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This article investigates the relationship between young people’s game-making practices and meaning-making in videogames. By exploring two different games produced in a game-making club in London through a multimodal sociosemiotic approach, the author discusses how semiotic resources and modes were recruited by participants to realize different discourses. By employing concepts such as modality truth claims and grammar, he examines how these games help us reflect on the links between intertextuality, hegemonic gaming forms and sign-making through digital games. He also outlines how a broader approach to what has been recently defined as the ‘procedural’ mode by Hawreliak in Multimodal Semiotics and Rhetoric in Videogames (2018) can be relevant for promoting different and more democratic forms of meaning-making through videogames.

The present paper discusses questions related to the histories of videogames, more specifically in how we approach videogames in Global South. By using Zeebo, a Brazilian console produced in the late 2000s as an epistemic tool, I discuss the limitations of universalist, mainstream-centric epistemological models for exploring videogames as cultural phenomena. By investigating Zeebo’s discourses about piracy and players in the Global South, I argue that this platform can be seen as a partial decolonial project, destabilising conventional historical narratives about South-North relationships in videogames, but refraining from challenging a mainstream, Global North oriented epistemology. This exploratory work, therefore, elaborates on how a decolonial project of history of videogames, one that is more epistemically just to Global South, could be sought.

El diálogo arte-tecnología en América Latina pone en foco litigios recurrentes: ¿tecnologías sustentadas por los discursos legitimantes de la modernidad o paradigmas diferentes y periféricos en la asunción e ideación de tecnologías en el contexto del arte? ¿Qué sucede con las prácticas que incorporan elementos biológicos, habitualmente uniformizadas bajo la categoría de “bioarte”? Las prácticas artísticas tecnológicas en Argentina en los últimos diez años alumbran zonas de pensamiento y praxis que ameritan ser revisadas: el diálogo arte/naturaleza desde perspectivas no-antropocéntricas, la configuración de discursos en los que subyacen representaciones, miradas y prácticas que se apartan de cánones normalizados y, por último, operaciones disruptivas en lo que respecta a los algo usuales criterios de funcionalidad, utilitarismo y efectismo tecnológico.

Indigenous peoples are making their own spaces online, using art as the backdrop for cross-cultural dialogue. Cyberspace—the websites, chat rooms, bulletin boards, virtual environments, and games that make up the internet—offers Aboriginal communities an unprecedented opportunity to assert control over how we represent ourselves to each other and to non-Aboriginals. This article introduces the concept of Aboriginally determined territories in cyberspace and discusses how these can be defined, maintained, and expanded. We will do this within the Canadian context, though much of the discussion is pertinent to Aboriginal communities in other parts of the world. We draw on lessons learned from creating and curating CyberPowWow, an Aboriginally determined online gallery, to propose Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace, a series of initiatives to expand Aboriginal presence online. These include expanding CyberPowWow into an ongoing community of new media artists addressing Aboriginal issues; developing Skins, a project in which elders work with youth to explore tribal stories through the use of online virtual environments; and laying the foundations for Within Reservations, which will function as a blueprint for equipping Aboriginals for full participation in the ongoing revolution in networked information technologies.

"Afterlives of Indigenous Archives offers a compelling critique of Western archives and their use in the development of “digital humanities.” The essays collected here present the work of an international and interdisciplinary group of indigenous scholars; researchers in the field of indigenous studies and early American studies; and librarians, curators, activists, and storytellers. The contributors examine various digital projects and outline their relevance to the lives and interests of tribal people and communities, along with the transformative power that access to online materials affords. The authors aim to empower native people to re-envision the Western archive as a site of community-based practices for cultural preservation, one that can offer indigenous perspectives and new technological applications for the imaginative reconstruction of the tribal past, the repatriation of the tribal memories, and a powerful vision for an indigenous future."

