how one hour in the skinner box healed me

Last week, a close friend invited me to spend one hour in their DIY Skinner Box. Two beers deep and with a readiness to do anything for the bit, I humbly obliged.

Affectionately termed the "baby tender," what we have here, folks, is a miracle of mid-century optimism. Cleanly, comfy, and cozy: all of the things I desperately need but have no will to manage myself. The soft hum of the box is not unlike your typical noise machine, screening out the dulcet tones of the brassy urban sprawl. Likewise, the integrated air purifier is doubtless superior to the clunky portable one that sits in my bedroom corner: an intrusion in my life!

The temperature control is also soothing. When enveloped by the box, I am not compelled to pretend that my rearing in the harsh Canadian winter and late December birthday signify I am built for this weather. Even my father's metallic roar - don't touch the fucking thermostat! - a distant memory. With all of my basic needs met, I am charged with a newfound appreciation for the world around me. No longer moving through the world with blinders on, a stranger to myself and others, I feel more a part of things than ever. If you asked me, I could rest my hand exactly where I feel this receptivity on my body. My brain and body are synchronizing again. The "I" and its chauffeur, the seemingly ignoble flesh suit, exist in sudden recognition. After I left the Skinner box, friends and colleagues commented on my attentiveness and unusual vigor.

Damn, she really did lock in just as she said she would, one remarked with astonishment.

To be clear: I am not endorsing some extreme overcorrection to the inconveniences and discomforts of life from whence - if some wellness experts had anything to say - one may never return. I repeat: this is neither a militant appeal nor an excuse to cut out all the background noise, including and especially people. In fact, I forbid any abuse of my darling tender machine in this way. It is neither meant to automate or to use in lieu of affection proper. Rather, it is but one example of what is sometimes referred to as a transitional infrastructure. The primary function of transitional infrastructures is to loosen the (often unbearable) weight of the world, while - and this bit is essential - holding onto living. To float in this mechanized fishtank is to avoid drowning in the vaporous ordinariness of life.

But before you judge me, let me remind you that life is always-already mediated by a host of invisible, impersonal, and mechanized technologies. To make matters worse: few assume, by design, that you are worth sustaining. The horror! The horror! We are all structurally subordinated. So, yeah, one hour in the Skinner box "healed me," or whatever. It wasn't an escape from life so much as a rehearsal for staying in it. It reminded me what it feels like to be held by something that works. The function itself felt like affection, its quiet machinery of care clicking into place around me.

Not coddled, loved, or indulged, but sustained.

In the absence of the box of my very own, I have been trying to cobble together other DIY infrastructures of care - intentional practices and gestures that hum with borrowed purpose. To broker my obsessive doomscrolling on Facebook Marketplace - and my habit of regularly withdrawing from my social orbit - I have taken to sharing strange objects and ephemera that I come across. This has had the hilarious consequence of influencing my algorithm such that I seldom see anything I myself want anymore. An asparagus trivet for Zo. A framed picture of the beloved character, Pingu, for J. A 3-foot pair of miniature knights for Kate, a fellow medieval aesthete, with the message: you and me. These are my tiny experiments to buffer connection when I lose the plot. No futile attempt at transcendence, just some daily maintenance for the extended meanwhile...

DISCLAIMER: for those who tend towards claustrophobia, the box is simply not for you. However, there are many other transitional infrastructures that would be as effective. This is but one.

thoughts on ghost

Loosely set during the 1274 Mongol invasion of Japan, Ghost of Tsushima (2020) follows Jin Sakai, a samurai faced with an ongoing ethical and personal dilemma: uphold Bushido (samurai code), which has proven ineffective against the Mongol forces and their ignoble warfare tactics, or redeploy these guerilla tactics (e.g. stealth combat, explosives) in the service of defending his ancestral homeland. While praised for its vivid cinematic cutscenes, dynamic gameplay and elegant movesets, the game raises important issues related to identity and representation in the context of postcolonial theory. Drawing from Mukherjee's (2018) analysis of neoliberal logics in video games, Nakamura's (2002) critique of identity tourism, and LaPensee, Laiti, and Longboat's (2022) notion of Indigenous sovereignty, I trace how the game interpellates players within a specific ideological framework that at once reinforces and subverts hegemonic power relations. While Jin's gradual transformation into the vigilante hero the "Ghost" marks a ostensibly necessary departure from dogged tradition, this shift cannot be considered in isolation from the game's underpinning, ideologically value-laden mechanics. As Mukherjee (2018) explains, video games and neoliberalism often intersect productively through their shared discourses around choice and agency; while premised upon these virtues, however, both operate within a circumscribed set of procedural rules or predefined values, respectively. The character of Jin exemplifies this tension between prescribed roles and individual agency via his rigid individualism, adaptability, and autarky. Moreover, success in the game is framed not through collective organizing but through the player's mastery of 'choice-based' mechanics and 'optimal' play styles that align with the game's internal economy of power and advancement.

