This is a fabulous PhD opportunity to study the history of Scottish video games and its intersection with museums.
More details can be found at the following link. Click on 'Fully Funded PhD Research Studentship' on the left side:
ce0173li.webitrent.com/ce0173li_web...
Yes it is.
The New Yorker, "Wondering why people are pining for old technologies - CD players, VCRs, Walkmans. What's behind our longing for inconvenience?"
Inconvenience? I just had to dig seven pages deep to find the unsubscribe for one of the four TV subscriptions I need, I'm measured & optimized against in my supermarket, lamps, music, games, and travel. Every service I love gets enshittified to buy billionaires yachts worth 100 times my house.
AI slop
If you're interested in applying for an MSCA postdoc with us here at the Center for Digital Narrative, read this and submit a statement of interest before May 1st! We'll get back to you within a week or so after that :) www4.uib.no/en/research/...
I'm really proud of this chapter, and I'm proud to be a part of this book that's addressing such important questions today.
And I'm proud that it's fully open access - you don't even have to email me for a PDF.
doi.org/10.1515/9783...
I'm particularly curious about how digital media plays into this, so I take the example of Slender Man. How can it work as digital mythology when we know so much about its origins? The answer comes from questions of ephemeral forums, pseudonymity and how authority is distributed.
I look at the question of obscured origins and their role in mythmaking. Essentially, when an idea's origin is obscured, it can be 'precontextualised' - made to seem like it existed before contingency, outside of history. This is very useful for making ideas feel part of the natural order.
Most of us can't actually explain from first principles how the Big Bang happened, but we believe it because we trust in the origins of the idea: scientists. Flat Earthers, by and large, don't actually challenge the authority of the scientific method itself, just the class of scientists themselves.
It's a part of a fascinating book edited by Astrid Marie Holand and Per Bjarne Ravnå, called Reality in Our Times: Reaching Reality Beyond the Post-Truth Condition. It's all about how we make, shape and share our conceptions of reality. The whole book is open access, so do check it out!
Where an idea is believed to come from matters. And when those origins are obscured, things get really interesting. That's the basis of my latest *open access* chapter, 'The Obscurity of Origins in Reality Formation: Slender Man and Digital Mythology'.
Photo showing a collection of Souls game books by Tune & Fairweather. #eldenring #bloodborne #darksouls #fromsoftware #demonssouls #sekiro #booksky 💙📚
What kind of game-world book tempts you most?
Lore – Art – Essays – Interviews?
www.tuneandfairweather.com/collections/...
Are you an early career research who would like to spend a semester at the Center for Digital Narrative at the University of Bergen? We have a call out now for a stipend to cover mobility expenses for 3-4 months in the first half of 2027. Apply before 15 May! skjemaker.app.uib.no/view.php?id=...
France to ditch US technology. "The State can no longer simply acknowledge its dependence; it must break free. We must become less reliant on American tools and regain control of our digital destiny. .. Digital sovereignty is not optional." Daniel Amiel, ministre de l'Action et des Comptes publics
Every time a journal makes me convert my .csv/.tsv supplementary files to Excel, a little piece of open science dies🥀 RIP reproducibility, my floating-point precision, and at least a dozen genes that are now formatted as dates.
Photo showing the Tune & Fairweather book Scholar's Codex. Academia explores the games of FromSoftware. #bloodborne #returntoyharnam #booksky 💙📚
Return to Yharnam ends tomorrow. Bring the event to a close with Scholar’s Codex and its academic analysis of Bloodborne. We hope your Hunt was a successful one, and that you crushed the Vermin where appropriate.
www.tuneandfairweather.com/products/sch...
I especially love it when you've already given all this information before.
Anthropic using regex instead of their actual *language model* to detect negative sentiment in prompts.
Submission incoming very soon!!
here are a few spot illustrations that appear throughout the book :)
A black and white scratchboard drawing showing an armored knight standing amidst ruins. Heavy rain is falling and the ground is covered in water, creating a mirror-like surface. The knight is holding his sword aloft and a lightning bolt strikes the tip of the sword.
Lead image for the Dark Souls II section of Scholar's Codex @tuneandfairweather.bsky.social
5x7" ink on claybord
DSII has lots of very memorable set pieces imo, but none quite as visually stunning as the Looking Glass Knight fight
happy birthday Dark Souls III and my favorite set piece in a souls game
(5x7" ink on claybord - 2023)
Play HAMM-3R! 🚀
FREE + SHORT (5-10 mins.)
>> hammer.gua-le-ni.com <<
An experimental game about tools and technologies made with @amidos2006.bsky.social, @demigiant.com and other friends at the @indigitalgames.bsky.social! 🔨
Are you interested in being a guest researcher at @cdn-bergen.bsky.social in the spring of 2027? Apply for our Fellowship! Funds cannot cover salary, but cover extra costs associated with spending a semester abroad for people with PhDs in full time jobs. Deadline 15 May. www4.uib.no/en/research/...
I couldn't resist
Next up at #CDNequinox are @domford.bsky.social and Haoyuang Tang on AI-powered NPCs in games. Dom will talk about the promise of AI characters and Haoyuang more about the actuality.
If you are using Grammarly, stop.
Illustration from Scholar's Codex - edited by @domford.bsky.social our very own @gua-le-ni.com and @danielvella.bsky.social, and @nelevdm.bsky.social
Academics explore the themes, lore and ruined majesty of classics like Bloodborne, Dark Souls and Elden Ring. @tuneandfairweather.bsky.social
I need a print of this
probably my favorite illustration I did for Scholar's Codex, for the Elden Ring section @tuneandfairweather.bsky.social
"Marika bathed the village of her home in gold,
knowing full well that there was no one to heal."
5x7" ink on claybord