Zoyander Street

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I’m selling some things that might interest #immersive media folks and anyone experimenting with #alternatecontrollers.

👋 The first Leap Motion device, which facilitates gesture-based input: ebay.io/m/IOumzt

🫀 This USB heart rate monitor: ebay.io/m/Le7yr2

#altctrl

→ 5:46 PM, Jun 26

Spending too much time on this… WIP making custom vinyl covers for my laptop keyboard that show the default #cavesofqud key bindings and the JAFL #Shavian layout. Lots of helpful assets from game-icons.net, which are so nicely made they don’t even need to be modified for vinyl cutting.

→ 8:41 PM, Jun 24

30 mins left on this auction of my limited edition Dreamcast, which is currently set to go for a criminally low price. Get this bargain and help me to buy a mobility scooter: ebay.io/m/zSDIRF

#retrogaming #dreamcast

→ 11:07 AM, Jun 23

Three alternatives to a social media ban for under-16s

The UK Government’s proposed social media ban for under-16s punishes children for the crimes of corporations. Tech companies such as Meta have for well over a decade been documented participating in the manipulation of our electoral systems, our media ecosystems, and our minds. Instead of legislating to protect the public as a whole from these harmful practices, the ban simply uses this as a pretext for a new level of mass surveillance, and a new revenue stream for the private corporations that process our personal documents for age checks.
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→ 10:40 AM, Jun 18

AI and the Paradox of Agency exhibition

Last year I had the pleasure of contributing writing, research, and narrative design for Caroline Sinders and Romayne GadelRab’s new interactive installation that explores AI and decision making through the lens of disability benefits. We drew inspiration from bureaucracy simulators such as “Papers, Please”, which have the player make decisions on other people’s lives. Instead of an allegorical dystopia, we decided to portray a near-future society beginning to attempt to reform the system to be more humane to disabled people.
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→ 1:17 PM, Apr 17

Leaving Critical Distance

After more than a decade, I’ve decided to step away from the board of Critical Distance. I love this organisation so much, and I’m proud of what we do to contribute to a culture of online writing about games. I haven’t been able to play an active role in this since my MS diagnosis, and it’s time for me to move on and make room for someone else who can put new energy into it.
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→ 9:03 AM, Apr 13

Sharpening my Inkscape skills by tracing some playing card designs. This one taught me how to use a few of the path effects, cloning, and mesh gradients

→ 9:13 PM, Apr 5

I’m really enjoying the “World of Playing Cards” website at the moment, which has a large collaborative archive of cards with articles about different types, regions, time periods, etc. www.wopc.co.uk

→ 9:07 PM, Apr 5

What generally happens to trans artists who try to offer a grassroots alternative to mainstream wizard school IP? My project was relatively well-supported through grants, and even I’m seriously unwell due to burnout and broke after trying to make something cool happen for us. I can’t be the only one

→ 8:24 PM, Mar 30

Website making for trans health

Next week I’m headed to London again, this time to give a workshop at Studio Voltaire sharing skills and inviting people to contribute to the Desperate Livin trans health archive. We’re going to explore some DIY digital archives, and I’m going to try to share some of the joy I feel about the handmade independent web. To me, making a webpage yourself using simple html is intrinsically a beautiful thing to do, because it gets you closer to the materiality of the thing you’re working with.
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→ 3:07 PM, Jan 16

You should come and see this in-person performance of my interactive queer sci-fi play Assigned Earth at Birth, at Bread and Roses Theatre in London on 11th or 12th December: app.lineupnow.com/event/tal…

→ 5:20 PM, Nov 20

On scripted interactions

A compliment I often receive is “you’re totally yourself, you don’t care what other people think”. Unfortunately, it’s not true. I worry a lot about how other people perceive me. It’s a bad habit, and an embarrassing one to have carried this far into adulthood. I’ve been told not to worry about this since I was a teenager who was verbally bullied a lot, and I’ve always found the advice illogical.
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→ 6:38 PM, Nov 12

A hybrid performance of Assigned Earth at Birth is coming to London in December, as part of the TALOS V science fiction theatre festival! post.intrapology.com/news/talo…

