[-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 26

[Kara Stone]

Hi again!
Responding to today's and yesterday's convos:

Obviously using a certain medium affects the work of art -the medium
~is~ the message, of course. Again, I don't think I or anyone has to
know the hard code to be able to understand the influence of that
specific tool. Yet, just because the medium affects the content, the
message, the final product, does not mean that every work created in a
software or device is a reiteration or recapitulation of previous
work. I think of Rachel Simone Weil's work (nobadmemories.com). She
makes 8-bit NES games, yet they are total subversion of
"recapitulation" of the general medium because of her appropriation of
tools and aesthetics for a feminist directives, and the content she
explores. (Does anyone else feel the shift from communication studies
of constantly having to mention not to forget about the medium, to
game studies where I am often saying "don't forget about the
content!") Her work is creating an alternate history where videogames
were for girls and were "girly." She knocks away the thinking of 8-bit
and 16-bit as nostalgia, the love of playing pure games when you were
a kid. Because whose nostalgia is that? It isn't mine and it isn't a
lot of women's and non-heteronormative people's. Maybe we played with
pony dolls or barbies, or even barbie horseback racing for PC. She's
using the medium and the aesthetic of pixel art not to reiterate
previous games but to make us rethink the notions we have about that
type of games we played or were encouraged to play, and the types of
games the general gaming culture likes to think of as "nostalgic."
Pixel art can often be a showing a desire for  a time that never
really was, but it can also be a way of subverting expectations and
showing us things never seen before in that style. I'm 24 so I grew up
playing an N64 and pc games like day of the tentacle. Pixels have very
little to do with my childhood, but I don't think that means I can't
appropriate them and their dominant use in cultural creations. I used
pixel art in my first game Medication Meditation because I thought it
would be an interesting juxtaposition of a normalized aesthetic and a
very "ungamey" game. Mirroring Christine's belief that she chose pixel
art because of tetris, I think I did because I love cross-stitching
and I could already see everything in a grid filled with different
colour squares. Media can be reappropriated, and there is a long
history of feminist reappropriation that we can learn from.

To address Sandra's last opening question, "What does it mean to
design 'unplayable' games, difficult-to-play games, etc in relation to
creative experimentation?"
I just want to throw the idea out there that experimental games could
be seen as a "de-gamification" of games. They are games without, or at
least perverting, the hallmarks of games such as success, reward,
competition, a win condition. As "gamification" moves into other
realms of life, maybe experimental/honest/radical video games are a
response to that very neoliberal view of what games are, instead
focusing on the possibility of what they could be. I find most games
to be very neoliberal in their content and design, and I'm trying to
explore ways in which games do not have to be. My game Hand to Heart
is probably my biggest example of that. 4 players just tap out the
rhythm of their heart as a pixel heart is projected onto anatomical
drawings. There is no winning or losing, no goals, individualism
breaks down as the players hearts sync up.

This has been really interesting! Thanks again Sandra for moderating!
If Felan's posts got you all hyped up about Twine, I invite you to a
Twine-learning workshop run by Kaitlin Tremblay and I at York
University in Toronto April 16th at an e-poetry symposium --
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/e-poetry-performance-play-tickets-11079139003

