Player's Power to Change the Game

Anne-Marie Schleiner is engaged in gaming and media culture in a variety of roles as a critic, theorist, activist, artist, and designer. She has exhibited in international galleries, museums and festivals. Documentation of her performative culture work is available on the Video Data Bank. She holds a doctorate in Cultural Analysis from the University of Amsterdam. She has taught at universities in the United States, Mexico, and Singapore, and is a Lecturer in Design at the University of California, Davis.

• Introduction: The Player's Power to Change the Game 1. The Game vs. the Player 2. Chapters Chapter 1. Lightness of Digital Doll Play 1. The KiSS Doll 2. From Dolls to Avatars 3. The Collaborative Unfolding Game 4. Ludic Mutation vs. Ludic Stasis in M.M.O.R.P.G.s 5. A Virtual Space of Appearance 6. Gender, Identity Play, and the Active Disclosure of the Who 7. Disembodied Sensual Pleasure 8. Beyond the Dollhouse Chapter 2. Modding: Cross-Over Mutation and Unwelcome Gifts 1. A Brief History of First Person Shooter Modding 2. Sandbox World-building, Interface Mods, and Expert Cheats 3. Artistic Noise in the System 4. Cross-Over Mutation of Play Material 5. Thieving Parasites 6. A Common Sphere of Gifted Games 7. Rejected Gifts Chapter 3. Activist Game Rhetoric: Clockwork Worlds, Broken Toys, and Harrowing Missions 1. The Toy World System 2. Overseers of Toy World Operations 3. The Ordinariness of Interactive Toy World Equipment 4. Player vs. Game 5. Harrowing Missions of Refugees 6. Broken Toys and the No Play Imperative Chapter 4. City as Military Playground: Contested Urban Terrain 1. Military Playgrounds 2. Military Theories of Urban Occupation 3. From Deadly Play to Administrators of Life 4. The Artist's Intervention as Situationist Game 5. Hacking the City 6. Contesting the Terrain 7. Funny Resistance 8. Points of Détournement Chapter 5. Toys of Biopolis 1. Biopolitics, Apparatus, Gadget 2. The Biocontrol Society 3. Augmented Urban Reality and Paidiaic Toys 4. A Children's Biopolis Chapter 6. A Tactical Sketchbook for Ludic Mutation 1. Tactic #1: Elude 2. Tactic #2: Mutate from Within 3. Tactic #3: The Broken Toy Tactic 4. Tactic #4: Artistic Hacktivism 5. Tactic #5: Reprogrammable Toy Gadgetry Bibliography Index