→ 3:35 PM, Nov 11

Interview with Geeks for Social Change

Dr Kim Foale very kindly invited me to do an interview for the Geeks for Social Change blog about digital archiving. It felt so validating to take a moment to reflect on one specific thread of my career, particularly one that connects to the museums side that goes all the way back to my undergrad year abroad experience. This interview was prompted by my two upcoming workshops with Raju Rage’s Desperate Livin project, on 22nd November online and 2nd December at Studio Voltaire in London.
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→ 5:39 PM, Nov 10

Trans-Digital-Archiving: Workshop 1 with Raju Rage, XYZ Projects and Studio Voltaire

Free, booking essential Saturday 22 November 2025, 4–6 pm UK time I’ll soon be running an online workshop on digital archiving, building on the Desperate Livin project that collects grassroots resources for trans people and our supporters in a handmade indie website (see desperatelivin.com) Participants will learn how to build and share their digital skills; centre Trans health, autonomy and community-led knowledge; improve accessibility across the Desperate Livin’ website; and keep the archive socially active and sustainable.
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→ 6:22 PM, Nov 3

Some (groups of) parks, mapped with Marcelo Prates’s Prettymaps github.com/marcelopr… All using my custom preset that focuses on green spaces and leisure / culture. Do you recognise any of them? I love how each has its own characteristic shape.

→ 4:54 AM, Oct 26

I’m running some queer storygame sessions in Rotherham during October half term, about witches, skeletons, and dirt: post.intrapology.com/news/plug…

→ 6:46 PM, Oct 14

I’m still looking for 3-5 artists who I can support with grant applications this Autumn-Winter. If you face barriers to formal grant writing processes then this is free to you, as many major funders will pay for support workers. zoyander.cc/services/

→ 1:27 PM, Oct 13

For artists doing projects in England - Arts Council Project Grants is now open for grants up to £100k. If you face access barriers that impact your ability to apply, I’d love to help: zoyander.cc/services/

→ 5:20 PM, Oct 6

Dodgy Derek's poisoned pond (a story about creative fields)

Here’s something that connects a lot of the moral injury and just awkward conversations that I have as a digital artist in the 2020s: A concept, tool, or field of enquiry was once a broad possibility space, explored by folks with lots of different perspectives and interests. A big pond that you can swim around in around fairly freely, without feeling a strong pull in one direction or another. Some currents lead you closer to capital, some lead you further away.
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→ 2:07 PM, Sep 30

On the question "Does Sheffield have an indie games scene?"

This article in Now Then Magazine is at its heart a lovely profile of three local game developers: one small work for hire boutique, and two artgame devs making the sort of thing that’s very close to my heart. Indeed, it’s the kind of thing I constantly have to explain even to people who consider themselves gamers: Maisha Wester’s Coded Black, co-written by Desiree Reynolds, is a walking simulator about anti-Blackness in the US and UK; and Benjamilian Swithen’s Trans Theft Horso is an adventure game about gender gladness.
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→ 8:00 AM, Sep 17

I’d like to support between 3 and 5 artists to write grant applications between now and December. Disabled and neurodivergent artists may be eligible for FREE support. You can request my help with Arts Council England Project Grants, which reopens this month: zoyander.cc/services/

→ 6:07 PM, Sep 1

Flags

I read an article on CNN that was like “it’s normal to see our national flag here in the US, but in the UK it’s controversial”. This was sort of true in the 2010s, for a certain value of “normal”. In my time in California in the mid-2010s I always knew I’d wandered too far from the Bart station when I started seeing flags. When you get too far from a dense population centre, the settlement quickly starts to lose its coherence and has to loudly assert its own existence.
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→ 6:25 PM, Aug 30

Map of regions supported by the UK government’s Department for Culture Media and Sports (DCMS) Create Growth programme. A frustrating time to be running a creative business in South Yorkshire.

→ 12:48 PM, Aug 14

Absolutely love being able to create a custom interface for every performance. This is one of those joys of creativity online that every artist should get to experience. I hope if we get to keep making the show we’ll be able to keep raising the bar on our digital set design. Intrapology.com

→ 2:13 PM, Jul 15