Re: [-empyre-] playthings response

Troy Innocent <troy@iconica.org> · Sat, 25 Oct 2003 02:15:06 +1000

On Thursday, October 23, 2003, at 07:03  PM, eugenie wrote:
troy and empyricals...
on 21/10/03 4:04 PM, Troy Innocent at troy@iconica.org wrote:

Rez uses synaesthesia to great effect, and on a couple of levels

(players actions, behavior of the various enemies flying about, the

transitions between game stages). This is the case in all games, 
really

(or at least all good games) in that images and sounds are closely

linked together, and usually occur as a result of the actions of the

player or other agents in the simulation. I guess this is not linked

directly with non-perspectival systems of representation, but do you

think this blurring of the senses assist with the manifestation of

multiple systems of subjectivity?

what Rez does is invite the subject to engage with some of the more

'affective' aspects of its own subjectivity - sub-rational behaviours,

responses that fall outside the loop of conscious-autonomic 
response... the

sort of trance state that gets hold of you at a club or a rave.
of course all games do this on some level - falling over sideways in an

effort to get sonic the hedgehog to turn a corner is an example of

sub-rational behaviour in a game environment. as gamers, we can't do 
much to

prevent such behaviour.
Rez puts this behaviour front and center. i think this is important 
because

affective or sub-rational perception is very difficult to quantify, 
and for

this reason it tends to be marginalized in the theoretical domain. you 
can

theorize most video games until you're blue in the face, without even

mentioning the game interface, and the body/technology relations that

pertain there. it's a lot more difficult to do this in Rez ... and i 
think

this is a really important point in the study of digital games.
eugenie

In your paper I believe you described this as the way the 'body reacts 
before the mind' and the way that the player is 'being the game'. Both 
these points are interesting from the point of view of being immersed 
in a rave experience where people describe a strong connection with the 
rhythms, patterns of light etc. In Trigger Happy, Steven Poole 
discusses the sense of being immersed in the process of playing a video 
game, using the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He found that “people 
engaged in very complex tasks reported an experience of ecstasy or 
bliss, losing track of time and losing the sense of self.”
This is interesting in terms of looking at the feedback loop in digital 
games. When compared to other more 'contemplative' forms of digital 
media - browsing the web, navigating a GUI and so on - the feedback 
loop of digital games is more intense, so arguably results in a 
different mode of perception as you have described above.
I remember playing the first version of Doom and experiencing the 
'moving in the seat' type behavior. In that game you can also overlay a 
plan view of the space over the first person view so that you are 
simultaneously seeing two representations of the space at once. What is 
more, if I remember correctly, the plan view would rotate and shift as 
you moved about the space. It was really difficult to 'see' both views 
at once - if you tried you would immediately start moving the wrong 
way. This is interesting (perhaps) in relation to the Holbein example 
where parts of the image only make sense from a certain point of view, 
but also from the point o view of mixing modes of representation 
(semiotic morphism).
It certainly made for an unique way to navigate the space.
Troy.