[-empyre-] games as art or art as game

[Daphne Dragona]

hello

the idea of a documentation archive is in fact really good as it could
cover a broad area of projects such as: location based games,
performances bases on game applications, games based on workshops,
multidisciplinary projects with different modes of presentation etc.

about the form of the archive, i am not sure how an archive without
meta data would work...
i guess it would be something else...where as julian said search would
not be possible...
but i tend to disagree about tags.
i believe  that tags might be a more appropriate solution compared to
strict - but unavoidably arbitrary to some extent- classifications. If
a classification on technology was to be applied, tags could support
the content side.

Or:
should we try  instead to go ahead for a more abstract solution of a
game like "archive"/ environment where one would wander around and
view projects at his/her own pace?
No categorizations, no parameters, no further data...
Maybe it sounds too neo-situationist- but i do have a doubt about
this categorization/ classification discussion .

Are we sure we want to institutionalize  play more  and more in order
to make it adaptable to archives and collections?
Shall we treat play like contemporary art? Do definitions still need
to be our issue?
Does this make play and us working on the field "safer"?
maybe because of its character  it should remain little bit more intact

d

On 21/03/2008, Julian Oliver <julian at selectparks.net> wrote:
> ..on or around Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 03:51:59PM +1100, Melanie Swalwell said:
>  > Hey Julian,
>  >
>  > >  to speak practically however, what shape would an termless, typeless
>  > >  archive take? how does one search a flat-file-system without meta-data?
>  >
>  > Yes, you're right about taxonomies and archives.  Clearly, I'm no archivist ;)
>  >
>  > Though I still reckon that articulating what's interesting about
>  > specific works of game art isn't helped all that much by taxonomies.
>
>
> perhaps, but regardless, it helps you actually 'reach' them. it also
>  creates a starting point for discussion and curation. as i said in my
>  previous post, they are merely temporary, mutable indicators not binding
>  types.
>
>
>  >
>  > But seeing as this came out of your post about an agreed set of
>  > categories/taxonomy being useful prior to overhauling the selectparks
>  > website, and people writing to ask you for more information on types
>  > of game art/specific works, and further to the discussion we had last
>  > year about selectparks' "link archive" function, and the problems with
>  > websites going down, etc...  I've been thinking since then about the
>  > idea of an online collection of game art video documentation: a
>  > collection to which artists could directly upload video documentation
>  > of their work, with the Internet Archive as a possible host.  Rather
>  > than ad hoc videos on google or youtube etc.
>  >
>  > Obviously viewing video is not the same as playing an interactive
>  > work...but that wouldn't be the point.
>  >
>  > As a researcher in this area, I think it would be a useful collection.
>  >
>  > What do others think?  Would such a collection be of value?
>
>
> yes, this would be great, i would like to have a video archive of works
>  very much, we encourage artists to send us videos but they don't arrive
>  as often as we'd like..
>
>  to start with there are a few videogame artists that have written back
>  saying they oppose video documentation of a particular work, saying that
>  too much is mis-represented.
>
>  games made for handhelds and phones sometimes need to be captured just
>  by filming the screen which often produces results that people are
>  reluctant to publish. then there are screen-free games
>  (positional/multichannel audio-only games), games that prioritise
>  tactile feedback alongwith games like /////Furminator that make filming
>  game-play very tricky.
>
>  there are compromising solutions for all these cases of course (video
>  documentation is always a compromise).. but it's up to the artist as to
>  whether or not they think it's satisfactory.
>
>  then there is the unexpected difficulty of simply capturing video from a
>  screen-based game. believe it or not, it's trickier than you think,
>  requiring a computer with a TVout/SVideo port and a DV Camera (not a
>  luxury all have). the other option is the use of desktop screen video
>  capture. this software cannot currently capture video (and in many cases
>  sound at all) at over 20 frames-per-second, at or over 640x480, on
>  anything but the fastest computers. i think these issues comprise why
>  there are so few videos of artistic videogames. this, however, is
>  changing of course as computers become faster and more machines ship
>  with SVideo out ports..
>
>  a high-res video-upload option hosted on the our server, at least, would
>  work well if we can find cheap access to a few hundred gigabytes of fast
>  web-space.  i also feel pretty reluctant to host it all on youtube or even
>  vimeo as either of these sites may change their delivery model and or
>  corporate alliances. it does have to be fast and independent from the
>  main site; the 'Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006' video we
>  hosted had several hundred thousand downloads and took out the whole
>  webserver on several occassions. this would otherwise be fine if it
>  weren't for the fact 130 other people are hosted on the same server ;)
>
>  you're right, archive.org is a very interesting third-party option,
>  coming with a built-in licensing interface, too.
>
>
>  cheers!
>
>  --
>  julian oliver
>  http://julianoliver.com
>  http://selectparks.net
>  messages containing HTML will not be read.
>
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>



-- 
Daphne Dragona
cultural [net]worker & new media arts intermediator
t: +302103610470 m: +306974040109
skype name: dapdra