<div>Hi everybody,</div>
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<div>my name is Matteo Bittanti and I have been following the various debates on the iDC list for a while now. Food for thought, hungry minds.</div>
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<div>my main interest is digital gaming - Trebor invited me to poke you guys in the eye with a sharp stick - that is, to create havoc and share ideas around videogames</div>
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<div>First, some background info on what I do.</div>
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<div>My research focuses on the cultural, social, and theoretical aspects of emerging technology, with an emphasis on the interrelations of popular culture, visual culture, and the arts. Primary interest is the social and cultural impact of videogames. I have been investigating the intersections between cinema and videogames, the ideology of gaming, specific genres (
e.g. the god game, the FPS) etc. (<a href="http://www.mattscape.com/publications.html">more details here</a>)</div>
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<div>Ok, enough with the 'official spiel'. </div>
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<div>These are some of things I'm currently working on:</div>
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<div>- Ongoing collaboration with the <a href="http://shl.stanford.edu/">Stanford Humanities Lab</a> at Stanford University on various projects, including "<a href="http://shl.stanford.edu/research/how_they_got_game.html">
How They Got Game</a>" and the "D<a href="http://www.videoludica.com/news.php?news=568">igital Game Canon</a>"</div>
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<div>- Ethnographic research on gamers at the University of California, Berkeley as part of a project called <a href="http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/">Digital Youth Research</a></div>
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<div>I recently wrote a short piece on the so-called "Angry Gamers", the hooligans of gaming. <a href="http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/node/83">You can read it here</a>.</div></blockquote>
<div>- Editing a website called <a href="http://www.videoludica.com">videoludica</a> - the "official voice" of a series of books on gaming that I've <a href="http://www.videoludica.com/catalogue.php">been writing/translating/publishing
</a>for the last five years</div>
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<div>This might be interesting for the list - <a href="http://www.videoludica.com/news.php?news=639">a work-in-progress article on the recent virtual vs. real spaces querelle</a></div></blockquote>
<div>- Studying the intersection between the art world and the game world. <a href="http://www.gamescenes.org/">This book</a> that I wrote with my friend <a href="http://www.domenicoquaranta.net/">Domenico Quaranta</a>, is the first of a series of studies on Game Art. Here are a few additional examples of what I mean by Game Art intersections.
<a href="http://www.videoludica.com/news.php?news=412">Aram Bartholl</a> - <a href="http://www.videoludica.com/news.php?news=475">Damiano Colacito</a>.</div>
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<div dir="ltr">To make a long story short, I have no idea if any of this is relevant to your research. </div>
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<div dir="ltr">If so, I'd be happy to lead a conversation on everything you wanted to know about digital gaming but never dared to ask. Is there anything in particular that you'd like to discuss? Feel free to shoot - let's play!
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<div dir="ltr">cheers,</div>
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<div dir="ltr">matteo </div>
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