Yiling Hu, When You Begin My Quest to Market Deleuze Cat Food: A File Folder Jeux Vidéo of Pangram

Yiling Hu, PhD in the Arts

This project uses videogame design to invent and interact with philosophical concepts. We aim to
experiment with the creation of game rules that properly connect different digital artefacts and concepts, as a collage. The project was initiated as an attempt to make sense of an encounter between the PhD researcher and Deleuze Cat Food, a cat food brand that can be found in some stores in China. The game narrative is “packaged” as marketing materials for the Deleuze Cat Food company, which entails a reflection on, and criticism of, consumer culture and its means of communication.

The project aims to introduce a new genre of art-games: the ‘file folder videogame’, to produce Deleuzo-
Guattarian concepts in a digital context, and to generate a productive field where the encounter between
game design and philosophy can take place. This project uses ‘file folder videogame’ as an umbrella term to describe the form within which it aims to work. It combines a variety of digital artefacts inside an interactive structure of file folders, such as images, audio, codes, texts, and subfolders. Throughout the research process, this project aims to create game mechanics that could effectively connect or disconnect such artefacts, to produce various affective experiences in players. It will also research the way in which we can incorporate philosophical concepts and textual outputs into a video game.

Supervisor: Dr. Steven Malliet (Inter-Actions)
Co-supervisor: Prof. Matthew Fuller
Research unit: Inter-Actions
Duration: 2023-2027