Gaming Anyplace Anytime: Space, Time and Mobile Life among Chinese Gamers
If they can’t play, gamers are neither here nor there…
Friday 05/04 Drop in 14.00-16.00
Saturday 06/04 Drop in 12.00-16.00
Samuel Alexander Building, University of Manchester, Oxford Rd, Manchester M13 9PL
What’s the experience of gaming beyond home? Why are people increasingly drawn to it? Our mini exhibit sets you on a sensory journey into “gaming anyplace and anytime” and gamer’s lifeworld behind.
Through a collection of photos, films, and artifacts, this exhibit allows you to explore hidden stories about Chinese working adults incorporating digital gaming into the empty time and spaces that recur in their work-life. Their struggles with such emptiness and their strategies to navigate through them with gaming are revealed.
We also invite you to play some games on/with some exhibits, imagining yourself as a delivery rider who usually play while sitting on the curb of street, or as a white collar who play during work in office and cafés nearby, or as a migrant worker who tend to spend days in Internet café upon arriving in a new city. These deeply personal and resonant stories will prompt you to ponder how our hyper-modern life is saturated with relentless mobility and digital playfulness at the same time.
Yaojing Wang: PhD candidate in social anthropology at University of Edinburgh. His research explores Chinese working adults’ unsettling desire for gaming, which is shaped by digital technology and the dynamics between work and play
Chenxi Pan: Independent game designer & socio-game critic. He previously participated in organizing several lighting exhibitions in Melbourne and Chongqing as a visual designer
Karen Su: Game researcher & mobile game marketer. As a gamer, developer, and anthropology graduate, she is committed to restoring the simple joy of games and infusing them with humanistic care