This article considers the way certain Indigenous artists are reviving conceptions of territory and history that are anchored in secular epistemologies and the construction of knowledge. Such conceptions provide a way for these artists to respond to colonial appropriation, reactivate interrupted dialogues, engender new forms of territorialization, and create places of commemoration and memory preservation. Similar to the historiographical deconstruction performed by thinkers and activists such as Vine Deloria Jr. and Taiaiake Alfred, these artists’ works offer a model of autonomy and environmental balance. While some are reviving mnemonic practices, such as the making of wampum, which traditionally preserve memories of alliances and conflicts, others have embraced Internet and selfie technologies as a means of creating new spaces for speech and recognition

La question de la mémoire en condition hyperconnectée s’articule également dans le potentiel des réseaux sociaux pour la mise en visibilité de différents mouvements activistes autochtones au Canada. À travers deux études de cas, le projet The Indigenous Archival Photo Project par l’écrivain Paul Seesequasis (Cri des plaines) et la page Instagram What Brings Us Here mettant en vedette les groupes d’activistes à Winnipeg The Bear Clan et Drag the Red, ce chapitre réfléchit à la manière dont les créateur.rice.s autochtones utilisent les réseaux sociaux comme des vecteurs d’agentivité narrative témoignant de différents enjeux touchant les communautés. Ces projets doivent être considérés comme des opérateurs de changements, car ils participent à la valorisation des voix autochtones et à l’instauration de divers réseaux de solidarité. Par différentes stratégies conversationnelles en ligne, ces projets renouent ainsi avec le communautarisme propre aux médiums de communication traditionnels autochtones où le dialogue est primordial.

Inventions have their greatest impact when they go beyond their possible practical applications and act upon the imagination. When Martin Behaim invented the first globe in 1490, a functionally useless object consisting mostly of terra incognita, he was widely ridiculed; but somehow the ideas that his globe represented stuck, and within a few decades the basic validity of his construction was confirmed by the voyages of Columbus, Cabot, Vasco de Gama, Magellan, and others. Today, with efforts to situate the rapid growth of information and communication technologies (ICTs), especially the Internet, in the context of globalization, there is a similar division between those who dismiss it as being of no importance and those who see in it a looming (for good or ill) global revolution. But, as with Behaim's globe, the imaginary possibilities of these innovations are important in determining how and to what extent human existence is to be transformed by them

Le collectif d'artistes Nation to Nation crée en 1996 CyberPowWow, une galerie d'art numérique autochtone en ligne. Entre 1997 et 2004, le projet voit quatre éditions se succéder et plus d'une vingtaine d'artistes y participer. CPW développe un modèle alternatif pour une production, une diffusion et une critique autodéterminée des arts numériques autochtones au Canada, ce qui lui confère une place importante dans la structuration de cette scène. Le présent mémoire vise à étudier la position de CPW - sa plateforme muséographique et ses œuvres - au sein d'un ensemble de discours chronopolitiques qui opèrent à l'intersection des arts, des technologies numériques et des identités autochtones

Résumé livre : Les échanges entre les Européens, leurs descendants en Amérique et les Autochtones depuis les premiers contacts jusqu’à nos jours constituent un thème de première importance dans les travaux menés depuis une quarantaine d’années en histoire des Amérindiens et en histoire coloniale. Ils sont cruciaux pour comprendre la situation contemporaine des nations amérindiennes, les relations entretenues avec les gouvernements, la question territoriale et la définition de l’identité. Pour rendre compte de la diversité des échanges entre Autochtones, Européens et Canadiens, et de leur importance dans l’histoire du Canada, les textes présentés dans cet ouvrage les abordent à partir des concepts de représentation, de métissage et de pouvoir. Les représentations qu’Amérindiens, Européens et Canadiens se sont forgées les uns des autres ont joué un rôle central dans leurs relations ; par exemple, la manière dont les Européens ont perçu, décrit ou imaginé les Autochtones a eu un poids déterminant sur les sociétés européennes et sur les politiques coloniales, influençant, en retour, les relations avec les Autochtones. Les images de l’Autre, en perpétuelle transformation, ont également eu une incidence sur la façon dont les Autochtones se sont auto-représentés, sur la façon dont ils ont adopté, transformé ces images pour se les approprier et, enfin, sur la façon dont ils les ont rejetées pour définir leur identité. Les représentations que les Autochtones ont forgées des Européens, moins bien connues malheureusement, ont également influencé l’évolution des rapports avec les colonisateurs. Utilisant différents supports : textes, images, récits oraux, sites internet et culture matérielle, les représentations résultent de processus complexes. Leur interprétation induit la question de leur élaboration et de leur transmission, celle de l’influence des idéologies et des catégories mentales de l’époque, mais aussi celle de la fonction et du pouvoir de ces représentations.

