Trans tissue: If Found…’s (2020) dehiscence, liminality and decreation

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract / Description of output

Bo Ruberg has recently argued that trans game studies time has come (2022:205), a disciplinary direction both related and distinct to queer theory approaches (Keegan 2018). This abstract outlines planned work employing Trans Studies and phenomenological contributions of visual and autoethnographic analyses concerning ludic trans embodiment to this emerging sub-field (Gallagher, 2020; Lawrence, 2018; Kosciesza, 2022). I argue If Found… (DREAMFEEL, 2020) presents an effective case study complicating assumed relationships of body to being, game space and temporality through an embrace of liminality, tactility and ambivalent affects. This visual narrative is one of few mainstream games that centre a trans character1, Kasio, and is played predominantly by erasing visual novel scenes with mouse or touch screen. Players eroding layers enact trans 'decreation' Lau (2018), in which the self is creatively destroyed and remade in contrast to tragic social erasures (Namaste 2000). Here the story progresses chronologically, but visually and haptically we dissolve our traces, wiping tableaus illustrating protagonist memories in a transing of comics’ form. Instead of filmic cuts, or the ‘gutter’ space between panels McCleod sees as core to comics’ affordances (1994), players rub and peel “audio-visual-haptically” (Keogh, 2018) through a laminate tissue of images. Eventually we discover this self-annihilation is an act of survival, our character burning their journal to stay warm when ostracised.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationDiGRA 2023- Proceedings of the 2023 DiGRA International Conference – Limits and Margins of Games
PublisherDiGRA
Pages1-4
Number of pages4
Publication statusPublished - 11 Nov 2023

Publication series

NameDiGRA
ISSN (Electronic)2342-9666

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • Trans Game Studies
  • Trans Studies
  • transness
  • decreation
  • phenomenology

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