[-empyre-] Forward from Chad at selectparks.net

Christina McPhee <christina112@earthlink.net> · Tue, 07 Oct 2003 21:28:09 -0700

-= Hi =-

I hear you there Tom . . Cultural Studies 101, read Empire of the Signs, due
Thursday* . . 
But it is clearly a relevent discussion. Games and gaming technology, if
thats what we are talking about?, almost fit too neatly as an explanation or
exploration of the relationships between sign systems and the so called
real. As if we're going over the obvious, or missing something . . . but
there is more to the gaming / game developing experience, and its
interesting that while there are still layers of the less abstracted and the
more symbolic within gaming environments - a simulated street scene , a HUD,
a pick-up, a player list and their stats, a map with perhaps a
non-perspectival visual system, various entities and AI, and chat might all
exist on the screen at the same time for instance - they can't help but be
events within a universe thats increasingly trying to emulate what is
immediately recognisable to us, but is inevitably distinct.
I found The Getaway quite a positive step towards compressing the broad
extents of the game world information into the perspectival visual layer -
it worked to increasingly animate the world, giving potent reason to a blood
stained suit or a car indicator. But thats a direction that rides on film
while neglecting game specific potentialities . .

But I would like to follow Tom's lead and ask that we clarify the objects
and experiences we're talking about. Troy has mentioned 3D game technology
and how the immersive representation colludes with the fact that a game
world is developed around the agency of a body - Eugenie talks about VR,
though I think she refers to the same examples as Troy . . . would it not be
productive to extend discussions into specific examples we can share?

