In my thesis chapter on Tangible Interface Videogames, I make the point that one of the main uses for tangible computing systems seems to be to bring computation process into board games. In this video, a table-top role playing game becomes a game-table-top role playing videogame:

Surfacescapes Demo Walkthrough from Surfacescapes on Vimeo.

Last Thursday and Friday I attended a ARC Cultural Research Network workshop called The game of being mobile: mobile technologies, gaming cultures and the haptic, organised by Larissa Hjorth and Dr Ingrid Richardson. There were some very interesting discussions, including the suggestion of a location based mobile game for domestic spaces, and also on the nature of the haptic. It was also great to get to talk to scholars like Andrew Murphie about the notion of embodiment. Hopefully these discussions will carry on and present some opportunities for further research after I’ve finished my PhD.

On that topic, my thesis has gone back to the drawing board to a degree, as my writing has drifted quite far from what was originally intended. Though this was somewhat bound to happen with my particular writing practice, I think that I took the maxim of ‘don’t be afraid to write rubbish’ a little too far, and ended up in an exploration of philosophical issues somewhat outside of my purview. Hopefully some of the stuff that I’ve written will be able to be lifted out and worked into the new structure, which orientates around the close reading of a host of games I’ve flagged as potentially interesting.

Apparently a good flu is the best way to completely derail your routine. I’ve been out of action for the last four days or so, and even today my mind’s not really firing, despite feeling like I was better this morning. Luckily I got ahead of schedule with my writing earlier last week, but looking at what i’d written this morning, its going to take some working over – i’ve lost the actual point I was trying to make.

I haven’t been too happy with some of my writing this week, maybe its because i’m in the early part of the literature review and the different points i’m trying to make are all a little tangled up at the moment. Maybe it was even just that the delayed start to the week following the easter long weekend has dulled my brain a little bit, I was finding it easier going today than the last two. In anycase there’s always editing, which I often find more enjoyable anyway.

I was emailed a CFP for IE2008 at QUT last week (go acronyms!), but they don’t seem to have a page up yet. I’m thinking about submitting a long paper again this year, which have grown to a maximum of ten pages, based on a chapter i’m planning to write on applying phenomenological methods to the study of videogames but it depends mainly on how i’m going with the thesis writing leading up to the submission date towards the end of June.