According to the 2000 census, Latinos/as have become the largest ethnic minority group in the United States. Images of Latinos and Latinas in mainstream news and in popular culture suggest a Latin Explosion at center stage, yet the topic of queer identity in relation to Latino/a America remains under examined. Juana María Rodríguez attempts to rectify this dearth of scholarship in Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces, by documenting the ways in which identities are transformed by encounters with language, the law, culture, and public policy. She identifies three key areas as the project’s case studies: activism, primarily HIV prevention; immigration law; and cyberspace. In each, Rodríguez theorizes the ways queer Latino/a identities are enabled or constrained, melding several theoretical and methodological approaches to argue that these sites are complex and dynamic social fields. As she moves the reader from one disciplinary location to the other, Rodríguez reveals the seams of her own academic engagement with queer latinidad. This deftly crafted work represents a dynamic and innovative approach to the study of identity formation and representation, making a vital contribution to a new reformulation of gender and sexuality studies.

El objetivo del artículo es discutir la potencialidad de prácticas artísticas contemporáneas que plantean ejercicios decoloniales al desestabilizar las matrices perceptivas eurocéntricas sobre grupos étnicos latinoamericanos. Desde la perspectiva de los estudios visuales, aborda la tentativa de demolición crítica de la cultura visual y los regímenes de visibilidad regidos por la lógica de la hipercomunicación y las tecnologías digitales. El punto de partida es el análisis del videoensayo Ashipegaxanacxanec iniciado en 2020 a partir de las acciones de control implementadas en la pandemia de covid-19. La producción se inscribe en las líneas de investigación del Núcleo de Estudios y Documentación de la Imagen (Nedim), Conicet-UNNE, con la finalidad de resignificar el acervo fotográfico del antropólogo alemán Lehmann Nitsche obtenido en el contexto de la masacre indígena en la Reducción de Napalpí, Chaco, en 1924. Metodológicamente, la propuesta explora la configuración experiencial de visualidades expandidas en la escena contemporánea, a partir de un anclaje en la dimensión especulativa en sintonía con un acercamiento contextual situado en las relaciones de convergencia entre pro- cedimientos, materiales, formatos, dispositivos e instancias disruptivas de prácticas y trayectorias estéticas. Ello supone la activación de procesos heurísticos y poéticos mediados por el ensayo y la escritura como montaje. Propuestas como el videoensayo analizado instauran la pregunta por el archivo y la memoria a través del montaje de temporalidades contradictorias. Su lugar de enunciación se posiciona como posibilidad de insurgencia estética que clausura tentativas de exotización hegemónica por parte de los dispositivos de control contemporáneos. The goal of this paper is to discuss the potentiality of contemporary artistic prac-tices that propose decolonial exercises by destabilizing the Eurocentric perceptual matrices on Latin American ethnic groups. From the perspective of visual studies, it addresses the attempt to critically demolish visual culture and the regimes of visibility governed by the logic of hypercommunication and digital technologies. The starting point is the analysis of the Ashipegaxanacxanec video essay started in 2020 based on the control actions implemented in the COVID-19 pandemic. The production is part of the research of the Image Studies and Documentation Center (Nedim), Conicet-UNNE, with the purpose of redefining the photographic collection of German anthropologist Lehmann Nitsche, obtained in the context of the indigenous massacre in the Napalpí reduction in Chaco, in 1924. Methodologi-cally, the proposal explores the experiential configuration of expanded visualities in the contemporary scene, based on an anchoring in the speculative dimension in tune with a contextual approach in the convergence relationships between proce-dures, materials, formats, devices and disruptive instances of practices and aes-thetic trajectories. This supposes the activation of heuristic and poetic processes mediated by essays and writing as montage. Proposals such as the analyzed video essay establish the question about the archive and memory through the montage of contradictory temporalities. Its place of enunciation is positioned as a possibili-ty of aesthetic insurgency that closes any attempts at hegemonic exoticization by contemporary control devices