Jin's choice to embrace the Ghost persona or uphold bushido have no actual bearing on the overall narrative trajectory, offering only the illusion of self-determination. This framework recapitulates how ideologically charged words like choice, freedom, and agency can work to obscure systemic nuance and critique (Mukherjee, 2018). We can illustrate this point further by examining how the ideological and cultural dimensions of the game intersect. As previously noted, the game constructs a fantastical reimagining of feudal Japan for a Westernized audience. While the developers worked with Japanese consultants, Sucker Punch Productions is culturally and geographically situated in the U.S., thereby catering primarily to American stakeholders. Even the traditional influences of the game, of which the developers cite inspiration from eminent Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, neglect how the director himself was deeply influenced by Western cinematic tradition and culture. This problem is further articulated by Nakamura (2002) with respect to their concept identity tourism, where players temporarily inhabit an exoticized cultural avatar, without engaging with its sociohistorical complexities or ethical implications. Indeed, digital identities and cartographies in video games do not exist outside of western hegemonic structures, but rather, function to regulate cultural norms that prop up the status quo. While players are encouraged to immerse themselves in an idealized past, this past is filtered through the interpretive sieve of the western gaming industry. It is from this vantage point that LaPensee and colleagues (2022) argue how games like Ghost of Tsushima both reaffirm the colonial gaze and align with the selective affordances of sovereignty, which privilege some historical narratives and perspectives as valuable and thus worthy of a broader cultural platform.

But sovereignty ought not be contingent upon neoliberal configurations of individual autonomy, but extend beyond this to encompass collective and relational notions of self-determination. Although Ghost of Tsushima may imitate aspects of political resistance and struggle, this narrative is framed by a distinctly westernized concept of heroism, sharing a common lineage with roguish cowboys, disgraced knights, and their internal moral compasses. Indeed, even liberation is rendered commodified in the game, casting into sharp relief Mukherjee's (2018) critique of how game mechanics often reduce subaltern identities to skill points that can be harvested for individual gain. This further reinforces a hegemonic understanding of agency, wherein the oppressed villagers exist primarily as narrative instruments rather than as sovereign subjects in their own right. To push beyond these limitations, developers must critically engage with historical narratives in ways that decenter the colonial gaze and amplify the perspectives from which their extractive cultural and aesthetic appreciations are derived from. This cannot be restricted to a 'consulting' capacity, but as co-creators with a full range of self-expression.

is it that deep, bro? yea bro, it is

At face value, Is It That Deep, Bro? is a simple story about a teenage boy going to the cinema with his friend. The boys are at a screening of Dallas Divide'll, a queer, modern western that bears striking likeness to Brokeback Mountain. The theatre is empty which, much to the chagrin of the main character, enables a strong juxtaposition between the interactions between the boys and what is happening on screen. While you are only prompted with a few dialogue options across the entirety of the game (i.e. five minutes), these are of great consequence to how the narrative unfolds between the boys. These options relate to your framing of the film (e.g. do you vocalize that you are weirded out by the queer romance budding between the two main characters, Buck and Randall? Do you approach the love scene with the austere rigour of a cinephile, or personal curiosity?), in addition to your willingness to 'make a move' on your friend (e.g. sharing the armrest vs. retracting your arm away; sneaking a cheeky glance at your friend by tapping the left arrow key vs. averting your gaze and locking onto the screen by tapping the right key). Based on these decisions, you are afforded a few different endings; as the two boys exit the theatre 1) nothing explicitly romantic happens, but you leave feeling reflective and open to the idea of it, 2) there is some wholesome flirtation, suggesting the possibility of a future romance, or 3) nothing happens (aha, guess it's not that deep after all, bro).

