DCRC - Digital Cultures Research Centre

 As ever Cultural Studies sets the agenda. Has anybody else noticed that the current BBC 'Games Brittania' series might have been written by any one of our recent graduates ? Various of us have been banging on about play, games and the ludic qualities of the everyday for quite a while now in both our teaching and our research.  The 'How do You Play ?' paper in 'publications' is an OK introduction to the field delivered originally for Michaela Reiser's 'Mindplay' conference at London Met in 2006. We're planning a conference on the Cultural History of Play for next year sometime as part of a collaboration with Cultural History colleagues. Will we be on the money or sadly passe by then ?  

At any rate Iim hoping that one of our MA students, Andy Gove, will let us upload part of his assignment last year on circuit bending that had some great material on nostalgia and old toys. It was James May that put me in mind of it. He has been running a series of shows reviving old toys on supersize scale. Tonight he ran a kind of biography of his evocative toy memories. Him being a near contemporary I just lay back and enjoyed the world of Triang and Corgi toys for an hour - its not even a smell, not a texture, or a weight and feel. The things themselves long gone but the images remind you that you do have a past, you were once a child, your body does live in time. Pass me the Hornby Double 'O'.