Video games, even though they are one of the present's quintessential media and cultural forms, also have a surprising and many-sided relation with the past. From seminal series like Sid Meier's Civilization or Assassin's Creed to innovative indies like Never Alone and Herald, games have integrated heritages and histories as key components of their design, narrative, and play. This has allowed hundreds of millions of people to experience humanity's diverse heritage through the thrill of interactive and playful discovery, exploration, and (re-)creation. Just as video games have embraced the past, games themselves are also emerging as an exciting new field of inquiry in disciplines that study the past. Games and other interactive media are not only becoming more and more important as tools for knowledge dissemination and heritage communication, but they also provide a creative space for theoretical and methodological innovations. The Interactive Past brings together a diverse group of thinkers -- including archaeologists, heritage scholars, game creators, conservators and more -- who explore the interface of video games and the past in a series of unique and engaging writings. They address such topics as how thinking about and creating games can inform on archaeological method and theory, how to leverage games for the communication of powerful and positive narratives, how games can be studied archaeologically and the challenges they present in terms of conservation, and why the deaths of virtual Romans and the treatment of video game chickens matters. The book also includes a crowd-sourced chapter in the form of a question-chain-game, written by the Kickstarter backers whose donations made this book possible. Together, these exciting and enlightening examples provide a convincing case for how interactive play can power the experience of the past and vice versa. Source: Publisher

Digital games, with their capacity for expression and facilitating experience through code, design, art, and audio, offer spaces for Indigenous creatives to contribute to Gerald Vizenor’s characterization of survivance as an active sense of Native presence. Indigenous digital games can be acts of survivance both in the ways they are created as well as the resulting designs. We Sing for Healing is an experiment in developing an Indigenous digital game during limited Internet access that resulted in a musical choose-your-own adventure text game with design, art, and code by Anishinaabe, Métis, and Irish game developer Elizabeth LaPensée alongside music by Peguis First Nation mix artist Exquisite Ghost. The non-linear gameplay expresses traditional storytelling patterns while enabling players to poetically travel in, through, and around traditional teachings. The design uses listening, choosing, and revisiting to reinforce what is best described as a non-linear loopular journey.

Digital games can uniquely express Indigenous teachings by merging design, code, art, and sound. Inspired by Anishinaabe grandmothers leading ceremonial walks known as Nibi Walks, Honour Water (http://www.honourwater.com/) is a singing game that aims to bring awareness to threats to the waters and offer pathways to healing through song. The game was developed with game company Pinnguaq and welcomes people from all over to sing with good intentions for the waters. The hope is to pass on songs through gameplay that encourages comfort with singing and learning Anishinaabemowin. Songs were gifted by Sharon M. Day and the Oshkii Giizhik Singers. Sharon M. Day, who is Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe and one of the founders of the Indigenous Peoples Task Force, has been a leading voice using singing to revitalize the waters. The Oshkii Giizhik Singers, a community of Anishinaabekwe who gather at Fond du Lac reservation, contribute to the healing for singers, communities, and the waters. Water teachings are infused in art and writing by Anishinaabe and Métis game designer, artist, and writer Elizabeth LaPensée. From development to distribution, Honour Water draws on Indigenous ways of knowing to reinforce Anishinaabeg teachings with hope for healing the water.

Video games, which uniquely interweave design, code, art, and sound, can be an especially robust way to express Indigenous cultures. Such games should involve Indigenous people in meaningful roles throughout design and development from conceptualization to distribution with a focus on building capacity to encourage self-determination for Indigenous game developers. This call to action informs SPEAR (Sovereignty, Positionality, Equity, Advocacy, and Reciprocity), a framework for design and development informed by the Indigenous cultural game Thunderbird Strike.

The educational video game, When Rivers Were Trails, was launched in 2019. The purpose of the game is to teach players about Indigenous perspectives of history, US federal allotment policies affecting tribal nations, and some of the effects of these policies on Indigenous peoples. This article explores tribal college student experiences playing When Rivers Were Trails in hopes that it provides the basis for further research into how tribal college faculty may be able to teach the game within their own classrooms. Tribal colleges and universities were created by tribal nations to provide for the higher education needs of their citizens. Using phenomenological research methods, seven college students volunteered to participate in a brief study about their experiences playing the video game. Upon transcription and analysis of the interview data, three themes were developed that capture how these students define their experience with When Rivers Were Trails: feelings of representation, histories of land dispossession, and resilience of communities.

Video games can be dynamic sovereign spaces for Indigenous representation and expression when the self-determination of Indigenous people is supported. Where ga...

"Although the fields of media studies and digital humanities are both well established, their overlaps have not been examined in depth. This comprehensive collection fills that gap, giving students, scholars, and media studies practitioners a cutting-edge guide to understanding the array of methodologies and projects operating at the intersection of digital humanities, computing, and culture. Topics covered include: networks; interfaces; media and culture at scale; procedures, programming, code; memory, digitization, and new media; and hacking, queering, and bending."--Provided by publisher