Bespoke videogame controllers 

Bespoke videogame controllers

Phoenix Perry 
Sunday 29th May, 09:15

This talk investigates the creation of bespoke alternative controller (alt ctrl) games in the alt ctrl game community, arguing that bespoke controllers made for small audiences at exhibitions and performances can be understood as examples of a critical, feminist praxis and an approach to interface design that creates new audiences, experiences, and circuits of expression. It will begin with a discussion of feminist praxis and its critical relationship with ableist approaches to interface design that produce gaming peripherals for mass markets. Then it situates the authors experiences and work in the in the alt ctrl community at the intersection of feminist praxis, mass manufacturing and craft epistemologies, and the coming together of a variegated, multidisciplinary set of artists interested in applying hardware, software design, play, and user experience skills to the production of handmade cultural objects. Finally, it uses the authors experiences in the alt ctrl community to insist that bespoke controllers can provide a starting point for thinking about the roles that handmade cultural objects can play.