The Parasitic Speedrun: Super Mario 64, Noise, and the Cosmic Glitch

Abstract

This article reconsiders the videogame practice of speedrunning through a posthumanist lens. In “Fully Optimized: The (Post)human Art of Speedrunning” (Journal of Posthuman Studies 4(1) (2020): 5–24), Jonathan Hay identifies a gap in the literature on speedrunning and provides a timely response to the thinking of the gameplay practice. However, what Hay describes is at risk of being misinterpreted as a transhumanist position, due to its association with Nietzsche’s Apollonian notion of art. This article will expand Hay and Scully-Blaker’s definitions of speedrunning by identifying a third type: the parasitic speedrun. Moving beyond consideration of speedrunning that implicate a “mostly” human agency, the idea of the parasitic speedrun suggests that a videogame glitch, produced through cosmic “noise,” offers a space where technical objects and organic matter intersect in unexpected ways. The cosmic noise triggers a cascading effect that extends from the gaming console to the gamer. This event parasites the gamer to the extent that the speedrunning community calls their identity into question. This article proposes that a parasitic speedrun is posthuman, as it extends beyond the determinations of human intentionality and cannot be reduced to the binary logic of human and technology.