We are thrilled to announce the second lecture in the Virtual Realisms public monthly lecture series taking place throughout the 2024-25 academic year at the University of Westminster.
The next event will take place on 5 December, 6-8 pm, in Lecture Theatre 3, Harrow Campus.
Aleena Chia: Capturing Reality, Dis/assembling Worlds
Photogrammetry is a ‘reality capture’ technique positioned by game engines as enabling scalable worldbuilding that automates labours of modelling and rigging. Tracing the legacies of racial classification and extractivism in biometric and environmental capture, this lecture contends that the base unit of worldbuilding is not content but assets. Assets are valued not primarily for their tradability in marketplaces or usability in pipelines, but for their embedding within tools as infrastructure. Assets are made to keep – this components-first approach consolidates value for platforms not by building, but by disaggregating worlds and dissolving labour into their constituent components for speculative forms of reassembly.
Dr. Aleena Chia is a lecturer in Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. She researches video game production cultures and digital wellness practices to understand how technologies of automation and ideologies of self-optimisation impact inequalities in cultural production. Website: aleenachia.org
The event is free and open to all, but registration is required. Please register to attend here.
Virtual Realisms public lecture series critically investigates the evolving forms of reality created through algorithmic worldbuilding, where advanced digital technologies give rise to new and diverse interpretations of what is considered ‘real.’ Spanning both technical and speculative practices, the lectures will explore how real-time virtual environments, and the technologies that underpin them, are redefining the logics of cultural production, creativity, and power in our increasingly rendered world.
The series is curated by Tadej Vindis, Lecturer in Creative Technologies, and Teodora Sinziana Alata, Lecturer in Creative Computing and Algorithmic Cultures, at the University of Westminster.
For further information about the lecture series and other upcoming lectures, please visit www.virtualrealisms.com.