Final Remarks
As a matter of fact, in her fourth chapter, Braidotti mentions the potential of Digital Humanities, and how technology can be used to shape posthuman knowledge (The Posthuman 2013). Video games, when purposefully designed, can be posthuman in many ways. The games I discussed, for instance, adhere to some of Braidotti’s ‘golden rules’ (The Posthuman 2013, 163).
- Cartographic accuracy: while the game takes place in a fictive future, Stray (2022) still raises important ethical concerns by criticizing systems of power and necro-politics. The player therefore becomes aware of how such politics, the systems under which they are currently living in, can create harm and threaten the future.
- Trans-disciplinarity: all three games I discuss raise different philosophical concerns, but all significant nonetheless. Flower (2009) raises environmental concerns, namely the importance of conserving the environment and how it can affect culture. Stray (2022) takes a more political approach and sheds light on systems of oppression. Lastly, Season: A Letter to the Future (2023), adopts the philosophy of death and endings and provides a different, more hopeful outlook on the post-apocalypse.
- The importance of combining critique with creative figurations: In relation to video games, this is pretty self-explanatory. Indeed, thanks to their aesthetics and unique graphics, video games offer different immersive experiences all the while producing knowledge.
- The imagination and the strategy of defamiliarization: This last golden rule was in fact the main focus of my project. In effect, all three games I discuss allow players to Become-, to defamiliarize themselves and embody new subjectivities.