Home

I am Assistant Professor of Interactive Media, Screens, and Interfaces at Utrecht University. My research focuses on games and cultures of play, specifically in the context of the climate crisis. I write about videogames, larp, popular culture, science fiction, the environmental humanities, ecocriticism and more. I also design larps or live-action role-playing games. Feel free to get in touch at lauraodbeke[ad]gmail.com. And if you’re wondering how to cite my last name, you’re not the only one! –> (op de Beke, Laura).

Past and Present Projects

Un-Earthed. An hybrid/online, monthly reading group dedicated to the environmental humanities, open to anyone. Check it out at http://www.un-earthed.group

Anthropocene Temporalities in Videogames. My PhD dissertation, soon to be published with Amsterdam University Press.

Abstract: The Anthropocene describes a new geological epoch that is marked in an enduring, material way by the impact of humankind, which has led to disastrous changes in the global climate and biosphere. It marks the end of the Holocene, a period of relative climate stability which provided the perfect conditions for the incubation of human civilization. The new age will be known by a hotter, more unpredictable climate, sea level rise, and a severe loss of biodiversity. From a cultural studies perspective, the new age will also be marked by a changing set of concerns and attitudes that reflect, respond to, and process this realization, constituting a new structure of feeling, which is a quality (or set of qualities) that characterizes the socio-cultural experience of a specific period.

This dissertation looks at recent, single-player videogames in order to tease out some of these concerns and attitudes, asking in particular how they give us access to the ways in which our conceptions and experiences of temporality have accrued new meanings and feelings in an age deeply impacted by climate change and other signs of environmental crisis. This focus on temporality is based on the assumption that our experience of time influences how we inhabit the world. Everyday rhythms, the felt trajectories of our lives, and the ways in which we experience the past, present, and future are all crucial in the establishment of a sense of agency and subjectivity.

After an introductory chapter that draws together scholarship in the fields of ecogame studies and critical time studies, this dissertation features five chapters that identify different Anthropocene temporalities in videogames. Chapter two discusses procedural futurism in climate simulation games; chapter three identifies a particular chronotope, or space-time in ecological god games; chapter four examines videogames’ engagement with the rhythms and entropic trajectories of deep time; chapter five tackles the enduring, abiding time of oil in oil-themed games; and chapter six identifies the emerging trend of dark seasonality in videogames.

Playing With Deep Time. At the University of Oslo I was the principal investigator of the collaboratory ‘Playing with Deep Time‘ which brought together people interested in the exploration of deep time using playful storytelling practices like Nordic LARP and other forms of role-play. As part of this project I developed a deep time themed hypertext, as well as a LARP, which was nominated for an IndieCade live action award in 2022. You can find the published LARP booklet available for free on my itch account: https://lodbeke.itch.io/long-story-a-deep-time-larp