Console is an oracle; an emotional first aid kit that helps you help yourself. Console invites you to open the box and discover ways of healing. Console provides shelter for your dreams, memories and worries. Face the past and encounter your fortune. Console gives you a new vantage point; a set of rituals and practices that help you cope and care. Console asks everyday questions that give magical answers.
Special Issue XX was co-published by xpub and Page Not Found, Den Haag. With guest editors Lídia Pereira ♈︎and Artemis Gryllaki ♐ we unraveled games and rituals, mapping the common characteristics and the differences between games and rituals in relation to ideology and counter-hegemony. We practiced, performed and annotated rituals, connected (or not) with our cultural backgrounds while we questioned the magic circle. We dived into the worlds of text adventure games and clicking games while drinking coffee. We talked about class, base, superstructure, (counter)hegemony, ideology and materialism. We discussed how games and rituals can function as reproductive technologies of the culture industries. We annotated games, focusing on the role of ideology and social reproduction. We reinterpreted bits of the world and created stories from it (modding, fiction, narrative) focusing on community, interaction, relationships, grief and healing.
