Re: [-empyre-] multi-perspectival / cultural hegemony of space

[Christina McPhee <christinamcphee@yahoo.com>]

Adam, Alan etal

even though the following passage relates to video
games rather than web3d , it addresses the question of
habituation to 3d spaces...it's something from
Darshana Jayemanne I've lifted from his paper for DAC
conference Melbourne last month, "Spielraum: Games,
Art and Cyberspace" 

" Thus the situation of characters within videogames
shows
an example of distraction, the test-space and its
tactile
appropriation through habituation. Initially, the
player
encounters the characters or objects in an optical,
contemplative sense. An unfamiliar videogame is prone
to
prompt such thoughts: ?Can I jump this chasm? Am I
strong enough to overcome that enemy?? A player at
this
stage will likely look for representational cues to
choose a
course of action. As the player becomes habituated and
learns the specificities of the game-space, their
reactions
become more ?unnatural?- they no longer judge a
chasm?s
length by their own real-world experience, but by the
distance they know their character can leap safely. As
the
player tests the game-space, threats once formidable
become incidental, handled automatically. Of course,
in
most videogames, the space is designed to test the
player
back. Perhaps the ?tetraminoes? fall faster onto the
screen,
or the enemies require more shots to defeat. At
length,
though, the player tends to see through the
representations
to the actual ratios of the simulation itself- even if
the
visual information is erroneous, a canny gamer can
correct for the fault by force of habit.
As Bogard, a fine guide amidst all this
distraction, writes, ?It is no problem to see the
force of
distraction at work in the connection of any kid?s
fingers
to the buttons of his or her videogame controller. Can
we
imagine a time when our brains are wired directly to
those
buttons, when the brain itself is a
distraction-machine that
can call up its own diversions at the merest thought?
When we no longer appropriate the scene tactilely but
through our nervous system?? It is certainly possible
to
imagine the innervation of the nervous system directly
to
distraction, but for my purpose here it overshoots the
mark. This then is where - in this eleventh-hour
inflection
of the apparatus - videogames gain their own
particular
felicity. The videogame?s distraction is still
channeled
through the ?fingers to the buttons?. This is the
particular
pleasure of the form thrown into relief: the testing
and
tactile appropriation of a range of virtual spaces
through
the specific apparatus of the videogame."

(rjayman@bigpond.net.au)

Christina


--- Adam Nash <adam@yamanakanash.net> wrote:

> Well, I'm not really interested in orienting the
> body towards the 
> experience - the body is sitting at a computer, so I
> don't see why it 
> should be any more of an issue than any other
> computer-based art like 
> Flash, or websites, or hyper-fiction, or QuickTime
> movies or anything. As I 
> said it is not "Virtual Reality" it is Web3D.
> Certainly, if you don't know 
> how to navigate the work using either the keyboard
> (which i prefer fwiw) or 
> mouse, then yes you'll have to learn, but isn't that
> like saying that a 
> book is non-intuitive for someone who doesn't know
> how to read? It's a given.
> 
> Also, on this point, where is this holy grail, this
> "intuitive interface"? 
> I've certainly never seen one - I wouldn't regard
> the mouse or the keyboard 
> as intuitive - they are highly specific and learned.
> What about breathing 
> in and out to navigate, a la Osmose, is that
> intuitive? I've never 
> experienced it so I don't know. But, really, what
> does 'intuitive' mean 
> anyway, surely it simply means something that you
> learned so long ago and 
> so comprehensively that you no longer need to
> consciously think about it as 
> you do it?
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre


=====
<http://www.naxsmash.net>

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