Framing Uncertainty: Computer Game Epistemologies (Performance Philosophy)

This book presents a compilation of articles on the subject of game studies written over the last ten years. These texts reflect a decade of research in European computer game studies from a theoretical perspective that combines philosophy, cultural studies, visual studies, and media studies in a way that is unique to a specific type of media theory developed in Germany over the last thirty years. This theory differs quite significantly from media studies as usually conceived in Anglo-American academia, providing new perspectives that are rooted in continental philosophical traditions ranging from phenomenology to post-structuralism and newer forms of “presence studies” in aesthetic theory.

The book provides (1) an introduction to a continental approach to game philosophy; (2) an aesthetic theory of computer games rooted in concepts of performativity and epistemology; and (3) an introduction to an interdisciplinary approach to game studies that is based on philosophical perspectives on the subject matter.

Markus Rautzenberg is Professor of Philosophy at Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen, Germany. Scholarships include a DFG doctoral scholarship at the graduate school “Körper-Inszenierungen” (“The Staging of the Body”), DFG postdoctoral scholarship at the International Graduate School “InterArt,” and a research fellowship at Leuphana University Lueneburg. From 2009 to 2014, he served on the research staff at the Institute for Philosophy at the Freie Universität Berlin, where he headed a DFG research project on “Evocation. Non-Visual Aspects of Iconicity.” His main fields of research include media theory, picture theory, theory and aesthetics of digital media, and epistemology. Recent publications include “Blendungen. Fotografische Selbstvergewisserung im Film,” in: Sybille Krämer, Sibylle Schmidt (Eds.): Zeugen in der Kunst, Paderborn 2016, (edited together with Juliane Schiffers) and Ungründe. Perspektiven prekärer Fundierung, Paderborn 2016.