Tobey Crockett, “The Computer as a Dollhouse [Exceprts]”

In Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell, eds., Videogames and art (Bristol, UK; Chicago: Intellect, 2007).

Dollhouse metaphor opens an avenue for discussing interactivity, digital media in relation to play, imagination, creativity – conjunction between games and art
Play as a creative, artistic act – aesthetics of play, emphathy
Long history of miniatures, models, enclosed spaces with cultural significance
Prefiguring screen entertainments
Automata, Wunderkammer, dollhouses (virtual)
“cabinet-like housing for complex machines with programmatic functions”
Playing with avatars, building worlds – dolls and blocks
Blurring of subject/object when playing one avatar among many (do something to differentiate oneself)
Identity construction in infants (substitute non-differentiated mother's breast with toy as transitional object)
Avatar/VW as transitional object for embodiment in cyberspace
“We use the avatar, like the baby uses the toy, to understand what is subject and what is object as we create our foundation about how [virtual world/cyberspace] reality works”
Avatar is inseparable from the VW as the place of transformational play
Must take place in a social (ie: multiplayer) context – presence of others (rather than human-computer interactions)
Zimmerman: interface as a (social) activity zone
Meta-gaming (Sims family albums, etc) – social context surrounding single-player games
Sims fan objects – dollhouse/doll furniture crafting (but what about the more sinister side of fan production as a marketing strategy?)
Pearce: “emergent authors”
“Participatory play”
Play in free-form VW as artistic self-expression – craft, decorative arts
Different kinds of VW; different kinds of dolls/toys (Barbie VS home-made ragdoll, etc.)
“lay authors are utilizing digital tools and digitized materials to self-express and, perhaps, coincidentally, subvert the status quo” (de Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life)
Escape/release
New technology prompts “urges towards a type of technologically mediated transendence”
Cyberspace/VW should be seen as practical, contemporary, everyday, “down here” social/public spaces, not “out there”
Computer as dollhouse – identity construction + imaginative empowerment
“Substantial social work” taking place in “seemingly innocuous realms of gameplay, persistent environments, MMOs, VW

Laurie Taylor, “Networking Power: Video Game Structure from Concept Art”

In Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell, eds., Videogames and art (Bristol, UK; Chicago: Intellect, 2007).

Concept art as ideal – the “real” of a game; the superstructure
“that which each game [in a series] sought to portray correctly”
“the superstructure from which each game unfolds and into which each game enfolds itself”
Quantum physics?!
Metastructure for games
Desire to see structure, continuity makes it “real”
Cohere disparate images within a serial
Significance of paratextual elements
Imaginary underlying system
Concept art is seen as “prime mover” (initial, true, real)
May alter with different iterations
Shows which text is authoritative (the planned-for game)
Concept art has moved beyond planning tool and paratext to become a text in its own right
Early games – concept art is more complex than the final product (the “actual” game world)
Interpret the “real” concept art
Fans accept changes in style/character appearance in sequels as long as their true to the original concept art (?)
All iterations of the “real” structure provided by the concept art
All video game cultures are networked
How does video game culture affect the creation of games?
Cross-generation between players and creators
“The cultures of video gaming all share the emphasis on the importance of concept art as an underlying structure for a particular video game world or universe.”
New games in a series can either be similar to the previous game or to the concept art (no other option?)
“trace of the real”
Game merges with concept art in the mind of the player after using it as the one iteration/unfolding of the concept art “real”
FPS games – avatar is only visible in concept art (or cutscenes, or multiplayer...)
Exists in the culture
Metroid's Samus is known only through gameplay, manual text and concept art
Drastic change in GameCube version to first-person, 3D – “no complaints” about Samus' appearance?
Consistent with concept art/advertising
Nintento Power showed the “ideal” world of a game – early example
Holographic theory – any one particle is a trace of the overall structure
“Concept art [...] is holographic because a single image or set of images are used to represent an entire full world.”
“everything is enfolded into everything”
real/ideal cannot be deviated from without angering players (but it can, surely, in some contexts)
Multiple valid iterations of the same from different perspectives
Continuity can be perceived as long as games “hold to the correct underlying order”
Account for different versions – accepted as existing within the same framework
Presumption of the cohesive whole real/ideal (as shown in concept art) allows for variations in different (technological) versions to be normalized, glossed over
Video game culture suppresses gaps and differences
Concept art as a unifying metaphor
Include marginal aspects, actual gameplay experience, and cultures of gaming in game studies
What is taken for granted, accepted without question/complication?
Taylor makes some interesting points, but her overall theory seems to have extremely limited applicability to very specific contexts

William Huber, “Some Notes on Aesthetics in Japanese Videogames”

In Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell, eds., Videogames and art (Bristol, UK; Chicago: Intellect, 2007).

