LUPETTI_QUEER_THE BUNKER MAGAZINE_00

How to Queerly Hijack a Video Game

LGBTQIA+ communities have historically been underrepresented in the video game industry, which still bears the legacy of that decade—from the late 1980s to the late 1990s—when the medium and the very identity of the gamer were marketed by the mainstream industry as exclusive to young, cisgender, heterosexual men (and in the West, white men). Yet LGBTQIA+ individuals have always played video games. And ever since they’ve had the opportunity, they’ve also modified, created, and reimagined them—giving rise to a vibrant scene of queer video game détournements that reinterpret commercial works or unveil their inherent queerness.

MARTINA MACCIANTI_THE BUNKER MAGAZINE_DESIDERIO E INTENZIONALITA_00

Between Us and the Machine. Simulation, Intentionality and Artificial Desire

In Ghost in the Shell, the 1995 animated film directed by Mamoru Oshii and based on the manga of the same name by Masamune Shirow, Major Kusanagi often finds herself confronting her Ghost — a term which, in the film’s universe, represents that part of her being which cannot be reduced to the mere function of the body or the calculation of cognitive abilities. The Major, in fact, is a cyborg: a human whose brain has been implanted into an artificial body. Although it’s clear that she possesses all the capacities to act intentionally, to make decisions, to choose, to modify her reality, the question remains: is it truly her will, or is she merely executing predetermined programmes — albeit extraordinarily sophisticated ones?

VIOLA GIACALONE_TERZO INCENDIO SEGRETO_THE BUNKER MAGAZINE_00

A Secret Third Fire

Between real flames, real wars, and digital filters, we cannot agree on the right or wrong way to post about pain online—forgetting that social media are structurally ambiguous platforms, just like us.

MARTINA MACCIANTI_THE BUNKER MAGAZINE_SYNTAX WAR_00

Syntax War

Recent news has reported Donald Trump’s decision to introduce a list of “banned” words—terms that should no longer appear, or should be significantly reduced, in official documents in order to align with his political vision.

MATTEO LUPETTI_PLUNDERLUDICS_THE BUNKER MAGAZINE_00

Luigi Mangione has ended up in a video game

Metagames are games built upon other games. However, according to LeMieux and Boluk, in reality, “metagames are the only kind of games that we play.” Every game is situated within a context that influences and alters it, creating a metagame that we ultimately play, and every game becomes part of an assemblage of human and non-human agents, integrating into complex systems that can never be fully comprehended.

NICCOLO CARRADORI_META_NEWS_THE BUNKER MAGAZINE_00

The End of Fact-Checking: Meta Embraces Musk’s Model Balancing Free Speech and the Risk of Misinformation

Last Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, announced the end of the fact-checking programme on Facebook and Instagram. In its place, he stated, a system of “Community Notes” will be introduced, already trialled on X (formerly Twitter) under Elon Musk’s leadership. This decision, currently limited to the United States, has immediately drawn praise from Donald Trump and his entourage, marking what many observers view as a significant ideological realignment between Meta and the newly elected American president.