[-empyre-] The Playsthetics of Experimental Digital Games: Week 1 Featured Guests and Questions

[skot deeming (mrghosty)]

Hi all,

First of all a big thanks to Sandra for moderating this discussion, and for
posing a nice series of introductory questions, which I think as a curator
have provoked more questions for me than answers. I'll do my best in this
first salvo to talk about my position here, both as a scholar and curator,
with what I believe are a set of rather contentious terms, or at the very
least a set of categories for understanding games, experimentation,
independent production, and artistic discourse, which seem to be changing
rapidly enough that the deployment of such terms become problematic.

First of all, I'm wary of the term experimental games, and will mirror
Bart's opening comments in terms of 'games as experiments. The category is
a problem, because the medium itself is a site for all manner of
experimentation; through aesthetics, game mechanics, play with interfaces
etc. I think the distinction between mainstream vs indie games in terms of
exploring the experimental in games isn't very useful, because
historically, we can see all kinds of experiments tracing back to the early
days of development in games. Warren Robinett's addition of a secret room
in Adventure, Howard Scott Warshaw's experiments with mapping multiple
functions onto a single button in Yar's Revenge, Raiders of the Lost Ark,
and E.T. Nana On Sha's play with the player's relationship to music in Pa
Rappa the Rappa and Vib Ribbon. So historically, we can see minor and major
experiments with the tropes, genre conventions, and the form of games, both
in large scale development environments, as well as the smaller scale teams
of the indie realm.

In terms of understanding these works as part of a larger avant garde
movement, I think that Felan's comment on a series of art world assemblages
is an apt one as well. The medium has grown to include the creative
endeavor's AAA studios, small scale studios, artists, fans and hobbyists.
Perhaps the best way to think about these then is through an understanding
of different movements (avant gardes Vs. avant garde), and enter into
discussions on how certain experiments speak to our larger understanding of
a specific strata of the medium, and whether or not these new experiments
provide us with moments of rupture or catalyze new creative trajectories.
 In my experience, however, I find that the works that I would most align
with previous avant garde art movements is the practice of Art Modding (a
practice employed by artists experimenting with games, rather than game
developers), the history of the appropriation of and re-contextualization
of the medium through these works is documented, but there is still some
contention in these discussions, requiring us to work through them through
more scholarly discussion.

The art world vs/ game world vs/ indie games question is one that speaks
directly to myself and others (such as Isabelle Arvers, who's previous
contributions to last year's discussion I have read over) who curate and
work within the realm of "Game Art". Which is to say, the artistic
experimentation with games and their technologies. Isabelle made a post on
the listserv which struck me right away. And that is the strange
interstitial space which game art occupies. The art world and the game
world (as Isabelle discussed, which I wholly agree with) do not dialogue
with one another. One of the reasons that I founded the Vector Game Art
Festival in Toronto, was to try to bridge this gap. However, it should be
noted here that neither indie game makers, nor members of the art world in
Toronto chose to engage, rather it was people who were already engaged in
this liminal realm of game art, or those completely uninitiated in either
who became our audience.

Finally, on the whole term "indie game". The world of indie development has
changed so rapidly, that what began as a term to describe an ideological /
aesthetic position of game makers working outside the "mainstream" to make
experimental or offbeat works on their own terms.. well I don't think the
term applies anymore when framed as something alternative to mainstream
games (not as a blanket term anyway).  Rather the term seems to apply only
when discussing small teams or studios working outside of the larger studio
system (which is a similar trajectory to the whole Indie film phenomenon in
the 90s). Indie is no longer something that distinguishes itself from other
facets of the game industry, save smaller budgets and smaller teams. The
reason I believe this is due in large part to the rise of in-game
micro-transactions (invented largely by indie developers), witnessing small
studios taking on branded/ licensed properties and developing games for
them. I have no problem using the term to describe the distinctions between
large scale studio productions and small scale studio productions, but to
talk about indie as an aesthetic or ideological alternative, at this point,
is rather erroneous to me.

But for fear of ranting.. I will stop there.

Looking forward to this discussion!!!

Skot. aka mrghosty.










