Patrick Fiorilli

@patfio

writer, critic, & theorist; games & literature; bylines in the LA Review of Books, Gamers with Glasses, Bright Wall/Dark Room; lecturer in media arts & design at the University of Chicago; he/him; read my newsletter, "Critical Theorycraft," at www.patf.io

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Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· May 18

Hey, first feature of the newsletter in @critdistance.bsky.social! Read more at www.patf.io. Very happy to be placed alongside an excellent essay from @gracemachine.bsky.social and @bpmonthly.bsky.social.

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Running Laps

I already used "More-athon" as a pun last week.

I've got nothing else! But the critical community still does.

Marathon Is a Heist Game, Actually | Critical Theorycraft

Patrick Fiorilli considers the long game in an of-the-moment game-of-the-moment (Further Reading: Will Butler on getting away with it on TCIV).

Older Than Empires, As Deep As Death | Bullet Points Monthly

Grace Benfell muses on gender, colonies, empires, and the logics that run through all of them on Tau Ceti IV.

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Feb 10

can't believe they made that one maria bamford joke into a real thing

transcript of a standup special: The odds of falling in love with the perfect person at the perfect time are about the odds of, I don't know, being discovered in Hollywood. Wait a minute. I asked a similarly desperate question for many years, which was, how do you make it in show business? Do you move to San Diego and disguise yourself as a bush? Moving slowly northward beneath the cover of dusk? And what do famous people always say? They always say, "Well, do you enjoy doing it?" Great.

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Feb 9

anyone else get the feeling "nothing doing" caught on in American sports commentary following the spike in popularity of F1?

Google chart showing the popularity of "nothing doing" spiking after 2021

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Jan 11

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Dec 16

I've got an article in the new issue of Angelaki! It's called "Video Games Need a Theory of Language," and the big idea is that video games are actually a kind of writing. If you're unable to access it via a university library, you can use this link: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/JXIMV.... Take a look!

Article Screenshot: "Video Games Need a Theory of Language" by Patrick Fiorilli. "Introduction: How does a world emerge from language? This is the fundamental question posed by the medium of the video game, a form literally inscribed in code and in circuitry and thereby experienced as a phenomenal world. Yet this question goes unheard in studies of video games, and the fact that the video game can articulate such a quandary goes unrecognized in theories of language. The reason why is historical. The theories best suited to realize the potential of video games to imagine new relations between world and language were waning in influence just as the popularity of video games was on the rise. Where the link was located, in the niche area of game studies, it was only partially explained. How does a world emerge from language? This is precisely the question posed at once by video games and poststructuralism. Realizing this, we are prepared to conceive both apparatuses anew. Spend time in games-adjacent spaces and you will realize that this essential connection to language is not lost in discourse about video games. One often hears game designers and critics speak of video games in terms of “objects,” “verbs,” and other parts of speech. We talk about jumping in Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo R&D4, 1985) as if we were talking about the word “jump.” But despite the popularity of these turns of phrase, their meaning is most often uninvestigated. Why does it make sense to talk about video games as if we were talking about language?"

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Oct 31

Pynchonesque Halloween ft. player-two palette-swapped Bob Ferguson and an alligator from V. -- listen to our podcast! pynchonpals.com @pynchonpals.bsky.social

man with a handlebar mustache in a blue plaid bathrobe, T-shirt, jeans, beanie, and wraparound sunglasses, holding a dog in an alligator costume

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Oct 14

And, given today's sad news, RIP to the great Drew Struzan, whose work is as inseparable from the visual language of Star Wars as anyone's.

Mosaic of Drew Struzan's iconic theatrical posters for Star Wars, episodes 1-6. Portraits of the leads arranged amidst spaceships and swordfights.

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Sep 3

New post about Red Rooms and We're All Going to the World's Fair. Two movies about the abyss of the Internet and, oddly enough, the balding weirdo on the other side of the screen. www.patf.io/into-the-scr...

Left, Juliette Gariépy as Kelly-Anne in Red Rooms. Right, Anna Cobb as Casey in We're All Going to the World's Fair.

Left, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos as Ludovic Chevalier. Right, Michael J. Rogers as JLB.

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Jan 16

David Lynch sits in an armchair on the set of the chevron-floored, curtained "red room" from Twin Peaks

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Nov 24

A proper intro for new followers! I'm Patrick, I have a PhD in Digital Media, I teach media and critical theory, and I'm working on a book about how video games are made of language. I'm on the job market and very open to freelance gigs: games, experimental/speculative fiction, digital culture, etc!

standing beside the Mothman statue in West Virginia

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Nov 24

nw Gilda (1946)

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Nov 22

finally finished NIGHTWOOD, Djuna Barnes (1936) -- a brilliantly thorny thicket of a book

Text of NIGHTWOOD: "What is a ruin but Time easing itself of endurance? Corruption is the Age of Time." etc.

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Nov 18

290 million years of teasing silksong

museum display of "primitive tetrapod skull," coincidentally shaped like the head of the hollow knight silksong protagonist

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Sep 23

top tier haul from an impromptu stop at the used bookstore today

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Aug 29

what a lineup

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· May 30

wrapped the first iteration of my class on "American Gothic Video Games" yesterday ft. KENTUCKY ROUTE ZERO (pictured), NIGHT IN THE WOODS, and NORCO alongside Butler, O'Connor, Jackson, Lovecraft, Poe, and more -- an immensely rewarding teaching experience

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Nov 5

great mysticism haul from the used books section today

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Oct 25

6 o clock time to watch twilight on my phone

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Oct 5

stop making sense is a neo-noir and Jordan Cronenweth's cinematography proves it

Patrick Fiorilli@patfio· Sep 25

posting on bluesky from here