c h a d
selectparks.net

tom@nullpointer.co.uk wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Not too well versed in semiotic theory anymore myself (college seems a long
> time ago:)
> But I am interested in the ideas you are presenting and I was wondering if
> you are
> talking about videogames in general or if there are more specific examples
> that you can
> refer to as immersive semiotic agents/systems. I'm getting awfully tempted
> to dig up some
> baudrillard here but i'm not quite sure how post-structuralist thinking is
> regarded or applied
> to contemporary practice (In a strange way it seems kind of dated)
> 
> Best
> 
> Tom
> http://www.nullpointer.co.uk
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <troy@iconica.org> <mailto:troy@iconica.org>
> To: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> <mailto:empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Sent: Monday, October 06, 2003 1:47 AM
> Subject: RE: (Re: [-empyre-] Holbein thread)
> 
> 
> Hello,
> 
> Right. Many recent games use sophisticated simulations of worlds that embody
> relationhips and situations to the player / subject / viewer. When engaged
> in the simulation / game the player becomes part of the game. In terms of
> the symbolic / real (discursive / material) the simulation is a sign system
> and the player becomes a sign in that system ? the game world is quite
> literally
> addressing the player as an agent in the simulation. At the same time, the
> artifice of the simulation immerses the player so that they perceive it
> as real. This is typically through the use of depth cues, spatialised sound,
> immediacy of feedback, realistic behaviour / physics, lighting, and so on.
> Psychologically, the player is in that space ? it becomes their reality.
> 
> In this way, I would argue that electronic space can be the symbolic made
> real. The symbolic has real affect, and is represented as a real space
> through
> simulation. Of course, this relies on the assertion that 'we want to
> believe'
> ? that mediated experiences have been assimilated as natural and 'real'
> in the first place.
> 
> So, electronic space blurs the symbolic and the real by representing a
> highly
> abstract space (the logic and relations of the computer) in a realistic
> simulation (the immersive / interactive experience). Which is one of the
> things that makes them so special.
> 
> Troy.
> 
>   
>> 
>> hi again,
>> 
>> ta for the baltrusaitis reference - it's a classic text on anamorphosis.
>> another classic text is of course jacques lacan's chapter on 'anamorphosis'
>> in 'the four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis'.
>> 
>> according to lacan, holbein's picture demonstrates the 'annihilation' of
>> the
>> subject. his is a tricky argument to synopsize, but i'll try: lacan's
>>     
> schema
>   
>> of the subjectifying relation is very closely based around alberti's
>> perspective construction. his 'double dihedron' of vision schematizes the
>> way that the subject functions within the order of language and
>> representation. step outside this relation - i.e. step away from the
>>     
> correct
>   
>> point of view - and you enter the domain of the 'real', you cease to be
>>     
> a
>   
>> subject as such. this, in a nutshell, is what holbein's picture
>>     
> demonstrates
>   
>> - so says lacan.
>> 
>> within lacan's argument, then, the border between the discursive and the
>> material is recast as the border between the symbolic and the real - and
>> it
>> is not subject to blurring. you're either a subject under the gaze (i.e.
>> a
>> subject in/of discourse), or you're nothing at all. i think this is a bit
>> harsh, and i think holbein thinks so too, which is why i find his picture
>> so
>> interesting. i wouldn't go so far as to say it 'devours' the situated
>> subject - it simply points out that it's really tricky to 'situate'
>>     
> subjects
>   
>> in the first place.
>> 
>>     
>> >from the phenomenological point of view, which is basically (as far as
> i
>   
>> understand it) what holbein's picture demonstrates, subjectivity is a kind
>> of an 'unsituated' concern by definition, an unstable mix of the material
>> AND the discursive.... which is also what we find lucidly demonstrated
>>     
> in
>   
>> a
>> lot of recent videogames. which is why i find them so fascinating.
>> 
>> later
>> e
>> 
>> 
>> on 3/10/03 8:11 AM, -empyre-owner at empyre-owner@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> wrote:
>> 
>>     
>>> vince.dziekan@artdes.monash.edu.au
>>> Friday, 3 October
>>> HI.
>>> Sorry, don't want to jump in or preempt Eugenie's response, but I'd
>>> recommend you check out:
>>> 
>>> Author:Baltrusaitis, Jurgis, 1903-
>>> Title:Anamorphic art / by Jurgis Baltrusaitis ; translated by W. J.
>>> Strachan.
>>> Publisher:Cambridge [Eng.] : Chadwyck-Healey, 1977.
>>> 
>>> The idea of Renaissance, Cartesian Perspectivism containing this
>>> 'alternative' within it is an interesting position to think about (the
>>> application of perspective as a technique can be considered equally
>>>       
> "right"
>   
>>> whether using it to form or inversely to deform. Somewhere along the
>>>       
> way,
>   
>>> one of those positions has become "right" and the other deemed "wrong").
>>> Looking at this in this way, does this sort of soften the borders between
>>> the "discursive" and the "material", as indicated in an initial
>>>       
> observation:
>   
>>> 
>>> IÃve just read troyÃs first post and it looks Ã interestingly Ã as though
>>>       
>>>> weÂre approaching the issue of anamorphism from two distinct angles
>>>>         
