Digital Bodies: essays on materials and craft 2012-2014
I’m launching a new book today! In the essays brought together here I unpick some of the ways that materiality, skill and identity shape the labour and leisure of games. I’ve started an itch.io site to sell this and my other two books: everything is on sale for a limited time, and you can even buy all three as a discount bundle.
This book is a collection of things I’ve written for various outlets over the past few years that I am very proud of, and that I think benefit from all being in one place so that they can be read side by side. I’m always interested in the symbolic and material significance of bodies, and what it’s like to craft with imaginary materials, and it’s pleasing to see a number of articles and essays in one place that all look at those themes in different ways.
The bodies I write about are sexy and revolting, moving constantly between pride and shame. The digital materiality I work with is dazzlingly new and burdened with history, a thing of fantasy and a mirror held up to realities that were felt before they were visualised.
Itch.io has a neat thing where, when you’re running a sale, you can set a fundraising target. That feels appropriate for this project, which was spurred by urgent financial necessity. My goal is to raise $5000 from this sale, which will cover my loan repayments, taxes and rent for three months.