[-empyre-] Systems – Videogames of the oppressed / oppressive games

[Claudia Pederson]

@ Paolo. Point taken. Utopia. Just curious, what was the reaction to your
talk?

On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 1:14 PM, paolo - molleindustria <
paolo at molleindustria.it> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
> (Sorry for the previous email. It was a misfire)
>
>
> On 3/14/13 10:54 AM, Johannes Birringer wrote:
>
>> perhaps the earlier discussion on video/games (Paolo, with all others
>> involved, and thanks for your reply Ana!) was far from exhaustive, and once
>> you introduced the correlation between a theatre of the oppressed and what
>> you call video of the oppressed, i could not help asking myself whom you
>> mean by the game-oppressed?
>>
>
> I won't further elaborate on the Games of the Oppressed thread, I did not
> write that thesis and there is more recent and more refined material by
> Frasca (http://www.ludology.org/2011/**03/frascaplaythemessage.html<http://www.ludology.org/2011/03/frascaplaythemessage.html>).
> To me, he used Boal as a starting point to imagine how games can perform a
> similar critical and social function and drew some parallels with the issue
> of agency within a designed (scripted) system. No need to go deep into
> Boalology.
>
>  Certainly, the idea of using simulation and videogames for educational
>> purposes is far from new and was already extensively explored by
>> constructionism. The idea was developed by Seymour Papert through
>> Mindstorms (1985) and Logo...
>>
>
> Yes, the specter of constructivism is obviously hovering over these ideas
> but I believe it's necessary to integrate this model with a
> "deconstructionist" approach (Derrida scholars reading this, have pity on
> me). I mean: analyzing the internal logic of existing games and "jamming"
> their language. That's why I prefer to teach game design through hacking
> and tweaking rather than presenting notions and tasks as a-historical and
> a-political.
>
>
> On 3/6/13 3:17 PM, Claudia Pederson wrote:
>
>> I am just back from a talk on videogame interventions at Haverford,where
>> I spoke about game interventions online like forms of nomadism (as advanced
>> by Hakim Bey, and Deleuze and Guattari). The questions were, what is next?
>> what frameworks are of relevance to the development of videogames with a
>> activist agenda beyond the "public sphere"? how does the anti-industry
>> stance of videogame activists intersect with other movements in the awake
>> of Occupy and the Arab Spring? (I am posing this question to all
>> discussants)
>>
>
> Yes, I meant to respond to this prompt. The many references and links
> shared around this thread demonstrate that there has been a lot of activity
> at the intersection of gaming, art and activism since the early 2000s.
> What's next may not be that exciting for new media critics or curators
> looking for the newest media and the practices at the cutting edge, but
> it's quite important to me.
>
> What's next may simply be taking these scattered, gestural experiences to
> the world outside our usual specialized circles. To the people who may not
> know about Deleuze and Guattari. Experimental, personal and political games
> have been produced before, but it's only recently, with the emergence of an
> independent identity within the community of game makers, that is really
> possible to imagine a widespread production of games and a proliferation of
> critical voices.
> Sure, the independent games movement is not anti-industry. Rather, it is
> both organic to- and in tension with- the industry. But the industry itself
> is undergoing structural transformations that makes it exceptionally porous.
> I talked about the topic recently: http://www.molleindustria.org/**
> blog/toward-independence-**indiecade-2012-microtalk/<http://www.molleindustria.org/blog/toward-independence-indiecade-2012-microtalk/>
>
> This is the reason why the search for high-culture legitimacy and
> museification right now, is not just ill advised but also reactionary.
> Finally, we can leave the warm and fuzzy art contexts and try to make an
> actual change!
> Anna Anthropy, previously mentioned here, is one of the catalysts of these
> emerging instances. She may not quote Hakim Bey and her book "the rise of
> the videogame zinesters" is rough and rushed to say the least, but it
> doesn't matter for the people whom she is trying to connect.
>
> One project I'm currently co-coordinating is a track at the Allied Media
> Conference in Detroit that consists in helping activists and grassroots
> organizations to make their own games for social change and personal
> empowerment. http://www.molleindustria.org/**blog/radical-game-makers-we-*
> *want-you/<http://www.molleindustria.org/blog/radical-game-makers-we-want-you/>
>
> Aside of this populist take, I also feel like these early artistic
> practices in gaming+art barely scratched the surface of what you can do
> with games. There's plenty of room for development in terms of language and
> expressive modes. Maybe it isn't the job of media artists to go beyond the
> mere gestural, pop-referential mode (i.e. "Here's a classic videogame about
> crossing a street, here's how I turn it into a game about border
> crossing... blah blah Deleuze"). Maybe the experimental/arthouse type of
> games will simply secede and create its own spaces and its own discourse
> like what happened to underground and experimental films.
>
> Paolo
>
>
>
>
>
>
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