Foucault wrote "a work of art opens a void, a moment of silence, a questions without an answer, provokes a breach without reconciliation where the world is forced to question itself" (p. 1). That is exactly what this game does. There is no win condition, only multiple hypotheticals that do little to reassure the player of the outcome(s). Indeed, what I liked most about the game was that it sought to capture a genre of intimacy that is difficult to express outside of the context of the interaction. So much happens between these two characters and yet, it is difficult to put something so affectively-charged into words (from the main protagonist's perspective, of course, as I clearly have much to say!). While the story is queer, this doesn’t curtail its relatability. Anyone who has experienced attraction for someone can relate to those early, phantasmatic exchanges. Was I reading into that too much? Did they really look at me that way? Speaking of reading too much into things… I'm not sure if the developers did this intentionally or not, but the staring/avert gaze bit seems purposefully protracted/clunky; at one point, I thought the game might be bugged as it didn't progress as quickly as I had anticipated. Although it was mildly irritating at the time, there is something compelling about it in retrospect. That is, I wonder if the messiness of this part sought to mirror the clumsiness that is so characteristic of young love/teenage romance. Did I stare for too long? Ugh, that was so awkward! Bracketing the broad relatability piece, however, there is a clear activist tenor to the game with respect to its focus on queer intimacy between men/boys. While the game is awkward and tense at times, for all the reasons I've described, there is also a unique levity to the story. This brought to mind Flanagan's (2009) remark that "too often social challenges are presented in overwhelming or depressing ways", and that "... play occurs only when players feel comfortable" (261). Depictions of intimacy between men/boys are too often peppered with a heaviness, be it physical violence or its looming threat, but this didn't come up during any of the playthroughs - even when you opt not to engage your friend romantically! I seldom know how to conclude these ramblings but, simply put, we need more games like this one!

history qua games

How do video games promote historical engagement? The paranoiac historian would scoff at entertaining such a notion, contending that any excavation of the past - a fool's errand!? - is a task best suited to paper. This penchant for the written word is a core tenet of Western philosophical thought, where early thinkers like Plato sought to minimize the gap between thought and articulation. Notwithstanding this, Plato also held deep suspicions about the written word, to which he resigned himself as a necessary evil to represent and convey thought (Sousanis, 2015, p. 54). While mainstream culture today is hardly iconoclastic in orientation (indeed, it has a distinctly philos-eikon sensibility), in terms of academic and professional prose, the image remains a court painter, condemned to the ostensibly unserious (vs. disciplined prose) realm of spectacle and aesthetics. Extending this logic to video games, it is no surprise that staunch pencil pushers harbor a legion of misgivings, generally organized around appeals to the risk of historical inaccuracies. Framed in these terms, certain games are judged as dishonest and deceptive, rewriting history via their simplistic, inaccurate representations of historical events and figures. But are video games actually advancing false historical narratives as 'truth'? What specific games make claims to epistemic authority with respect to their conceptual or realistic simulations of historical elements? Are these lines of argument premised upon, I daresay, a Grand Theft fallacy? From this vantage point, we can better appreciate the ways in which video games are unduly singled out and critiqued while other cultural activities - e.g., historical reenactments, museums, heritage sites, books, television shows, and film - go unchecked. These mediums, by contrast, do make truth claims in their representations of the past.

To take this argument a step further, beyond mere exoneration of video games from historical critique - I would argue that video games actually do teach us something about history. I am not speaking about factual accuracies, but rather historical contingencies. Games like Sid Meier's Civilization V, for example, do not attempt to describe in painstaking detail the rise and fall of empires. Instead, the game mechanics introduce players to ideological concepts (e.g., colonialist expansion, democracy, diplomacy) via a series of interconnected choices and (often inadvertent) consequences. This goes beyond an episodic retelling of a historical event - and indeed, the reductive understanding of history as a series of events - facilitating a more emergent, dynamic systems view of historical change. From a systems approach, the past is framed as a rhizomatic, nonlinear web of interconnected forces, upon which the semblance of ideological cohesion is built. The act of playing through these possibilities situates video games within a broader tradition of counter-memory (Foucault, 1980) - a mode of historical engagement that seeks to disrupt dominant historical narratives. To claim that video games participate in the production of history may seem anathema to the gatekeepers of historiography. And yet, just as oral histories have preserved cultural knowledge beyond the written word, video games offer a mode of historical engagement that is dynamic, participatory, and immersive. Whether through procedural systems or counterfactual speculation, they challenge us to reconsider how history is not only told, but enacted. While video games may not teach us anything about history, they can teach us how to think historically.