-Kara
karastonesite.com



On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 9:00 PM, <empyre-request at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au> wrote:
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> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23 (Felan Parker)
>    2. Re: empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23 (Rob Myers)
>    3. Re: empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23 (Felan Parker)
>    4. Re: empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23 (Mark Chen)
>    5. Re: empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23 (Irina Contreras)
>    6. Re: empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23 (Sandra Danilovic)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 21:40:27 -0400
> From: Felan Parker <felan.parker at hotmail.com>
> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23
> Message-ID: <BLU176-W2113838196442083F763F9E610 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Chris Young said: "The point here is that you are right to say that Twine is not in the same league as Unity or GameMaker (its open-source), but it is an organization (open-source community) with its own politics; it just may not be apparent to us yet what those politics are yet, and what potential effects it may have on our freedom of expression. "
> This is basically what I was trying to say, but you've articulated it better. Of course Twine has a politics (as the Friedhoff article I linked demonstrates); but it's wrong to say its politics are the same as any other game-making software or game engine.
>
> Best,Felan
> From: christopher.young at utoronto.ca
> To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 17:08:27 +0000
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23
>
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
> I will try to address everyone's points to the best of my ability, and then try and answer Christine's question that I forgot to address in my last post.
>
> RE: Kara Stone. You are absolutely right in that it doesn't necessarily matter whether we are techy or not. I myself am not particularly techy, but am trying to learn more about the codes I use and their history. What is important is that we get meaning from the tools we use and the experiences we get from them.
>
> To clarify my argument a little better--and not to sound too technologically deterministic--Langdon Winner (1986) wrote about the inherent politics of technology in The whale and the reactor where he emphasized that all technologies carry their politics, whether embedded by the designer or from the "nature" of the technology. For example, he discussed how nuclear technology had to be an inherently authortarian technology, because if everyone had access to it we would all be in trouble.
>
> RE: Felan Parker. To tie the paragraph above into your post, it is important that we understand that all platforms have inherent politics in them, and that those politics can shift with time. When YouTube was released over a decade ago everyone discussed how democratic it was and how it enabled a whole range of marginalized film artists to publish their projects. However, we have come to realize in recent years that YouTube censors many projects for "supposed" violations of copyright, intellectual property, hate-speech, ethics, morality-based laws, and the ever ambivalent national security legislation. The point here is that you are right to say that Twine is not in the same league as Unity or GameMaker (its open-source), but it is an organization (open-source community) with its own politics; it just may not be apparent to us yet what those politics are yet, and what potential effects it may have on our freedom of expression.
>
> RE: Christine Kim. I come from an old-fashioned (can I say retro?) artist background printing wood-cuts and lead-type on nineteenth-century printing presses. I have always found printed wood-cut illustrations to be beautiful, and I hope to create my own wood-cuts from scratch and incorporate their art into my games. George A. Walker at OCAD has been making his own wood-cut illustration, non-textual "silent" novels for decades: as in each page of his book is a different wood-cut illustration that he carved in his workshop. So I guess I come to my projects with a specific kind of art in mind, though when I started working with printing presses I didn't have a particular artistic style in mind.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Chris
>
> On Mar 28, 2014, at 11:11 AM, "Felan Parker" <felan.parker at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> > It's important for people to know their tools if their work is not to be
> > determined by them. Game development tools are not made by or for a
> > different constituency from the rest of the industry. In their
> > reification and distribution of solved technical problems they all but
> > force recapitulation of the status quo artistically, technically and
> > developmentally.
>
> This isn't really true of all game-making programs. While I appreciate that it's potentially useful to critique the underpinnings and assumptions of game design software, programs like Twine, IV Engine, or Scratch are very much made "for a different constituency from the rest of the industry." Indeed, they are not made by or for "the industry" at all - Twine games are almost universally non-commercial, and the program is explicitly designed to encourage the challenging of the gaming status quo (even more so now that it has become popular among women, queers, POC, and other marginalized people). For some analysis of Twine along these lines, check out Jane Friedhoff's platform study: http://lmc.gatech.edu/~cpearce3/DiGRA13/papers/paper_67.pdf
>
> We should engage the politics of platforms, but I think it's reductive to suggest that all game-making programs reinforce the same status quo. Twine is a very different beast from Game Maker or Unity.
>
> Felan
>
> > Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 15:41:00 -0700
> > From: rob at robmyers.org
> > To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23
> >
> > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> > On 27/03/14 02:22 PM, Kara Stone wrote:
> > >
