toy theory | microethology

ethology of AI

Posted on October 1, 2020 By sethgiddings

What are the implications of taking the animality of AI and A-Life entities as real and not metaphorical or symbolic? This question in turn…

not not animals

Posted on July 19, 2020July 19, 2020 By sethgiddings

Does it make any sense to consider virtual animals as animal in any serious way? Both the naturalistically-rendered wolves of Legend of Zelda: the…

Unbox: The speed and slowness of Lucy, Batman, Batman, Gandalf, and Dumbledore

Posted on July 2, 2020July 2, 2020 By sethgiddings

Microethology of toys-to-life (from proposal for Toy Theory book) – I’m going to build Dumbledore [sings:] Dumbledore, Dumbledore… – Technically, you’re building Gandalf…

toy-being

Posted on May 3, 2020May 4, 2020 By sethgiddings

Attention to toys as technical objects troubles the prevailing notion of technological development as driven by the identification and satisfaction of material, practical and…

an imaginary system

Posted on January 27, 2020March 6, 2020 By sethgiddings

Whilst the cultural, representational, ideological and economic assumptions that feed and are fed by imaginaries can be uncovered and subject to critique, imaginaries are…

AI and the future of play

Posted on January 9, 2020July 2, 2020 By sethgiddings

Placeholder for a position statement on my current research and teaching on the genealogy and emergent dimensions of artificial intelligence in play and technoculture.