<div dir="ltr">Hello All,<br><br>It's been a fascinating discussion so far, and I just wanted to pick up on a few key points made by Patrick and others over the past few weeks. The question of design and compulsion rings true on several levels, particularly as it relates to certain kinds of gamified use and play. However I don’t want to ascribe all forms of compulsive use to design <i>per se</i>, at lease not design as some kind of calculated practice. I’m particularly interested in the question of vernacular and improper use, which I wrote about in a brief piece for Art Papers this past January <<a href="http://www.artpapers.org/feature_articles/2015_0102-feature3.html">http://www.artpapers.org/feature_articles/2015_0102-feature3.html</a>>. When is compulsion not designed for, and is it always recuperable as extracted value through advertising, in-app purchases, etc. As Natasha Schüll’s fantastic work on machine gambling shows, certain spaces and forms of use are highly scripted and designed, but I don’t think that is entirely the case when it comes to the pornographic context that many contributors have discussed over the past few weeks. I immediately think of the tendency toward compilation videos that string together only the climaxes or “money shots” of a collection of videos, or 2+ hour extended cuts that can be set to play uninterrupted, which seem designed instead for some kind of distracted use. Is this form of use equally recuperable, or does it somehow fall outside of design? After all a single two hour video would seem to frustrate the ad revenue model of many porn sites.<br><br>This kind of distracted use also brings to mind James Hodge’s earlier question regarding the temporality of compulsion. This kind of distracted use brings to mind not only the compulsion associated with our phones, but also other forms of mobile game technology as Samuel Tobin’s research shows <<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Portable-Play-Everyday-Life-Nintendo/dp/113739658X">http://www.amazon.com/Portable-Play-Everyday-Life-Nintendo/dp/113739658X</a>>. This kind of distracted but habitual engagement brings us outside of both the temporality of riveted engagement as well as the space of something like a casino or the home.<br><br>I suppose my question is if this is also a form of compulsion as we are seeking to articulate it, and if this distinction is in some way significant.<br><br>I also couldn’t help but attach this meme image, which feels relevant to our discussion.<br><br><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr">Jacob Gaboury<br><div dir="ltr" style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">--<br>Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Visual Culture<br>Dept. of Cultural Analysis and Theory, Stony Brook University<br>--<div>Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Dept II)<br></div><div>Berlin, Germany 2015 - 2016</div><div>--<br><a href="http://www.jacobgaboury.com/" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">http://www.jacobgaboury.com/</a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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