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Reflecting on how and with what kind of consequences something artificial, something manufactured becomes naturalized in video games will be the central issue of this text. It deals with the question of how the video game hides its artificiality in terms of technique. In a certain sense this retrieves one of the fundamental questions of modernity and industrialization: How does the manufacturing of our environment become a naturalized, self-evident and indubitable process?
Communication, simulation, interactive narrative and ubiquitous computing are widely accepted as perspectives in humancomputer interaction. This paper proposes play as another possible perspective. Everyday uses of the computer increasingly show signs of similarity to play. This is not discussed with regard to the so-called media society, the playful society, the growing cultural acceptance of the computer, the spread of computer games or a new version of Windows, but in view of the playful character of interaction with the computer that has always been part of it. The exploratory learning process involved with new software and the creative tasks that are often undertaken when using the computer may support this argument. Together with its high level of interactivity, these observations point to a sense of security, autonomy and freedom of the user that produce play and are, in turn, produced by play. This notion of play refers not to the playing of computer games, but to an implicit, abstract (or symbolic) process based on a certain attitude, the play spirit. This attitude is discussed regarding everyday computer use and related to the other mentioned perspectives.
Ein Band zur Performativität von Texten, Zahlen und Bildern. In drei Spannungsfeldern - zwischen Diskursanalyse und Dekonstruktion, zwischen Zahl und Bild, zwischen Realitätseffekt und Spektakel - situieren sich Beiträge zu Foucault und Derrida, zu feministischer und Queer Theory, zu Wissenschaftsforschung und Medientheorie, zu Anthropologie, Statistik und Astronomie, zu Flugzeugkatastrophenfilmen, Ereignis IMAX, spektakulären Dinosaurier- Visualisierungen und zu reflexiven Bildern in Filmen der Berliner Schule und in Hanekes CACHe.
Computer games may be defined as artifacts that connect the input devices of a computer (such as keyboard, mouse or controller) with its output devices (in most cases a screen and speakers) in such a way that on the screen a challenge is displayed. On the screen we see pictorial elements that have to be manipulated to master a game, that is to win a competition, to solve a riddle or to adopt a skill. Therefore the characteristics of the representational function of computer games have to be contrasted phenomenologically with conventional games on the one hand and cinematic depictions on the other. It shows that computer games separate the player from the playing field, and translate bodily felt concrete actions into situational abstract cinematic depictions. These features add up to the situational abstract presentation of self-action experience. In this framework computer games reveal a potential as a new means of shared cognition that might unfold in the 21st century and change the beingin- the-world in a similar way as cinematic depiction did in the 20th century
Seki
(2010)
Game space can be conceived of as being structured by varying levels of ruledness, i.e. it oscillates between openness and closure, between playability and gameness. The movement through game space can then be described as a vector defined by possibility spaces, which are generated organically out of the interplay between ruled and unruled space. But we can only define rules ex negativo, therefore the possibility of breaking the rules is always already inscribed in this vector of movement. This can be conceptualized as a boundary operation that takes the difference between ‘ordinary life’ and ‘play’ as its argument, and which thus generates the difference between ‘play’ and ‘game’.
In recent years computer games have been discussed by a variety of disciplines from various perspectives. A fundamental difference with other media, which is a point of continuous consideration, is the specific relationship between the viewer and the image, the player and the game apparatus, which is a characteristic of video games as a dispositive. Terms such as immersion, participation, interactivity, or ergodic are an indication of the deep interest in this constellation. This paper explores the resonance between body and image in video games like REZ, SOUL CALIBUR and DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION from the perspective of a temporal ontology of the image, taking particular account of the structuring power of the interface and its subject positioning aspects.
This paper is a critical examination of the relationship between reality and simulation. After a brief theoretical introduction, it unfolds its argument on an empirical level, using a thick game playing description of GRAND THEFT AUTO IV. This in-game experience serves as material for the subsequent analysis, in the course of which defining characteristics of computer game playing are formulated. Finally, on the basis of this analysis, the paper postulates the hypothesis that playing computer games like GTA IV promotes competency in deconstructing simulations and implements a cyclic logic of recreation.