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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Hi,<br>
<br>
I am following this discussion with a lot of interest as identity
and gender representation in video games were the subject of two
of my past machinima exhibitions. The first machinima exhibition -
<a
href="http://www.isabellearvers.com/2012/08/identity-otherness-games-machinima/">Identity
and Otherness in videogames and machinima</a> - was about the
representation of the other in video games as it is most of the
times an alien, a zombie, an ennemy, a villain or a terrorist...
Besides machinima, i also curated an independant game - <a
href="http://www.makeourway.com/">Way</a> - in which you had to
follow the instructions of a stranger if you wanted to succeed and
win the game. Way is a 2 player game and when you connect to the
server, you had to send a twitt in order to find somebody to play
with you. Then, you will have to follow its instructions and trust
this stranger in order to progress.<br>
<br>
The second exhibition - <a
href="http://www.isabellearvers.com/2014/09/machinigirrlzzzz-a-machinima-exhibit-inside-the-10th-edition-of-gamerz/">Machinigirrlzz</a>
- was about feminism and gender in video games with artworks of <a
href="http://angelawashko.com/home.html">Angela Washko</a>,
known for her feminist performances inside World of Warcraft as
well as <a href="http://www.georgieroxbysmith.com/">Georgie Roxby
Smith</a> who did an action inside the game Grand Theft Auto, in
which the main character commits suicide in front of other players
online. After this exhibition, I was interviewed by the online
magazin Slate about the <a
href="http://www.slate.fr/story/95321/lecons-francaises-gamergate">gamergate</a>,
and why, in my point of view, almost nobody talked about it in
France. What I answered as it is in french is that, for me, it is
included in a larger sexist matter in France, as we still have 16%
of difference between salaries for men and women and as in the
artworld, even if 60% of the students are women, only 10% of
female artists are exhibited. The same in technology, so the
problem in games look like an epiphenomenon..<br>
<br>
You already mentionned the work of Auntiepixellante - Dis4ya - in
a previous post, what I also find very interesting is her book:
"Rise of the videogame zinesters"
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. This book is "
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an attempt to shift the balance of our dialogues about videogames
a little. when our culture discusses videogames, it mentions
corporations, blockbusters, and a hyper-masculinized “gaming”
culture. rarely does the idea of the small, authored,
self-published game get much air in our discussion of art, even
though it’s these games that are the most important to games’
relevance to a broader range of human experience. nothing is more
harmful to an art form than a monolithic perspective or the
restriction of the means of creation to a privileged few."<br>
<br>
I also beleive that we need to promote and show and discuss more
the games produced by the independant game scene, students and
artists. I always recommand people who don't play a lot and don't
want to buy any console, to download the <a
href="http://www.piratekart.com/">Pirate kart </a>compilations.
There are now more than 1000 games to download for free on a PC,
most of them are not totally finished, but thanks to this
profusion of non typical games, it opens the doors to an entire
new way to consider what are video games nowadays. And if we focus
more on this type of games, if they become more wellknown by the
audience - gamers and non gamers - it could change the debate
about representation. At least, I hope so!<br>
Best,<br>
<br>
Isabelle<br>
Art and games curator<br>
Marseille<br>
<br>
Le 15/04/2015 13:41, shira chess a écrit :<br>
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Murat, in my opinion it is some combination of those two thing:
capitalism and sexism. The economic system gui</pre>
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<pre wrap="">ding video games is as
such that in the 80s there was a splintering of console systems,
developing into a unique system where now every time a major game
comes out, the industry needs to produce several different full
versions of the same product. Mobile and casual games do not need this
kind of budget and so they become quickly dismissed on the market as
real games.
So, then, while over 50 percent of video game players are women those
games are not treated of the same value (very similar to the romance
novel or other forms of popular women's media as you implied). There
are several genres that fall into this category: social network games
(such as Farmville), time management games (such as Diner Dash), and
Hidden Object Games (such as the Ravenhearst series) all are
constructed with the presumption of a woman audience. These games
often are made to appeal to women, but also essentialize expectations
of femininity into their design, often conflating work and play in
troubling ways. (I would go into a deeper description of these games
but I feel like that would create an overwhelming number of
paragraphs. But I'm happy to refer you to things or email off-list so
as not to inundate everyone else.)
