Short-CV

Eduardo Luersen is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Zukunftskolleg, affiliated with the Department of Literature, Art, and Media at the University of Konstanz since 2022. Since 2023 he is a member of the Centre for Human | Data | Society. He studied Visual Arts, Graphic Design, and Music Composition at the Federal University of Pelotas. In 2013 he received a master’s degree (magna cum laude) in Social Communication (PUCRS), with a thesis on how digital information and communication technologies for music production affected the relationship between unsigned artists, music producers, and music distribution companies in the south of Brazil during the 1990s. His PhD, awarded in 2020 at the Graduate Programme in Communication Sciences at Unisinos University, focused on developing a media studies approach towards the sound aesthetics of digital games, also observing how gamelike aesthetics permeate present-day media habits and social practices more widely. Funded by a joint programme between DAAD and Capes (Brazil), Eduardo joined the Institute of Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media at Leuphana Universität as a Guest Researcher in 2019, developing his research in cooperation with the Gamification Lab. There he had the opportunity to start developing a new research agenda dedicated to the environmental dimension of game technology and digital gaming practices. The project he currently conducts at the Zukunftskolleg (‘The Cloud Gaming Atlas: from Earth's metabolism to the longing for radiant infrastructures’) derives from this tentative study but further relates it to phenomena such as online gaming services and cloud computing technology. The project seeks to conceptualize the continuities between cloud gaming infrastructure and natural systems, highlighting the material aspects of digital media platforms while also taking into account how the games industry is preparing to manage the environmental implications associated with its own escalation. Insofar as having expertise in the audiovisual aesthetics of digital culture and virtual worlds, gamification, and the environmental entanglements of digital media infrastructure, when it comes to the study of complex emerging phenomena at the intersection of digital media and society, Eduardo Luersen has a strong interest in interdisciplinary inquiry and experimental research design. Before arriving in Konstanz, he was involved in the interdisciplinary project Cidades Audiovisuais, Inteligentes e Sustentáveis [Audiovisual, Smart, and Sustainable Cities] at Unisinos University, and has also contributed as an instructional designer to practical interdisciplinary projects at the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology (IFSul). During the pandemic, he founded and coordinated the (remote) study group Tecnopolítica: Design, Infraestrutura, Geopolítica [Technopolity: Design, Infrastructure, Geopolitics], organizing weekly meetings with Brazilian scholars from the fields of International Relations, Design, Philosophy, Arts, and Communication interested in discussing new approaches to governance and sovereignty in light of emerging planetary-scale sociotechnical systems such as transnational cloud platforms.

Research-related publications

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles:

• Luersen, Eduardo; Fuchs, Mathias. (2021). ‘Ruins of excess: computer game images and the rendering of technological obsolescence’, Games and Culture 16 (8), 1087-1110. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120211005363
• Luersen, Eduardo. (2021). ‘Re-entangling design and science fiction: the case of Daleko’, International Journal of Film and Media Arts 6 (1), 33-54. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.24140/ijfma.v6.n1.02
• Luersen, Eduardo. (2021) ‘Inaudible systems, sonic users: sound interfaces and the design of audibility layouts in digital games’, Gamevironments 14, 50-84. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26092/elib/919
• Luersen, Eduardo; Kilpp, Suzana. (2020). ‘Anachronic sonorities of technoculture in digital games: a preliminary questioning’. Networking Knowledge 13 (2), 5-18. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31165/nk.2020.132.562
• Luersen, Eduardo; Maschke, Guilherme. (2019). ‘Noise and error in contemporary technoculture: an interview with Peter Krapp’. Spheres 2, 1-7.DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/12974
• Da Silva de Paula, Bibiana; Luersen, Eduardo. (in Press). ‘Gambiarra and the in(ter)dependent condition: ecological relationships in the construction of experimental musical instruments’, Resonance: the Journal of Sound and Culture 4 (2).

Peer-reviewed Conference Proceedings:

• Luersen, Eduardo. (2020). ‘Wasteful gaming in a wasteful world: on ruins’, Proceedings of the International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG 2020). http://fdg2020.org/papers.php