Use with Joystick Controller: The Stuff of Videogame History

Raiford Guins' lecture, "Use With Joystick Controllers: The Stuff of Videogame History," examines the material and ephemeral forms of videogame history: arcade cabinets, home consoles, game cartridges, and packaging. Some of these artifacts will be on display as a multimedia installation the night of the lecture at Watermill. Guins' lecture explores contemporary emulation software that preserves video game code, allowing for online play of "classic" or "retro" games, but also asks, what happens when we look away from the screen? What artifacts remain and how are they accounted for in videogame history? "Use With Joystick Controllers" investigates the history of gaming as a material history embodied by vast amounts of stuff.

Raiford Guins is an author, scholar, and assistant professor of digital cultural studies at SUNY Stony Brook and editor of The Journal of Visual Culture. This event is co-sponsored by the Humanities Institute of Stony Brook and funded by the Suffolk County Office of Film and Cultural Affairs.