“Tap, tap, flap, flap.” Ludic Seriality, Digitality, and the Finger

Abstract

This article tries to answer the question, “What is ‘digital’ about digital media?” Building on the concept of ludic seriality as proposed by Shane Denson and Andreas Jahn-Sudmann and taking as an example the popular mobile Game Flappy Bird, it discusses the serial character of gameplay, in particular the intra-ludic serialization of in-game and operator actions. The article argues that the principle of digitality relates to the fingers of the human hand and the corresponding cultural techniques, from the ancient art of finger-counting which brought forth the abstract number concept to our current every day use of buttons and keys to operate digital devices.

“Through the digits, through the fingers”: Variations on the string figure as imaginary digital medium

“…Till A. Heilmann (2014) explores the serial aspects of digital games, looking in particular at the mobile game Flappy Bird , at the same time connecting seriality to finger-based interfacing: ‘What is “digital” about digital media? Every answer seems to point, like an index, at our fingers’.…”

“…More recent scholarship has further probed the historical connections first identified by Plant, but has also brought the story up to the present, considering craft practices as forms of postmodern labor (Bratich, 2010;Bratich and Brush, 2011); and also the literally woven character of digital devices and interfaces (Monteiro, 2017). Meanwhile, a handful of scholars have begun to probe the rich, complex implications of the fact that 'digitality' and 'digitalization' have etymological roots in the Latin term digitus, meaning fingers and toes (Heilmann, 2014;Peters, 2016;Puskar, 2019). By drawing methodological inspiration from these two areas of inquiry, my purpose in the present paper is to make a case for the inclusion of string figures in the larger project of charting historical connections among digitality, string and the hands.…”

The Risks and Rewards of Collegiate Esports

“…Irrespective of the definition, the combination of gaming and sports has existed for decades. A historical look at the blending of gaming and sports includes arcades in the 1970s and 1980s with trendy games (in stand-alone gaming cabinets) such as Space Invaders, Pacman, Galaga, Asteroids (Hughes, 2018; Museum of the Game, 2021), and Defender (Heilmann, 2014). In that era, games such as Atari and Pong were also played in the home with gaming consoles and televisions (Lendino, 2017).…”