Theoretical Consoles: Concepts for Gadget Analysis

Theoretical objects are things that compel us to propose, interrogate, and theorize. They counter the influence of approaches that try to define, position, and fix. The mobile, handheld game console offers us a specific kind of theoretical object. A hybrid screen device that encompasses multiple interfaces, it raises questions about the specificity of the screen gadget as object, and about the entanglement of technologies, applications, and practices. Through an analysis of the Nintendo DS game console I argue that such gadgets are best understood as theoretical consoles: objects that raises theoretical questions, precisely, about their hybrid status.