Papers by James Ash
Nonrepresentational Methodologies: Reenvisioning Research (Routledge Publishing, London), 2015
How might we approach the non-representational background of thought and life? One claim that is ... more How might we approach the non-representational background of thought and life? One claim that is shared across non-representational theories is that the background matters: there exist a series of affective, embodied, conditions for representational acts and practices. The background is not an inert, natural, backdrop but a collectively lived and shaped condition. How, then, to research these conditions that shape, without determining, representational life? And how might we learn to focus on the problems that researching such conditions poses to social analysis? In this chapter we address these questions by way of reflections on the methodological challenges of researching one such collective condition: affective atmospheres.
Methodologies of Embodiment: Inscribing Bodies in Qualitative Research (Routledge Publishing, London)., 2015
Studio Studies: Operations, Topologies & Displacements (Taylor and Francis Publishing, London), 2015
This chapter develops Peter Sloterdijk’s account of spheres to theorise studio spaces. Specifical... more This chapter develops Peter Sloterdijk’s account of spheres to theorise studio spaces. Specifically it argues that studio spaces should not be understood as geometric containers in which action takes place. Instead the chapter considers space as a series of co-existent spheres and affective atmospheres that shape the possibilities for action of those that work in studio settings. To make these claims, the chapter examines an ethnographic case study of a video game design studio creating a First Person Shooting Game. The chapter suggests that re-thinking space atmospherically has important implications for studying studios as sites of creative production.
Emotion, Space and Society, 2014
This paper links debates around technology, materiality and affect to generate a theory of inorga... more This paper links debates around technology, materiality and affect to generate a theory of inorganically organised objects and affects. Drawing upon the work of Felix Guattari, Gilbert Simondon and Bernard Stiegler, the paper suggests that technical objects can be understood as assemblages of matter, which are
organised by material thresholds that shape their capacity to affect. The paper then argues that technical affects are transmitted via material mediums such as air that it terms associated milieus. To understand the affective capacities of technology, one should understand how technologies reorganise and draw upon associated milieus’ to generate affect and how the material thresholds of objects shape what these affects are. Developing a number of examples, the paper shows how inorganically organised affect reorganise the body and corporeally affects capacities to act and respond to the world. In conclusion the paper suggests an account of affect that focuses on objects has methodological implications for social scientists interested in studying technical processes and environments.
The Ashgate Research Companion to Media Geographies (Ashgate Publishing, London), 2014
Body and Society, 2013
This paper analyses the skills and knowledges involved in multiplayer first person shooting games... more This paper analyses the skills and knowledges involved in multiplayer first person shooting games, specifically Call of Duty 4 for the Xbox 360 games console. In doing so, it argues that the environments of first person shooting games are designed to be intense spaces that produce captivated subjects - users who play attentively for long periods of time. Developing Heidegger’s concept of attunement and Stiegler’s account of retention, the paper unpacks the somatic and sensory skills involved in videogame play and discusses how videogame environments cultivate a sense of captivation. In conclusion the paper reflects on the politics of captivation for the bodies that engage with these games through the idea of vulnerability as an ‘opening of the bodies capacity for sense’.
Theory, Culture and Society, 2012
This paper examines the industrial art of videogame design and production as an exemplar of what ... more This paper examines the industrial art of videogame design and production as an exemplar of what could be termed affective design. In doing so, the paper theorises the relationship between affect, and attention as part of what Bernard Stiegler calls a ‘retentional economy’ of human and technical memory. Through the examination of a range of different videogames, the paper argues that videogame designers utilize techniques of what I term ‘affective amplification’ that seek to modulate affect, which is
central to the commercial success of these games. The paper considers how the concepts of amplification, modulation and bandwidth, developed through this example, inform and
expand understandings of this retentional economy by analysing the ways in which affective design attempts to transmit and translate the potential for affect through a range of technical systems and environments.
Environment and Planning A, 2012
This paper develops the concept of technicity to think through how technology shapes spatio-tempo... more This paper develops the concept of technicity to think through how technology shapes spatio-temporal perception. It applies this concept of technicity to the development of skilled play in the fighting videogame, Street Fighter IV. Drawing upon a larger research project consisting of participant observation, interviews and video ethnography with professional and nonprofessional competitive players, the paper develops an in-depth analysis of how information about the animation system for the game is compiled and used to develop new sensitivities to time. In doing so, the paper argues that this is one example of the ways in which a variety of technologies shape users capacities to sense space and time through the habitual development of skill.
