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  9. DiGRA workshop: Politics of indexicality in digital game production 

DiGRA workshop: Politics of indexicality in digital game production 

Wednesday June 17, 14:00 to 17:00, Classhall D 

Here’s the program of the GAMEINDEX workshop at DiGRA 2026. Non-presenting audience members are welcome to join up to room capacity! 

Time  Activity 
14:00 – 14:20 Introduction of organizers and of GAMEINDEX 
Jaroslav Švelch and Wilhelmina Statham 
14:20 – 15:05 Theoretical and methodological approaches (3 Presentations + 15m Discussion) 
Cindy Poremba (OCAD University):  
Capture Matters: Postmedia and the Real Image 
Aleena Chia (Goldsmiths University of London): 
Re-fragmenting Reality in Game Engine Culture 
Kevin Pauliks (Marburg University): 
Photographic Production and Player Reception of Real-Life Locations in Videogames 
15:05 – 15:20 Break 
15:20 – 16:20 Analyses and case studies (4 Presentations + 20m Discussion) 
Florence Smith Nicholls (ITU Copenhagen):
More Than a Nice Gesture: Players as Indexical Storytellers in Elden Ring 
Rob Gallagher (King’s College London): 
Indexicality and Claims to Truth in Autobiographical Videogames 
Dooley Murphy (ITU Copenhagen): 
True Fictions: Representing H.C. Andersen through Indexicality, Iconicity, and Interpretation
Diego Barroso and Zidong Huang (City University of Hong Kong): 
Kamurocho: traces in the playable city 
16:20 – 17:00 Discussion (including discussion of capturing experiments) 

Instructions for presenting participants: 

Please prepare a presentation of up to 10 minutes and send the slides ahead of the workshop to jaroslav@svelch.com. To avoid technical issues, all presentations will be run from one machine. All presentations will be in-person. The presentation should explicitly mention how you approach the concept of indexicality. 

Instructions for hands-on experimentation (non-presenters can also try it out!): 

If you wish to try out some indexical techniques and reality capture yourselves, do the following before the workshop: 

Download Epic’s RealityScan, a free-to-use photogrammetry/3D scanning app: 

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.epicgames.realityscan 

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/realityscan-mobile/id1584832280 

Then try to capture some objects on the Maynooth campus. You can share your experiences during the Discussion section.