[-empyre-] Immersion: Frames and caves

["arteonline" <arteonline@arteonline.arq.br>]

Dear Empyreans,

On the one hand, until now, the only medium which was able to immerse me
into
the "otherness" was the cinema.  On the other hand I am not a dedicated
gamer in spite of being very interested in Game Art or Art Games. Perhaps it
can be the reason of  my immersion "problems".

Living in a city whem sometimes the war (drug traffic war) explodes without
any alert very near of each one of its citizens, I am sure that the
sensation of insecurity that this situation provokes is very difficult to
transmit to an individual that never lived anything similar. Could a
computer game do this? Can we reach the otherness  through a game? I am not
sure...

My doubts come from the frame - the computer's screem as a frame. Is it
possible to get immersion in so reduced space? Do not you think that to a
game be an immersive medium the human body should be the interface and the
game action must be developed in a kind of cave or better than this, the
real space? Have anyone in this list knowledge about a game like this or
about someone who is working in this kind of adventure?

Regina Célia Pinto
http://arteonline.arq.br

----- Original Message -----
From: "Melinda Rackham" <melinda@subtle.net>
To: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Sent: Sunday, July 04, 2004 9:30 AM
Subject: [-empyre-] otherness


> dear empyreans..
>  great to have our new guests this month following the all too brief
> flirtation with the  topic of game mods and interventions in last months
> forums..
>
>  I'm not a dedicated gamer, so  my interactions with theses works :
> underAsh, escape form Woomera,  and  Waco resurrection are from playing
them
> installed in gallery spaces and hearing them being talked about at
> conferences, ( and ive only read about Crosser) rather than just me alone
at
> home ..and context greatly modifies the experience i think.
>
>  ..  what was really evident last month in our conversations is how this
> genre, of modification and intervention allows fascination and
> identification with the other..  which i instantly gravitate to wards - i
> don't  know if that's is a particularly Australian thing seeing we are a
> nation consisting in great part of survivors of genocide, deported
convicts,
> pacific island slaves,  and in the 20th century refugees from mostly
Europe
> and Asia.  so  almost by default  i  support the unfairly treated and seem
> to be in opposition to the dominant political force.. and celebrate
bringing
> an other awareness, but i know that many people on seeing these works have
> the opposite reaction to that .. and in fact you all as developers have
had
> hostile press and even been threatened.
>
> but what i see happening in these works is that they bravely present other
> realities in easily accessible ways.. which of course was the early
promise
> of the net , and all that hyped  "fluid identity" stuff was that
supposedly
> gave you the experience of being in another persons life/body/emotions,
> which i know i played around with textually a lot a decade ago.. and i
guess
> games are the updated version of that. Its not that this political aspect
is
> new either as it also exists in many other forms, the classic digital
> example being  Tamiko Thiel's  VRML piece Beyond Manzanar, about  the
> Manzanar Internment Camp in Eastern California  which interned both
Japanese
> Americans and  Iranian Americans about which we've talked about before on
> this list ..
>
> but there's something more in the gameplay that gets me.... some almost
> chemical thing that occurs  to totally immerse me even more within
> otherness.. i know the rhythm hooks into my body rhythm somehow eg >>  in
> Waco Resurrection i have an almost spiritual experience each time i am
> re-born..(as  David koresh.). umm maybe it is the music! thats a scary
> thought...
>
> but  i am trying to decipher what it is exactly that makes these games as
> "difference engines" so effective/affective ?
>
> melinda
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
>