report

Thomas Spies

THOMAS SPIES, JULY 2nd, 17:30

Expub is a consortium between Nero Editions (Rome), Institute for Networked Cultures (Amsterdam), Aksioma (Ljubljana), and Echo Chamber (Brussels) for a biennial of experiments on new publishing formats. The idea is to bring to light knowledge and practices developed by members over the past years in an industry, that of publishing, which continues to expand beyond the classic terms of traditional linear publishing. Through events, public programming, print and digital publications, .expub aims to create an operational model for Expanded Publishing.
[+chloe to take notes]

You are partecipating in an expert sprint -> an informal space to discuss freely about your practice and ideas

a seires of 10 interviews with experts, artists, editors to understand the whys, hows, whos, and whats of expanded publishing. That is how the interviews will be structured, allowing 10 minute for each, with a moment of open discussion. The other interviewees are Clusterduck, Silvio Lorusso, [Thomas Spies], Irene de Craen, Geoff Cox, Open Source Publishing, Yancey Strickler, Kenny Goldsmith, Dušan Barok, Caroline Busta.

We are recording this with plans of creating a hybrid report, and eventually a toolkit or publication, but mistakes silences and uncertainty are part fo the plan

Questions:

1. Why: Politics of Publishing (Mission/Theory/References/Ideals/Goals) - 10 mins

-> Transmedia, gaming as publishing -> competitor to traditional field

Introduce yourself quickly - Do you have a mission, ideal, goals that guide it?

defines as: publisher, teacher, researcher - game studies within “trauma” - also including participatory gaming

published an anthology on this “game critique” - different prespectives on capitalism and video games

If you were putting together a syllabus on publishing practices, what would be some references, theories, materials?

ranging from frankfurt school to foucault on power/resistance + post-colonial said/ subjectivity and resistance - butler

connecting acting and thinking - arts/journalism together - how can theory become practical? - improving understanding of reality and video games

How would you place video games in a media environment?

• movies are passive, games always require to be part of the experience, of playing > play as social experience

• we have always played games. now, games are within a capitalist environment: not for the play itself. and is the biggest entertainment industry now \

entratainment -> publishing as entratainment?

2. How: Infrastructures of Publishing (Tools, workflows, operations, (revenue) models for Writing, Editing, Printing, Distributing, Promoting, etc ) - 10 mins

What are the main tools you are using and which ones would you like to use more in the future?

*What does your workflow look like? - distibution model etc *

• it was clear that we needed the reflect the diversity of content in the editorial process

• authors giving a sense of what means to work together

• usually publishers are either academic or non academic, and this case it worked in this multi disciplinary way

*do you interact gaming publishers? *

• working with video game companies also means more difficult to fund in media criticism

• game design and game studies usually go separate ways

How do you ensure or work towards a sustainable practice?

• often people are overworked and struggle with deadlines - important to see people not a production part

• reasonable deadlines , talking on zooms, having conversations, working togheter on the texts, besides of course to appropriate payment

3. Who: Community of Publishing (Network, Collaborations, Readers, (sustainable) engagement) - 10 mins

*Who is your audience? How do you engage them? > How is it different form traditional publishing communities? *

collective experience of gaming/e.g. compared to book clubs

• hesitant to call himself a gamer (toxic?) - one side part of it but also critical - so that can be positive/bridging

• in panels talking about the book

*- what about the collective experieneces of gaming versus other formats? level of conextion? *

transformative power - people react to other people playing games in front of them

• audiences from different backgrounds - there are so many games from different backgrounds and angles

exploring game beyond mainstream

• we all play games somehow

What is it about watching others play? (stream) - new forms of stremaing, knowledge distribution?

• interactive publiching

• instant feedback

instant and interactive publishing - incrowd knowledge and language

• not all community is positive of course - streaming reaches a bigger community

watching someone doing a social thing - something real is going on - authenticity and reliability - what would i do/how would i play - participatory

• focus maybe not present in the moment - briging critical

In what ways do you see the role of the editor as a creator of community?

How does one capitalize on community? How do you turn social capital into capital? Is it exploitative to do so? Is community a viable business model?

4. Open Discussion - 15 mins

lorenzo: play critical, go deeper - how do you encounter this practice from artists, other practicioners? the genealofy of the play critical practice

thomas: it comes form first a more entertainement perspective - applying cirtical media studies - then reshifted his way of seeing them - also thanks to communities in cologne

https://totalrefusal.com/

photography in gaming - Matteo Bittanti

https://milanmachinimafestival.org/fotoludica-program

new ways of playing a game - looking for glitches, other options, outside of the mainstream

we can add elements of play in classical publishing - room for playful ideas/formats? create a space where everyone can get creative

not write about but with

m: building on gaming and streaming as forms of instant and interactive publishing -> how could that partecipatory aspect of gaming or streaming become part of publishing, are there any artists/writers/editors doing that?

thomas: not too experienced with dealing with other publishers - but the coming together - for events for instance - is so important

focus on the priorities and then have the product - and not abstract ideas - how can the community work together?

janez: youve been in ljublijana, presenting the book exit reality by valentina tanni

new performative way of book presentation, in the process of producing it in a let’s play, how would you define this format? who is the audience?

public viewing?

public gaming - football game? (intersting hybrid example)

a critical let’s play

difficulty in naming

not sure if fitting for different audiences

janez: promotional ? - total refusal using the game for critical discourse - do you also want to generate a new discourse? expand the publishing?

thomas: bringing the two fields together - video game culture in a broad sense of the word - expand presenting the book into a game - is it fitting in the game? maybe this connection wasnt really found in this presentation? - two worlds colliding but not melting together as a whole

https://aksioma.org/unrealdata/performances/lets-play-exit-reality/

“ingame presentation”

lorenzo: video games are new spaces for publishing - to produce and house discourses - specially multiplayer games

multiplayer games as a new space to inhabit —> squad

travis scott concert in fortnite, roblox palestine protests

https://www.huckmag.com/article/young-people-protest-roblox-online-free-palestine-censorship

tommaso: expanded publishing coming from traditional, through tools both in production and consumption, stretching it - thinking of gaming as a form of book co-reading - recently i started playing kentucky root 0 - i see it as a book , a narrative that is interactive - http://kentuckyroutezero.com/

• can you see game as publishing?

• yes definetly !

• a lot of other forms of publishing also borrow gaming logics - important to see what works and work with people that know games

-tommaso: does is make sense or transform into everything is publishing?

• total refusal is interesting - transmedial presentation of ideas

interactivenarrative

[https://www.ica.art/exhibitions/jesus-died-for-us-we-will-die-for-dudus –> gaming and art –> gaming as installation art –> activating audience]

5. What: Future of Publishing (Defining and Speculating together on Expanded publishing) - 10 mins

What are the more urgent aspects that need to be addressed in the future of publishing?

What is one aspect that already exists that needs to change and one thing that still doesn’t exist that needs to be developed?

• *

If you could have a say in how the publishing industry will expand and evolve in the future, what would you want to see more and what would you want to abandon?

• discover visions that are not there yet - new ways of thinking about video games

• find ways to make books more accessible, more public for everyone - in different ways

• not only the publisher get the text but the audience, and the feedback would be made public - opening up these loops and communities ?

beta testing in publishing –imediate and interactive