Anarchéologie du glitche : de l’erreur ludique aux possibles ludo-politiques

This thesis conduct a ludo-political study of videogame glitches (bugs, software errors, design flaws, system failures, etc.). The glitch experience is analyzed as an inflection point between two modes of engagement. First, a paralogical counterplay related to an anarchocommunist ethos that appropriates glitches as artifacts to explore, redirect and (re)shape videogame materiality in a subversive, critical, and communal manner. Second, an innovative counterplay consolidating a neoliberal agenda that exploits glitches as commodities to renegotiate, dominate and recode the game to secure capital gains. Media archeology is mobilized as a methodology to dissect the ins and outs of these two modes of counterplay. An academic form of glitch hunting through discourse, collective imaginary, avant-garde arts and various technical fields has been carried out to retrace the continuity between the object of study and a shared matrix of concepts, aesthetic forms, creative techniques and rhetorical articulations. A multidisciplinary theoretical framework built from game studies, media studies, communication studies, art theory and fan studies is used to determine the unique place of videogame glitches’ noisy poetry within its vast network of transhistoric and transmedia heritages.   The development of a theoretical model named the Glitch Ludo-Political Map frames the analysis of the ideological implications of a body of glitches from the first-person shooter gaming culture understood as a cultural field in tension between the anarcho-communist paralogy and neoliberal innovation. This polarization is explored using a second model called the Circuit of the Glitch Socio-Technical Economy. This tool is used to expose a complex interplay of economic losses and gains between glitchers and the industry. Two predominant trends are studied. On the one hand, a culture of commodity based on a hijacking and harnessing competitive logic where the exchange value of glitches is exploited to optimize economic incomes. On the other hand, a gift economy resulting from a spirit of cooperation, sharing, and gratuitousness in which the use value of glitches is harvested and harboured in the service of the common good and the diversity of practices. The investigation of these dynamics reveals relationships of economic exploitation and political subjugation that link glitches to 1) the material transformation of videogames, 2) the labour force of game developers, 3) the playbour iv force of glitchers, and 4) the neoliberal socio-economic philosophy that shapes gaming culture and industry.   The material, labour, and economic dimensions of glitches are discussed according to their ambivalent political effects. In terms of innovative counterplay, the notion of glitches of Empire is theorized as a vector of a political subjectivity consistent with the precepts of neoliberalism. This attitude is aligned with the privatization of the means of production, private and intellectual property, free market, search for profit, entrepreneurial freedom of the self, aggressive competition and quantification of life itself. In terms of paralogical counterplay, the concept of glitches of multitude is presented as crystallizing an anarcho-communist political sensibility. This political stance catalyzes an ethos of disobedience fostering freedom of speech and association, empowerment of individuals and communities, socialization of the means of production, collectivization of wealth, self-management and direct democracy/action within affinity groups, and the protection of the common good.

Keyphrases: Glitche, Innovation, Empire, Multitude, Videogame, Glitch, Counterplay, Innovation, Paralogy, Culture, Economy, Politic, Neoliberalism, Anarchism