Dr Gabriele Aroni Senior Lecturer, Games Art

Dr Gabriele Aroni is Senior Lecturer in Game Arts at the School of Digital Arts of Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK. Trained as an architect (MArch University of Florence), he pursued his studies in digital media (MSc Oxford Brookes University) and communication (PhD Toronto Metropolitan and York Universities). He previously taught at the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou (China), Toronto Metropolitan, and OCAD Universities in Toronto (Canada), and worked as interaction designer at Studio Roosegaarde in The Netherlands.

His research is situated at the intersection of architecture, game studies, cultural heritage, and semiotics. His publications space from architectural history and semiotics, to the aesthetics of digital games and copyright law. His latest book “The Semiotics of Architecture in Video Games” (2022) is available from Bloomsbury Academic.

Contact

g.aroni@mmu.ac.uk

Office

School of Digital Arts

Research

Books

Aroni, G., 2022. 'The Semiotics of Architecture in Video Games'.

Aroni, G., 2016. 'Gli ordini architettonici di San Lorenzo a Firenze 1420-1490. Analisi morfologica e proporzionale tramite fotoraddrizzamento'.

Book Chapters

Aroni, G., 2025. 'Fotoludica e diritto d'autore'. In Bittanti, M., De Mutiis, M. (eds.) Fotoludica: Fotografia e videogiochi tra arte e documentazione, 684, Mimesis Edizioni.

Aroni, G., 2025. 'Who Owns the (Virtual) View? The Copyright Boundaries of Digital Games Images'. In Aroso Linhares, J.M. (eds.) Exploring the Boundaries of Law, Springer.

Aroni, G., 2023. 'A missile to the face: scarred characters in Mass Effect 2'. In Ellis, K., Kent, M., Leaver, T. (eds.) Gaming Disability: disability perspectives on contemporary video games, pp. 81-91, Routledge, London.

Aroni, G., 2023. 'From bricks to pixels'. In Petrilli, S., Ji, M. (eds.) Intersemiotic Perspectives on Emotions: translating across signs, bodies and values, pp. 227-240, Routledge, London.

Aroni, G., 2023. 'Semiotics in architecture and spatial design'. In Pelkey, J., Walsh Matthews, S. (eds.) Bloomsbury Semiotics Volume 2: Semiotics in the Natural and Technical Sciences, pp. 277-296, Bloomsbury Publishing, London.

Aroni, G., Bregni, S., McDonald, H., 2019. 'Assassin's Creed (Series)'. In Schrier, K. (eds.) Learning, Education & Games: 100 Games to Use in the Classroom & Beyond, pp. 32-38, Carnegie Mellon University ETC Press, Pittsburgh, PA.

Internet Publications

Aroni, G., 2020. 'The Belt and Road can Pass through Digital Games', https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/H1RceLa2sVug3MnHv9WwHw.

Journal Articles

Aroni, G., 2025. 'Cultural Heritage in Chinese Digital Games', Youth and Globalization, 6 (1-2), 23.

Aroni, G., 2023. 'Games as Authorial Platforms? An Exploration of the Legal Status of User-created Content from Digital Games', International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 36 (5), pp. 2021-2036.

Aroni, G., 2019. 'The architecture of Assassin's Creed II's Florence: an analysis with the History-Game Relations (HGR) Framework', Well Played, 8 (1), pp. 13-26.

Aroni, G., 2019. 'The semiosis of architectural identity in The Witcher 3', Journal of Media Research, 13 (3(35)), pp. 47-59.

Aroni, G., 2019. 'Vitruvian Proportions in the Design of the Architectural Orders of the Basilica of San Lorenzo', Annali di Architettura, 31, pp. 7-21.

Aroni, G., 2014. 'Semiotic analysis of the Corinthian order in the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence 1420-1490', Southern Semiotics Review, 4.

Non-Peer Reviewed Articles

Swenson, A., Thomas, M., Nigro, B., Courneya, M., heim, H., Aroni, G., England, M., 2025. 'HOW CAN UNIVERSITIES ADAPT TO WEB3?', right click save.

Conference Papers

Aroni, G., 2023. 'Where is the "Video" of "Video Games"?: The Visual Aesthetic of Digital Games', International Conference of Video Game Studies, Novi Sad, Serbia, 9/12/2022 - 10/12/2022.

Aroni, G., 2022. 'A semiotic framework for the analysis of virtual architecture in digital games', 26/6/2022 - 1/7/2022, in Cross-Cultural Design. Applications in Learning, Arts, Cultural Heritage, Creative Industries, and Virtual Reality: 14th International Conference, 2 (13312), pp. 459-467.

Aroni, G., 2022. 'Visionary Virtual Worlds: Storytelling via Digital Architecture in NaissanceE', in Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 13762, pp. 684-696.