and overhearing people walking by saying that “Swinburne students always make cool stuff” really reminded me why we do it!

It’s been a challenging semester for many reasons, and much like students I’m feeling the burn, but seeing their smiles and pride in their eyes, witnessing parents (some of whom I’m sure were sceptical about their choice of study) show up to support and play their game congratulate them,

I will also be at Freeplay: Parallels 2025 tonight, catching up with friends, listening to some interesting talks by independent devs, and checking out what look like some awesome games coming out soon!

They have worked super hard on some incredible games, and their effort and quality of their output make me proud to be one of their teachers. If you're going to be at PAX you should definitely come check them out.

In the specific, I analyse the case of 'Before Your Eyes', a brilliant game that through its clever UI featuring eye-tracking technology, operationalises Heideggerian notions of finitude, authenticity, fallness and 'the moment of vision' (der Augenblick).

The article (available here link.springer.com/article/10.1...) is titled 'Death as Design: video games and the framing of finitude'. I take a look at video games as a type of 'death-tech' with a capacity to reframe our understanding of death and finitude through their formal features.

Thanks to the editors Philippe Bédard, Alanna Thain and Carl Therrien.

I feel very honoured and humbled as this would have not been possible without the help of my supervisors, review panelists, examiners and other fellow scholars.

The next objective is the book proposal!

I'm not completely sure if it's a 'mission accomplished', but even if it is not, I think it is important to seriously engage with thinkers beyond the Western canon if we are to remain true to the posthuman ethos - I think I achieved that much at least. journals.tplondon.com/jp/article/v...

The solution I propose is to move from ontology to meontology. I look at the protophenomenological and Zen-influenced writings of Kyoto School thinker Nishida Kitaro, and his theories of place of absolute nothingness, pure experience and action-intuition.

move beyond the human. My contention is that by deploying approaches such as assemblage theory, actor-network theory, object-oriented ontology, alien phenomenology, and perhaps even agential realism, posthumanist game scholars do not really move beyond Cartesianism and object logic.