Geography Compass, 2011
While videogames have been a popular form of entertainment practice for a number of decades it is... more While videogames have been a popular form of entertainment practice for a number of decades it is only recently that they have been paid much attention by academics. Although there is a burgeoning body of scholarship that deals with videogames in new media and games studies, human geography is only just beginning to offer its own take on the medium and the practices associated with it. This essay outlines ways in which scholars (both within geography and beyond) have traced out the geographies in videogames (in terms of the representations and politics within videogames), the geographies of videogames (in terms of the production and consumption of videogames) and videogames as a cultural geographical practice (in terms of the technocultural practices through which videogames and videogamers are produced). We argue that approaching videogaming as a (techno)cultural practice can enrich the cultural geographies in and of videogames.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2010
In this paper I develop the concept of ‘teleplastic technologies’—technologies which pre-shape th... more In this paper I develop the concept of ‘teleplastic technologies’—technologies which pre-shape the potentials and possibilities for human action, movement and sense—through the example of videogaming. I develop a case study of videogame users through which I unpack the characteristics of teleplastic technologies and the ways in which they operate to reorganise the capacities and capabilities of users’ bodies through spatial means. In the first section I argue that teleplastic technologies should be understood from a spatial / ethological perspective and show how ethologically limited videogame environments encourage users to act and move without thinking in response to various inhibitors and disinhibitors designed into that environment. In the second section I show how the somatic techniques users develop in response to these worlds reorganise the cardinal orientation of users’ bodies and, thus, how the ‘geography’ of teleplastic technologies shape the potential and possibilities for spatial sense.
Environment and Planning A, 2009
In this paper I develop a nonrepresentational spatiality of screened images, in which space does ... more In this paper I develop a nonrepresentational spatiality of screened images, in which space does not refer to the way space is represented in images or the spaces in which images exist. Instead it focuses on the spaces that images themselves produce. Drawing upon the technology of the screen as a contemporary site at which images are experienced, I argue for a dual conception of the ‘space’ of screened images: an existential space constructed through the background context of a user’s relation with an image; and an ecological space constructed through the expressive relationship between body and screen. I use video games as an exemplar of these spaces to show how screened images reconfigure the relationship between touch and vision and how this alters users’ spatial awareness of the world.
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2010
This paper examines the process of designing and testing multiplayer levels for a large, commerci... more This paper examines the process of designing and testing multiplayer levels for a large, commercially released videogame. In doing so, it argues that videogame designers work to create the potential for positively affective encounters to occur—a complex and elusive outcome that is key to creating critically and commercially successful multiplayer videogames. By unpacking various examples from this process, the paper attends to debates regarding the distribution and transmission of media affects. Instead of acting to deterministically shape action, I suggest that processes of videogame design are predicated on producing contingency, albeit a contingency that designers attempt to manage and control. In this case, positively affective outcomes can only be understood as a relation between the code space of the game and the embodied techniques users generate in response to these environments.
Area, 2009
In this article we attend to an emergent practice of visualising GIS data in physical geography u... more In this article we attend to an emergent practice of visualising GIS data in physical geography using the graphics engine of a videogame, Crysis. We suggest these modes of image-making aid the possibility of imagining and disseminating complex geographical data differently by re-contextualising seemingly abstract mathematical information within a human horizon of embodied meaning. Furthermore we argue these ways of imagining are closely linked to the technology and phenomenology of screens which make the presentation of these images possible. We close by reflecting on the possibility that these technologies are shifting the grounds of vision and the geographical imagination of users
Software, big data, smart cities by James Ash
In this paper, we examine the relationship between the digital and geography. Our analysis provid... more In this paper, we examine the relationship between the digital and geography. Our analysis provides an overview of the rich scholarship that has examined: (1) geographies of the digital, (2) geographies produced by the digital, and (3) geographies produced through the digital. Using this material we reflect on two questions: has there been a digital turn in geography? and, would it be productive to delimit 'digital geography' as a field of study within the discipline, as has recently occurred with the attempt to establish 'digital anthropology' and 'digital sociology'? We argue that while there has been a digital turn across geographical sub-disciplines, the digital is now so pervasive in mediating the production of space and in producing geographic knowledge that it makes little sense to delimit digital geography as a distinct field. Instead, we believe it is more productive to think about how the digital reshapes many geographies.
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Papers by James Ash
organised by material thresholds that shape their capacity to affect. The paper then argues that technical affects are transmitted via material mediums such as air that it terms associated milieus. To understand the affective capacities of technology, one should understand how technologies reorganise and draw upon associated milieus’ to generate affect and how the material thresholds of objects shape what these affects are. Developing a number of examples, the paper shows how inorganically organised affect reorganise the body and corporeally affects capacities to act and respond to the world. In conclusion the paper suggests an account of affect that focuses on objects has methodological implications for social scientists interested in studying technical processes and environments.
central to the commercial success of these games. The paper considers how the concepts of amplification, modulation and bandwidth, developed through this example, inform and
expand understandings of this retentional economy by analysing the ways in which affective design attempts to transmit and translate the potential for affect through a range of technical systems and environments.
Software, big data, smart cities by James Ash
organised by material thresholds that shape their capacity to affect. The paper then argues that technical affects are transmitted via material mediums such as air that it terms associated milieus. To understand the affective capacities of technology, one should understand how technologies reorganise and draw upon associated milieus’ to generate affect and how the material thresholds of objects shape what these affects are. Developing a number of examples, the paper shows how inorganically organised affect reorganise the body and corporeally affects capacities to act and respond to the world. In conclusion the paper suggests an account of affect that focuses on objects has methodological implications for social scientists interested in studying technical processes and environments.
central to the commercial success of these games. The paper considers how the concepts of amplification, modulation and bandwidth, developed through this example, inform and
expand understandings of this retentional economy by analysing the ways in which affective design attempts to transmit and translate the potential for affect through a range of technical systems and environments.