Dr Rob Gallagher

I joined CMCI as a lecturer in Games and Immersive Media in July 2023. I have previously worked at Royal Holloway, the University of East Anglia, Concordia University, and Manchester Metropolitan University, where I held a position as a lecturer in Film and Media from 2021 to 2023.

I have spent much of my career working as part of multidisciplinary research teams. As a postdoctoral fellow at Concordia’s Technoculture, Art and Games lab I led a team conducting an SSHRC-funded study of video game modding cultures. Between 2014 and 2019 I was part of Ego-Media, an ERC-funded project exploring emerging forms of digital self-presentation, based at KCL. More recently I was attached to the AHRC-funded project Political Ideology, Rhetoric and Aesthetics in the Twenty-First Century: The Case of the 'Alt-Right'.

Research interests and PhD supervision

• Digital games and gaming cultures
• Networked subcultures
• Theories of identity, embodiment and subjectivity
• Digital life-writing and auto/biography
• Networked aesthetics and affects

My research focuses on digital media and cultures, with a particular focus on video games.

Much of my recent research has concentrated on art games and autobiographical games, and on the positioning of indie, DIY and avant-garde game creators relative to the commercial games industry. Other research interests include the role of the voice in digital media, and the terms on which digital forms, genres, aesthetics and subcultures develop, with case studies ranging from grime music and ASMR videos to animated gifs and alt-right memes.

Informed by media theory and game studies, my work is also heavily indebted to critical theories of identity, embodiment and subjectivity, from queer and trans theory to affect theory, posthumanist philosophy and critical theories of ‘race’.

Selected publications

• Gallagher, R. and Topinka, R. (2023). ‘The Politics of the NPC Meme: Reactionary Subcultural Practice and Vernacular Theory.’ Big Data & Society 10(1)
• Gallagher, R. (2022). ‘Humanising Gaming? The Politics of Posthuman Agency in Autobiographical Videogames.’ Convergence 28(2): 359-373.
• Gallagher, R. (2017). Videogames, Identity and Digital Subjectivity (Routledge, 2017)
• Gallagher, R. (2016). ‘Eliciting Euphoria Online: The Aesthetics of “ASMR” Video Culture.’ Film Criticism 40(2)

Teaching

I teach across a range of media and gaming modules within CMCI.

I am particularly interested in pedagogical approaches that combine creative practice with critical analysis, and in online pedagogy. I received my postgraduate teaching certificate in 2020, becoming a fellow of the Higher Education Association.

Expertise and public engagement

I have written on games and gaming culture for publications such as The Guardian, The New Inquiry and The Architectural Review, and have given interviews about my research for the Critical Technology and Keywords in Play podcasts, Radio Deutschland and the New York Times.

In 2015 I worked with YouTubers to create a podcast about ASMR for Resonance FM. In 2021 I collaborated with Dr. Robert Topinka and Professor Alan Finlayson on Reactionary Digital Politics, an eight-part podcast featuring interviews with leading researchers working on digital subcultures, conspiracy theories, contemporary right-wing movements, and the impact of digital platforms on political communication.

I have also undertaken research-creation projects with artists such as Janina Lange and Marija Bozinovska-Jones, collaborating with the former on a pop-up motion capture studio and the latter on an immersive audio installation shown at Furtherfield and featured on the Serpentine gallery’s podcast.