That said, as Aubrey wisely noted, part of the problem is, indeed, the
computer science one. Games programs are still finding their home, and
often get housed in computer science departments. But this is a
complex problem and there are other things at play here: notably
"quality of life" issues in the video game industry that are often
more of a problem for women than for young men. Industry crunches
(particularly for AAA games) often require many hours of work close to
deadlines that become difficult for women (and men) trying to start
families.
Best,
Shira
On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:21 AM, Murat Nemet-Nejat <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:muratnn@gmail.com"><muratnn@gmail.com></a> wrote:
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Shira, thank you for your clear and succinct response. The way you describe it, the tension between big markets (AAA games) and more specialized ones is not much different from the one between big budget (Hollywood, etc.) and indie films or popular writing (novels, etc.) and poetry, etc. Seen from that angle,it seems to me the tension is inherent to capitalism where the profit motive (selling to the largest market possible) is paramount, rather than gender prejudice (unless practiced unconsciously against economic self-interest) or any other kind of prejudice.
Or is it gender prejudice in the work place where certain jobs are not available to women or to gays, etc.? In relation to this, Audrey made a very interesting point: the split between humanities and computer sciences, there being fewer women in computer sciences. Does anyone remember Larry Sumner's comment that women are not good in sciences. There, prejudices definitely exist. It seems gender imbalance is endemic in Silicon Valley. Is it particularly, even more so in the field of digital games?
Shira did you say more women play digital games than men? If so, I would have expected more games geared to "female sensibilities" (as there are "women's novels," etc.). Are there such games? Is there such a digital genre? The issue of content seems to be very important in the discussions here, but I am not clear in what way?
(Personally, I am not a personal devotee of games, digital or otherwise. I prefer involved crossword puzzles. My experience of them, in the nature of the clues they give, is that they are refreshingly androgynous.)
Ciao,
Murat
On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 6:51 PM, Aubrey Anable <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:aubrey.anable@utoronto.ca"><aubrey.anable@utoronto.ca></a> wrote:
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Shira—Thank you for putting some necessary pressure on the discourse of being maligned. I found myself nodding vigorously in agreement to the many good points made by Jen and Brenda.
I do think it’s important to celebrate the more diverse gaming landscape that has developed over the past few years--in terms of whose playing and whose designing games. My comments here have mostly been about my frustrations with some blind spots in academic approaches to analyzing and understanding games. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I would like to suggest that the problems we have all been identifying--in the industry, the culture, and in scholarly approaches--are connected.
For example, I think it is a problem that most game design programs in North American universities are closely affiliated with Computer Science. Computer Science departments have a big gender problem in terms of being unable—for complex reasons—to attract and retain women in the field. If these are the programs that feed into the gaming industry, we are still a long way off from increasing the numbers of women in programming jobs. At the same time, courses in “game studies” from a humanities or a social scientific approach are taught elsewhere on campus, often with little or no direct connection with what’s going on over in Computer Science. This is a problem that affects who goes to work in the industry, what kind of work they do in the industry, and deepens the divide between ways of knowing and understanding video games in the broader culture.
And by the way, Brenda, I would love to hear your thoughts on the deeper reasons behind GamerGate, as I’m sure others would.
Aubrey Anable
Cinema Studies Institute
University of Toronto
2 Sussex Ave.
Toronto, ON
M5S 1J5
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--
Isabelle Arvers
Curator & art critic
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.isabellearvers.com">http://www.isabellearvers.com</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:ia@isabellearvers.com">ia@isabellearvers.com</a>
Skype ID : zabarvers
Twitter: zabarvers
Youtube: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.youtube.com/zabarvers">www.youtube.com/zabarvers</a></pre>
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