I research videogames beneath the shadow of an environmental apocalypse. What interests me is how games can tell us who we are, and how we can learn to care about each other in an world that can't support us. What can we learn from games, especially when we look at them alongside cutting edge philosophy like New Materialsm and Posthumanism. While I don't think games can save the world, I do think games can highlight ways we can be kind to each other in our increasingly unstable present.
I am interested in research exploring posthumanism, radical concepts of ecology, new materialism and particularly agential-realism, within the context of digital technology and videogames.
I have explored these ideas through a variety of different methods including philosophical enquiry, media archaeology, creative coding, game development and collaborative digital film-making.
Ecological Knowledge Games
PI: Dr Brad Duthie
Funded by: UK Research and Innovation
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Conference Paper (published)
McKeown C (2025) Post-optimism: Chants of Sennaar, Norco and the Problem of Optimism in Environmental and Ecogames Gamestudies. In: Conference Proceedings of DiGRA 2025: Games at the Crossroads, Malta, 30.06.2025-04.07.2025. Digitial Games Research Association DiGRA. https://doi.org/10.26503/dl.v2025i2.2666
Conference Paper (published)
Teaching Interactive Digital Narrative Through Found Photography
McKeown C & MacDonald E (2023) Teaching Interactive Digital Narrative Through Found Photography. In: TBC. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 16th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, Kobe, 11.11.2023-15.11.2023. Cham , Switzerland: Springer.
Book Chapter
Autobiographing our computing organs: Rereading past uses of Intel CPUs as xenotransplantation
McKeown C (2022) Autobiographing our computing organs: Rereading past uses of Intel CPUs as xenotransplantation. In: Lushetich N & Campbell I (eds.) Distributed Perception: Resonances and Axiologies. Routledge Studies in Science, Technology and Society. London: Routledge, pp. 261-274. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003157021
Book Chapter
McKeown C (2022) The Pain of Thinking at Light Speed: Posthuman Play as Response to “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream". In: Incomputable Earth Technology and the Anthropocene Hypothesis Incomputable Earth. Theory in the New Humanities. London: Bloomsbury. https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/incomputable-earth-9781350264977/?fbclid=IwAR3ZgAMg-dSHwWHw3d6PocnrgY-FDOcTJO3P1hvEJ7yWuZkk1rcH9c0i86w_aem_AYjLWS0moR_CAj3kISkqPsCxhizEQR_nQw8MMFcChjQME1xVsSdZMqJdijev2BHYGm12B6Qweu1WdcROgNtDCvsY
Book Chapter
'Everyone in This Story Is Already Dead': Death Matters in Disco Elysium's Apocalypse
McKeown C (2022) 'Everyone in This Story Is Already Dead': Death Matters in Disco Elysium's Apocalypse. In: Di'Tommaso L, Crossley J, Lockhart A & Wagner R (eds.) End-Game: Apocalyptic Video Games, Contemporary Society, and Digital Media Culture. Video Games and the Humanities, 16. Berlin: DeGruyter. https://www.degruyter.com/document/isbn/9783110752809/html?lang=en
Article
McKeown C (2021) "What kind of cop are you?": Disco Elysium's Technologies of the Self within the Posthuman Multiverse. Baltic Screen Media Review, 9 (1), pp. 68-79. https://doi.org/10.2478/bsmr-2021-0007
