About Adam Ruch & Flickering Colors
Flickering Colors is my digital home as a scholar, author, and educator.
My scholarship arises out of a media studies perspective on videogames and digital media. As faculty, I have taught courses in media theory/studies, game theory and design, and multimedia writing and production. Links to my work can be found here. For more information, check the Research section of this site.
In addition, I have held various academic leadership positions in Australia and the United States, and have extensive experience with campus operations, curriculum design and revision, faculty development, and both national and regional accreditation.
The sections of this site serve as a curriculum vitae in progress, bringing together examples of scholarly work, professional experience, instructional design and other works from across various (and almost always changing) online platforms.
Why Flickering Colors?
I have maintained a blog, website, and even a World of Warcraft Guild with the name “Flickering Colours” for the better part of twenty years now. But why “Flickering Colours” (now “Colors”) and not something else?
Music is a huge part of my life. I am always –always– listening to music, and have played guitar since high school. My taste is generally guitar-centric and ranges from the classic rock of Queen, through to modern progressive metal. Metallica was the reason I picked up a guitar in the first place, and artists like Dream Theater and Devin Townsend are among my all-time favorites.
Although I am most often listening to metal on the melodic side, from time to time there is no substitute for the heaviness of the industrial sort. My particular favorite was always Static-X. Their 1999 debut album Wisconsin Death Trip contains some of my to-this-day favorite industrial groove metal.
However, the name Flickering Colours was inspired by a track on Machine, entitled, naturally, “Black and White.” The music and lyrics are not complex, but they are intense. I fancied the juxtaposition of the song title with the lyric ‘flickering colors,’ and the intensity with which Wayne vocalized. The phrase came to mind when I was naming my second blog (the name of the first shall never be spoken again), and the rest is history.
For what it’s worth, the “u” comes from the many years I lived in Australia with it’s British habits. When registering the current domain, I decided to stick with the American spelling across the board.
Over the years, I’ve grown very fond of the name and it feels deeply appropriate as the title of a website about digital games. Videogames and websites are, from one perspective, just flickering colors on a screen. They are compelling, entrancing, but ephemeral and temporary.
Wayne Static died abruptly in 2014 at the age of 48, reminding us that we too are temporary.