On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 10:11 AM, Felan Parker <felan.parker at hotmail.com>wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Hello world!
>
> Thanks to Sandra for the invitation to join in this discussion, and to
> empyre for hosting.
>
> My interest in these questions is on the socio-cultural side of things,
> and how the concept of experimental games (or artgames, or weird games, or
> honest games)  is mobilized in different empirical contexts to different
> ends. What does it mean for something to be experimental in a given time,
> place, community, etc.? For me, this is not just about game-making
> practices, although certainly production is important. I also want to look
> at how these practices are taken up by players and critics, and how they
> help constitute what exactly is experimental (or artistic, or weird, or
> honest) about them. As Sandra's intro suggests, critics and scholars in
> particular play a crucial role in discursively framing and sustaining what
> might be called the taste publics for various kinds of experimental games,
> but we might also consider the social-material networks of distribution
> through which these games circulate, and the wider cultural frameworks
> outside of gaming culture specifically that constitute ideas of
> experimentalism and weirdness ("paracinematic" communities of reception for
> B-movies and trash cinema, for example, form the basis for the appreciation
> of amateurish, broken, or otherwise "bad" games as exemplified by Glorious
> Trainwrecks http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/). Collectively, these all
> constitute what I call in my own research an art world assemblage, a
> contingent and always-shifting system of interactions between diverse
> elements that produces aesthetic experiences, cultural and/or material
> capital, and social legitimacy for those involved. I'll leave it there
> for now, but I hope as the discussion proceeds we can start discussion
> specific experimental game assemblages in greater depth.
>
> Felan
>
>
>
> From: s.danilovic at mail.utoronto.ca
> To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2014 04:30:54 +0000
> Subject: [-empyre-] The Playsthetics of Experimental Digital Games: Week 1
> Featured Guests and Questions
>
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
>
> Week 1 (March 3-9): Bart Simon, mrghosty, Felan Parker. I would like to
> introduce the first three guests of this discussion, Bart Simon, mrghosty
> and Felan Parker. Questions of the week: Experimental games - tensions 1.
> Is the conceptual category of 'experimental games' a productive category of
> analysis? What are some inherent assumptions, biases, challenges? 2. What
> are some fruitful ways to think about experimental games in the context of
> problematic and already problematized institutional understandings of
> experimental and avant-garde art/practice? 3. How are experimental digital
> games troubling mainstream games culture and/or game studies scholarship?
> 4. What are some intersections between experimental digital games, indie
> games and art/digital media art? Bart Simon (CA) is the current director of
> the Centre for Technoculture, Art and Games (TAG) and Associate Professor
> in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University in
> Montreal. His areas of expertise include game studies, science and
> technology studies and cultural sociology. His game studies research
> crosses a variety of genres, platforms and modalities looking at the
> relation of game cultures, socio-materiality and everyday life. Some of his
> work is represented in journals such as Games and Culture, Game Studies and
> Loading. His current research on social imagination and gameplay and
> cultural economies of the indie game scene are funded by the Social Science
> and Humanities Council of Canada and the Canadian network on New Media,
> Animation and Games (GRAND NCE). mrghosty (aka skot deeming) (CA) is an
> artist, curator, researcher and doctoral student in Concordia University's
> Individualized Program in the Humanities. As a key figure in the Canadian
> video game art scene, and a researcher at Concordia's Amplab, andTAGlab,
> skot draws upon a wealth of practical experience and theoretical knowledge
> while investigating the intersections between gamer cultures, hacker
> cultures and new media art practices. Felan Parker (CA) is a PhD candidate
> (ABD) in Communication & Culture at York University in Toronto,
> specializing in digital game studies and cinema and media studies. He holds
> an MA and BA Hon. in Film Studies from Carleton University. His
> dissertation examines the cultural legitimation of digital games as art in
> a variety of different contexts, and other research interests include
> transmedia franchises, genre, authorship, paratexts, and canon formation. ??
>   Week 1 (March 3-9): Bart Simon, mrghosty, Felan Parker.
>
> I would like to introduce the first three guests of this discussion, Bart
> Simon, mrghosty and Felan Parker.
>
>
>  Questions of the week: Experimental games - tensions
>
>  1.     Is the conceptual category of 'experimental games' a productive
> category of analysis? What are some inherent assumptions, biases,
> challenges?
>
>  2.     What are some fruitful ways to think about experimental games in
> the context of problematic and already problematized institutional
> understandings of experimental and avant-garde art/practice?
>
>  3.     How are experimental digital games troubling mainstream games
> culture and/or game studies scholarship?
>
>  4.     What are some intersections between experimental digital games,
> indie games and art/digital media art?
>
>
>  Bart Simon (CA) is the current director of the Centre for Technoculture,
> Art and Games (TAG) and Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology
> and Anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal. His areas of
> expertise include game studies, science and technology studies and cultural
> sociology. His game studies research crosses a variety of genres, platforms
> and modalities looking at the relation of game cultures, socio-materiality
> and everyday life. Some of his work is represented in journals such as
> Games and Culture, Game Studies and Loading. His current research on social
> imagination and gameplay and cultural economies of the indie game scene are
> funded by the Social Science and Humanities Council of Canada and the
> Canadian network on New Media, Animation and Games (GRAND NCE).
>
>  mrghosty (aka skot deeming) (CA) is an artist, curator, researcher and
> doctoral student in Concordia University's Individualized Program in the
> Humanities. As a key figure in the Canadian video game art scene, and a
> researcher at Concordia's Amplab, andTAGlab, skot draws upon a wealth of
> practical experience and theoretical knowledge while investigating the
> intersections between gamer cultures, hacker cultures and new media art
> practices.
>
>  Felan Parker (CA) is a PhD candidate (ABD) in Communication & Culture at
> York University in Toronto, specializing in digital game studies and cinema
> and media studies. He holds an MA and BA Hon. in Film Studies from Carleton
> University. His dissertation examines the cultural legitimation of digital
> games as art in a variety of different contexts, and other research
> interests include transmedia franchises, genre, authorship, paratexts, and
> canon formation.
>
>
>
>  
>
>
> _______________________________________________ empyre forum
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>
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-- 
skot deeming
http://www.theghostarcade.tumblr.com
http://www.teamvector.tumblr.com
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