Glitch as a Trans Representational Mode

“Glitch as a Trans Representational Mode.” Media-N. Special Issue: Trans New Media Art as Embodied Practice. Eds. Ace Lehner and Chelsea Thompto. Forthcoming 2024.

Abstract: Following recent work by transgender studies scholars that has questioned the relationship between queer theory and trans studies, this essay considers how glitch video games, which have previously been considered to be part of the “queer games movement,” use glitch as a way of representing transgender life. I survey three glitch games, Problem Attic (2013, Liz Ryerson), Strawberry Cubes (2015, Loren Schmidt), and Anatomy (2016, Kitty Horrorshow)—each of which uses glitch as an expressive visual aesthetic, remediating the analog artifacts of signal noise or error as a sonic and visual quality, as well as a game design principle. These games place an emphasis on the body as that which glitches, exploring the bad feelings of trans embodiment, including dissociation and dysphoria, as well as demonstrating how the glitched body can be both desired and transformative. In the final section, this essay considers how transgender artists and the ways their work foregrounds glitch as an operation of the body are integral not only to glitch art history, but also to video game development more widely, exploring the influence of glitch aesthetics and game design in Pony Island (2016), a video game by cisgender designer Daniel Mullins.

Prosthetic Performance

“Prosthetic Performance.” Reading Contemporary Performance: Theatricality Across Genres. Eds. Meiling Cheng and Gabrielle Cody. Routledge, 2015, pp. 154-6.

About: Written as a short entry for Reading Contemporary Performance: Theatricality Across Genres (eds. Meiling Cheng and Gabrielle Cody), this essay explores the use of literal prostheses in performance to the more figurative use of media as prostheses.

Other Publications 

Obvious Agency and Creative Cooperative Futures,” Co-authored with Daniel Park. HowlRound. 15 March 2020.

About: A short essay on the cooperative business model in the performing arts.

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OLD STUFF BELOW – INCLUDE?

Peer-Reviewed Essays 

2016 Çakir, N., Gass, A., Foster, A., Lee, F. “Designing her way into computer science: Empowering young girls through identity exploration.” European Conference of Educational Researchers. Conference Proceedings.  August 25, 2016. 

Book Chapters 

2015 “Prosthetic Performance.” Reading Contemporary Performance: Theatricality Across Genres. Eds. Meiling Cheng and Gabrielle Cody. Routledge, 2015, pp. 154-6. Written as a short entry for Reading Contemporary Performance: Theatricality Across Genres (eds. Meiling Cheng and Gabrielle Cody), this essay explores the use of literal prostheses in performance to the more figurative use of media as prostheses. For the full essay, click here.

Book Reviews 

2023 “Knotting Postdigital Performance.” Performance Research. 28:1, pp 124-5.  

2020 “Book Review: Aubrey Anable. Playing with Feelings: Videogames and Affect.” Critical Inquiry 46, no. 2 (Winter 2020): 455–56. 

Press and Performance Reviews  

2020 “Sadness in the Mainframe,” ThinkingDance.  

2018 “The Citizen Recommends: Barnes Jaw(n)ts,” The Philadelphia Citizen.