RE: [-empyre-] Games versus Play and other thoughts

bstalbau@ucsd.edu · Mon, 21 Jun 2004 21:02:02 -0700 (PDT)

Quite a url, but here is a link at UNR documenting Quake Friends:
http://www.unr.edu/art/Art%20Web/Digital%20Media/DELAPPE/Recent%20Works%20In%20Progress/Quake%20Friends/QUAKE%20FRIENDS%20MAIN.html


> There have been several performances inside Everquest -
> most notable
> a candlelight vigil after 9/11 and the creation of memorials within the
> game
> Brody Condons work "Worship"
> http://www.tmpspace.com/derez_1.html
> and as you mentioned eddo sterns work "summons to surrender"
> http://beallcenter.uci.edu/shift/games/summons.html
>
> Inside the Sims on line Freelance writer Tony Walsh organised a protest
> against the  McDonald's kiosk that Electronic Arts had made a deal to
> allow to be included into the game.
>
> There was a reading of Wilfred Owens war poetry by a player in
> Counterstrike. (sorry can't find reference)
>
> Tony Walsh's was authentic political protest as were the 9/11 memorials
> other are conceived as performance but with no less political intent.
> Except perhaps the one below which is curious but quirky.
>
>
> a reading of the TV show Friends Scripts inside Quake as a performance,
> http://www.planetcrap.com/blah.php?action=viewtopic&topic_id=626
>
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> "Does anyone know if there are any examples of art events/pieces
> happening inside these semi-public environments? Has anyone ever done a
> performance inside Everquest for example?"
>
> Andy, I know there are a number of people doing performances within
> MMORPG's. Eddo stern http://www.eddostern.com/
> And a friend of mine mike paget http://pusandfester.com
> Just to name 2.
>
> Anita
> <www.sikofshadows.com>
>
>
>  -----Original Message-----
> From: empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> [mailto:empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Andy Polaine
> Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2004 6:17 PM
> To: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> Subject: [-empyre-] Games versus Play and other thoughts
>
> Hi all,
>
> I think this issues of games versus play that Jim and a few others
> mentioned is an essential area and one that's my particular axe to
> grind I suppose. For me it is really interesting to see gaming being
> more accepted as a valid cultural form. In the early days of Antirom
> (early 90s) we really struggled to get playful interactive content seen
> taken seriously. That's not to say that they were carrying serious
> messages, but that understanding the nature of interactivity itself was
> important.
>
> We had always taken great pains to separate interactive "toys" from
> games. Toys tend to be things you play with for the intrinsic pleasure
> of the activity and, when bored with it, you move onto the next one.
> Games are usually goal-based and competitive in some way when gives
> them a different form and mode of interaction. As Caillois and Huizinga
> have both written, games tend to have a specific space (playing field,
> arena, etc.), a set of conventions (the rules) and some kind of
> competition. One of my frequent complaints about a great deal of
> interactive art installations (or net/CD projects) is that, in an
> effort to be "serious" they don't engage with either the play or game
> aspects of the form. In short, they're dull and if they don't engage on
> an interactive level in the first place there is little point in the
> rest. It is akin to badly lit, shot and edited time-based art (of which
> there is plenty masquerading as a rejection of conventions).
>
> I always found it irritating that if I was to spend the day playing
> games (or getting my students to) that this would be frowned upon, but
> if I spent the afternoon watching Goddard films that would be okay. So,
> ten years on, it is great to see that games (or rather, game
> modalities) are carrying some powerful messages (as in the 9/11 piece
> for example). I would argue that possibly the most sociologically
> interesting aspect of gaming is the multiplayer experience, something
> that has risen to amazing proportions with massively multiplayer games.
> Does anyone know if there are any examples of art events/pieces
> happening inside these semi-public environments? Has anyone ever done a
> performance inside Everquest for example? I am specifically referring
> to environments that have a game as the rationale for the space (so,
> not Alphaworld, etc.).
>
> The other question I would like to raise here is one of generations.
> I'm 32 and have played videogames since the mid to late 70s, but the
> developments in them are still exciting to me and seem new. I'm
> wondering whether we are all still doing the classic "new media" thing
> of being impressed by the newness of it all. The generation beneath me
> will always have known complex videogames and children under 10 will
> always have known the Internet. It is just like  TV to me. To answer
> the question that was raised earlier about whether games are set on a
> trajectory that will not change much, my feeling is that they have only
> just started to become interesting and there is a long way to go. What
> will an under-ten of the 2000s make in twenty-five years time? It's not
> just the technology that will have changed.
>
> Lastly (sorry, this has turned into an essay), I was speaking to Mark
> Pesce (author of The Playful World) the other day who made the point
> that consoles are both the most potent (widespread, fixed target to
> develop for, powerful, dedicated, etc.) yet the most closed. Things
> like the Eye-Toy camera and Sing Start microphone are showing a real
> shift in the kinds of things these consoles are being used for. A shift
> to more playful games/toys that have, essentially, no physical
> interface.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Andy
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Polaine
> Senior Lecturer
>
> School of Media Arts
> College of Fine Arts (COFA)
> The University of New South Wales
> Cnr Oxford Street and Greens Road
> Paddington
> Sydney, NSW 2010
> Australia
> -----------------------------------------------------------
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