Wil Wright: games will follow the same trajectory as other art (realism, technique -> impressionism, aesthetic freedom)
When realism becomes trivial on a technical level, the next glorious phase begins
A powerful but problematic narrative
Japanese aesthetic tradition doesn't follow this trajectory at all
“When mimetic criteria are mobilized is is as a tactic”
Engagement between classical terms of Japanese aesthetics are the Western tradition (Huber acknowledges these are arbitrarily defined, and gloss over much historical dynamism)
Blurry boundaries
Classical Japanese aesthetics:
Mono no aware (pathos/feeling of things)
Yojo (surplus of meaning)
Yugen (transcendent beauty without representation)
Sabi (poetic loneliness)
These are mobilized self-consciously in contemporary practice (including games)
Contemporary Japanese aesthetic concepts:
Masks and faces (mimesis/charicature/abstraction)
“Superflatness” (adapt isometric/surface to current encounter with the West)
Aesthetics of manga, anime, otaku culture
Simulation as “representation of behaviour in a dynamic system”
Mimesis is “a different kind of problem in Japanese aesthetic discourse”
“A simulation-sensibility that is more supple in its treatment of the game-subject”
Static background-settings (Ozu?) - avatar moves through, but they remain
Gaze, masks and mirrors
Mimetic tradition in Japan does not pursue the essential meaning of the thing represented – always a “mask,” capture the “mask-action” as/in an act of mimesis
Simulate the act of representing
Gaze: “What sees itself as a self can only do so by knowing itself as a knowable by another”
Influence of Sartre?
“stylized language of affect, a repertoire of gestures and utterances”
Aesthetic performance integrated as a criterion for success (dance, music, karaoke games)
Collectible sets in RPGs as an aesthetic performance that is rewarded (very interesting)
Aesthetic field as an axis of play
Double nature of motion as operant and visible
Blurry distinction between natural and ritual movement
Play includes elements of aesthetic performance
Isometric landscapes + menu-driven combat/interactions/events
“Exploded view” that includes apparatus and labour that constructs/produces it (exposed apparata)
Resistance to absolute perspective
Flatness, embrace“contradictory boundaries” of mimesis (2D)
Parappa the Rapper – flatness extends into 3D space (3D technology affirms 2D aesthetics)
Synaesthesia in Rez – expressive performance (mask/face)
Reward improvisation over rote imitation
Dating sims – player is visible as well as being a viewer (stats, responses, etc. - under scrutiny)
Define ones own mask
Photorealistic backgrounds with 2D animated characters (spaces persist)
Baroque in Final Fantasy – mask/face
Aesthetics of apocalypse

Axel Stockburger, “From Appropriation to Approximation”

in Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell, eds., Videogames and art (Bristol, UK; Chicago: Intellect, 2007).

Relation between contemporary fine arts practice and video games
Museum/gallery shows featuring games, ontological debates
Huizinga/McLuhan: games as a core element of culture
McLuhan: “Games are popular art, collective, social reactions to the main drive or action of any culture.”
Divergence between art and games with literary texts (individual narratives, inner focus)
Both art and games are spatio-temporal zones set apart from the everyday
Rules/Freedom
Boris Groys “On the New,” - differentiation between profane world and art (traditionally, this line is the gallery)
Stable context of the gallery has become changing and unstable
Create contexts, examine/create/transform the rules governing the emergence of art
Duchamp: player as both artist and audience simultaneously (games as entirely individual aesthetic pleasure)
Two ways games are entering the artworld (museums, galleries): as cultural products worthy of exhibition/as components of fine art practice
Relationship between games and fine art is between appropriation and approximation
Back and forth borrowing (how and why?)
Stockburger only really looks at it in one direction (games -> art)
Many different motivations for incorporating games into fine art
Appropriation of game iconography
Pop art – games are an important part of contemporary media/pop culture
Not concerned with rules, game mechanics, etc.
Usually traditional means (painting, drawing, video)
Removes “active choice of what to experience” (?)
Reference to games/game culture
“Without interfering with or relating to the game technology itself” (I disagree, it's not so totally separate. Removing game iconography from a game context or capturing an instance of gameplay could very much be a way of interfering with and relating to the game technology/mechanics.)
Intervention in the form of Mods and Hacks
Internet distribution (patches)
Skinning, maps, models (origins in fan activity)
Infiltrate game culture
Accessibility of mod tools
“Hacker” culture/image/archetype
Deconstruction of game graphics into purely aesthetic abstraction
Transform profane objects into art spaces
Museum in game (rather than vice versa) – Chris Cornish, re-load.org
Artist games
Low budget, often web-based
Newsgames, artgames, etc. - move beyond entertainment

Nicholas Taylor, Jennifer Jenson and Suzanne de Castell, "Pimps, Players and Foes: Playing Diablo II 'Outside the Box'"

(In Digital Gameplay)

- Emergent interactions that leave the "intended" game behind
- Player is constructed by and constructs the game
- Jenkins: "poaching" game elements for a different purpose
- Acquisition and character customization-oriented practices ("pimping") undermine the "official" quest narrative
- Diablo II community is agonistic and individualistic
- After an ordinary, linear play-through of the game, online non-linear jumping enables/encourages emergent narratives and practices based on better weapons and equipment (this is the primary incentive for prolonged engagement with the game)
- Players in this context don't identify with their avatars, rather they see them as tools and status symbols
- Newman: avatars as "sets of capabilities, potentials and techniques"
- Avatar names tend to be instrumental, indicating use value
- Status gained from inventing or achieving novel character builds (especially those that require require wealth and rare items)
- Experimentation and exhibition with/of items and builds
- Rushing: high level character runs new character through the main quest narrative (in order to get it over with), new player leeches XP off higher-level characters
- Community and collaboration are entirely based on bartering and selling, motivated by the desire to cheat, scheme, betray others and individual gain (contrasts with the usually positive associations with those concepts)
- Farming and hacks as "instrumental non-engagement with the game" for wealth and status ("beating" the game)
- Cutthroat trading practices, "hard lessons" rather than help for n00bs
- Accumulation > play