12 Years of Blogging!

Does it count when I spend two years intensively writing behind the scenes but don’t actually publish anything on this blog? Well, you could say that I’ve gathered up lots of words for this special occasion, and it feels like the right time to return to writing publicly here. Consider this post as a signpost to lead the way for the new shiny words I’m about to publish, also timed to coincide with my upcoming residency at 136 Goethe, where I hope to run lots of fun public programmes – including inviting all my IRL friends as well as virtual friends to come and play my games! (Friends and frenemies, please all come!)

How does one even begin to write an explainer for a 2 year blogging break? Well, first, I had several health mishaps, a slightly disastrious year health-wise, which I will try to document here in this blog, including having a one-in-a-million allergic reaction to the Moderna vaccine, resulting in an almost 30 day staycation at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases. I did want to file a claim for vaccine injury but was rejected although I did have a doctor willing to go on the record saying that my entire episode was caused by the Moderna vaccine.

Secondly, I did understand it was inadvisible to publish the extensive blatherings of your incomplete and ill-formed academic writing online whilst trying to write a PhD / book, so I’ve mostly kept my early writing to myself and privately spent time polishing up my writing and reading skills. I’ve thought a lot about productivity, journalling practices, the relationship between play and labour, and also, on a the practical front: co-working spaces in Singapore! Yes, I’m sorry to say I’ve actually paid people money to let me work in their big light-filled common rooms with other nomadic workers because it magically creates the conditions and the sense of peer pressure required to make me produce my best writing. Or, as a self-employed artist-scholar who has largely worked from home in recent years, I did have a curious stint of “roleplaying” being an office-worker in the CBD. So… I will share my reviews of co-working spaces in Central Singapore (primarily those near my house). (I’ve also moved my PhD and Gaming posts back into this blog (because with artmaking, small children, PhD writing, extracurricular school activities, medical issues, and a boatload of weird hobbies like amigurumi, copperplate calligraphy, gardening… I have to be realistic that I haven’t got time to keep TWO OR THREE blogs alive at the same time)

Finally, I also wanted to formally acknowledge my drift into the game studies space over the last few years. I’m still a contemporary artist at the core, but games have become a key part of what I’m professionally interested in. Somehow I’ve gone from making psychogeographical games to GAME games. I know games studies is still quite niche (and kinda non-existent in Singapore/Southeast Asia) but I’m aware that in other countries now there are university programmes teaching Game Studies in a orderly structured way like you could imagine someone devising something like a thematically/chronologically-ordered syllabi for cultural studies for undergraduates (or even postgraduate study). I suppose I have seen the PhD as an opportunity to self-educate myself, especially because my own specialisation has always been in the “applied arts/design” (ie: I am a practitioner!) much more so than philosophising and writing about the history of how thinkers have thought about “play” and “games”) so I do plan on writing a bit more about what I personally see as key texts in Game Studies.

COMING UP
Virtual World Residency: Travelling through the Web, Roblox, Second Life, VRChat..
My Moderna Covid Allergy / Stevens-Johnson Syndrome Experience
My Iron-deficiency Anemia Experience
Co-working spaces in Central Singapore
How I use the Hobonichi to journal during my PhD
My Key Texts in Game Studies

Related posts:

More Stories

A Visit to the Bishopsgate Institute Library

Mediawiki Lockdown – How to make your wiki private