> Ã
>   
>> the
>>     
>>>> discursive (troy) and the material (myself).
>>>>         
>>> Thoughts?
>>> Cheers.
>>> Vince
>>> (ps. I'm a colleague of Troy's  in the dept of Multimedia & Digital Arts
>>>       
>> at
>>     
>>> Monash --- so thought I'd better put in my two cents worth...)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Alan Sondheim wrote:
>>> 
>>> Can you say more about Holbein's scheme? It's almost as if his painting
>>> devours architecture and the situated body. Did he do other such work?
>>>       
>> Why
>>     
>>> was this brilliance abandoned, if it was? Could his other work contain
>>> secret geometries? (I realize not, but want to speculate.)
>>> 
>>> It reminds me, what you're saying, of the multiply perceived painting
>>>       
> of
>   
>>> Kuo Hsi -
>>> 
>>> Alan
>>> 
>>> On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, eugenie wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> hi all,
>>> 
>>> big thank you to christina, melinda, michael and jim for inviting me
>>>       
> to
>   
>>> participate in this monthÃs discussion.
>>> 
>>> IÃve just read troyÃs first post and it looks Ã interestingly Ã as though
>>> weÃre approaching the issue of anamorphism from two distinct angles Ã
>>>       
> the
>   
>>> discursive (troy) and the material (myself). my interest in anamorphosis
>>>       
>> is
>>     
>>> historically based Ã I arrived in the digital realm by the somewhat
>>> roundabout route of c18th landscape aesthetics Ã so IÃm going to begin
>>>       
>> by
>>     
>>> giving a bit of historical background.
>>> 
>>> anamorphosis, for me, is a way of approaching the issue of Oembodied
>>> visionÂ. the argument is simple and probably highly self evident to most
>>>       
>> of
>>     
>>> you posting to this list Ã vision and thought issue from an active body
>>> rather than a disembodied eye Ã but itÃs also one that western philosophy
>>> has traditionally had a great deal of trouble accepting.
>>> 
>>> Hans HolbeinÃs Ambassadors (1533) is a well-known example of an
>>>       
> anamorphic
>   
>>> picture and an excellent demonstration of the way that so called
>>>       
> Orational
>   
>>> perceptionÂ has always involved more than just the perspectival eye/I.
>>>       
>> The
>>     
>>> vanishing point and OcorrectÂ viewing position in HolbeinÂs picture are
>>> clearly indicated by the precise rendering of the various perspectival
>>> objects in the image. Looking from this position, the anamorphic skull
>>>       
>> in
>>     
>>> the foreground appears as nothing more than a meaningless shape. In order
>>>       
>> to
>>     
>>> see it properly, the viewer has to approach the painting and look
>>>       
> obliquely,
>   
>>> from a position on the right, about halfway up the frame.
>>> 
>>> Viewing HolbeinÂs picture was a sort of play in two acts. Holbein was
>>>       
> quite
>   
>>> specific about the manner in which the picture should be hung: in a room
>>> with two doors, each one corresponding to one of the pictureÂs two
>>>       
> viewing
>   
>>> positions. In the first act, the viewer enters the room and sees the
>>>       
> picture
>   
>>> from the OcorrectÂ point of view. Captivated by the realism of the
>>>       
> painted
>   
>>> scene, the viewer is also perplexed by the indecipherable object at the
>>> bottom of the picture. Leaving by the second door, the disconcerted
>>>       
> viewer
>   
>>> casts a brief backward glance at the painting, and it is at this point
>>>       
>> that
>>     
>>> the strange object resolves itself into an image.
>>> 
>>> Traditional theories of representation have paid a lot of attention to
>>>       
>> the
>>     
>>> way the viewer is constructed as/at the OcorrectÃ point of view Ã i.e.
>>>       
>> as a
>>     
>>> distanced, disembodied, monocular eye. they have had much less to say
>>>       
> about
>   
>>> the transient state(s) between points of view Ã what IÃm calling the
>>> Oanamorphic momentÃ. HolbeinÃs picture calls attention to those moments
>>>       
>> in
>>     
>>> the event of seeing where the viewer exceeds the Cartesianesque
>>> configuration of the disembodied eye. It foregrounds the subject in its
>>> environmental sense: a mobile, embodied agent that acts in the real world
>>>       
>> of
>>     
>>> objects. As a concept of transformation, then, anamorphosis allows us
>>>       
> to
>   
>>> understand subjectivity as a OdynamicÂ condition, a matter of a
>>>       
> constantly
>   
>>> changing body schema rather than a fixed body image. HolbeinÂs little
>>> theatre of representation, in other words, has a lot to tell us about
>>>       
> the
>   
>>> way we interface with virtual environments in the present dayS and this
>>>       
>> is
>>     
>>> where it links up to my current interest in videogames, and affect, and
>>>       
>> the
>>     
>>> way that we traditionally understand the history of virtuality.
>>> 
>>> wow, IÂve run on and on. IÂll leave it there for now.
>>> 
>>> bests
>>> eugenie
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> http://www.asondheim.org/ http://www.asondheim.org/portal/
>>> http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt
>>> Trace projects http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm
>>> finger sondheim@panix.com
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>       
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>     
> 
> 
>   
>>>> Troy Innocent : troy@iconica.org : iconica.org
>>>>         
> 
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> 
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> 
> 
> 
>   