a short essay to accompany this piece, and the exhibition 2ND—25TH NOVEMBER…
postdigital playgrounds
Text and images from my contribution to the A is for Age-Appropriate panel at CCA 2023, with Sara Grimes, Darshana Jayemanne, Bronwen Swerdfager, and…
toy economics
In Toy Theory I have plotted points at which economic systems and imaginaries are evident in toys and games, from the proto-economics of ancient…
toy animals
This article – in Cultural Politics 20(1), March 2024 – maps the child’s toy and media environment as one populated with artificial animals, from…
robot ludologists
video on its way
Unbox: Cardboard Cinema
The Beauty and the Beast board game is an ingenious engineering of cinematic, narrative and architectonic space into a slot-together cardboard allegory. A tie-in…
AI has always been a toy
We should look to the digital game for the most compelling and generative toyetic source of concepts and material developments in artificial life and…
redefining the toyetic
Critical attention to toys demonstrates that the instrumental nature of machines and systems is less stable than generally assumed. And it shifts ontological questions…
artificial animals games intelligence
A lecture for year 1 BA Games Design & Art, Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton