Reduce Me to Nothingness
Inspired by digital storytelling, self-design, and life simulation games like The Sims, Reduce Me to Nothingness is a written research that explores the gamification of identity and the body in visual culture. The book is designed with a structure that mimics game logic, inviting readers to navigate systems of customization, control, and self-construction that shape bodies and identity today.
What does it mean to optimize, customize, and perform identity in a visual culture that increasingly operates like a life simulation game?
Reduce Me to Nothingness combines design practice with theoretical and visual analysis to examine how self-optimization operates as a kind of game.
The book is structured around four concepts borrowed from game design theory, using the foundational framework of Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman from Rules of Play. Alongside this, McKenzie Wark's Gamer Theory and the life-simulation game The Sims serve as fundamental pillars of the research.
The research draws on critical theory and visual and media culture studies, engaging with thinkers including Pierre Bourdieu, Shoshana Zuboff, Alex Quicho, Ruben Pater, Walter Benjamin, David Harvey, Franco 'Bifo' Berardi, Boris Groys, and Mark Fisher, alongside digital references such as memes, screenshots, tweets, and music videos.