> > > I wonder how important it is that blossoming game-makers actually
> > > understand how the programs they are using work.
> >
> > It's important for people to know their tools if their work is not to be
> > determined by them. Game development tools are not made by or for a
> > different constituency from the rest of the industry. In their
> > reification and distribution of solved technical problems they all but
> > force recapitulation of the status quo artistically, technically and
> > developmentally.
> >
> > > There seems to be something in particular about game-making that makes
> > > people want to hold on to the code, hierarchizing programming and
> > > ?techy-ness? above all other aspects of game-making.
> >
> > I went into games programming a few years after leaving art school and
> > was gobsmacked at management's resistance to paying for some decent
> > coloured pencils for the artist designing the characters for the game to
> > use.
> >
> > > The emphasis on ?knowing the tech? strikes me as a another way to
> > > ensure that women, POC, the debilitated, and the very young or old,
> > > are not part of the dominant game-world.Not to say that any of us
> > > can?t be techy,
> >
> > If being techy is such a determining signifier and enforcer of hegemony,
> > why would any of us want to?
> >
> > And what would we do instead? Simply recapitulating the status quo
> > through using tools determined by it is not a critical stance.
> >
> > > but to ensure that techyness is something dominated by white, cis,
> > > 20-30 year old men.
> >
> > Not entirely to their benefit:
> >
> > http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html
> >
> > - Rob.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
>
>
>
>
> I will try to address everyone's points to the best of my ability, and then try and answer Christine's question that I forgot to address in my last post.
>
>
>
>
>
> RE: Kara Stone. You are absolutely right in that it doesn't necessarily matter whether we are techy or not. I myself am not particularly techy, but am trying to learn more about the codes I use and their history. What is important is that we get meaning
>  from the tools we use and the experiences we get from them.
>
>
>
> To clarify my argument a little better--and not to sound too technologically deterministic--Langdon Winner (1986) wrote about the inherent politics of technology in The whale and the reactor
> where he emphasized that all technologies carry their politics, whether embedded by the designer or from the "nature" of the technology. For example, he discussed how nuclear technology had to be an inherently authortarian technology, because if everyone
>  had access to it we would all be in trouble.
>
>
>
> RE: Felan Parker. To tie the paragraph above into your post, it is important that we understand that all platforms have inherent politics in them, and that those politics can shift with time. When YouTube was released over a decade ago everyone discussed
>  how democratic it was and how it enabled a whole range of marginalized film artists to publish their projects. However, we have come to realize in recent years that YouTube censors many projects for "supposed" violations of copyright, intellectual property,
>  hate-speech, ethics, morality-based laws, and the ever ambivalent national security legislation. The point here is that you are right to say that Twine is not in the same league as Unity or GameMaker (its open-source), but it is an organization (open-source
>  community) with its own politics; it just may not be apparent to us yet what those politics are yet, and what potential effects it may have on our freedom of expression.
>
>
>
> RE: Christine Kim. I come from an old-fashioned (can I say retro?) artist background printing wood-cuts and lead-type on nineteenth-century printing presses. I have always found printed wood-cut illustrations to be beautiful, and I hope to create my own
>  wood-cuts from scratch and incorporate their art into my games. George A. Walker at OCAD has been making his own wood-cut illustration, non-textual "silent" novels for decades: as in each page of his book is a different wood-cut illustration that he carved
>  in his workshop. So I guess I come to my projects with a specific kind of art in mind, though when I started working with printing presses I didn't have a particular artistic style in mind.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
>
>
> Chris
>
>
> On Mar 28, 2014, at 11:11 AM, "Felan Parker" <felan.parker at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
>
>
>
> > It's important for people to know their tools if their work is not to be
> > determined by them. Game development tools are not made by or for a
> > different constituency from the rest of the industry. In their
> > reification and distribution of solved technical problems they all but
> > force recapitulation of the status quo artistically, technically and
> > developmentally.
>
>
>
> This isn't really true of all game-making programs. While I appreciate that it's potentially useful to critique the underpinnings and assumptions of game design software, programs like Twine, IV Engine, or Scratch are very much made "for a different constituency
>  from the rest of the industry." Indeed, they are not made by or for "the industry" at all - Twine games are almost universally non-commercial, and the program is explicitly designed to encourage the challenging of the gaming status quo (even more so now that
>  it has become popular among women, queers, POC, and other marginalized people). For some analysis of Twine along these lines, check out Jane Friedhoff's platform study:
> http://lmc.gatech.edu/~cpearce3/DiGRA13/papers/paper_67.pdf
>
>
>
> We should engage the politics of platforms, but I think it's reductive to suggest that all game-making programs reinforce the same status quo. Twine is a very different beast from Game Maker or Unity.
>
>
>
> Felan
>
>
>
> > Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 15:41:00 -0700
>
> > From: rob at robmyers.org
>
> > To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>
> > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23
>
> >
>
> > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
> > On 27/03/14 02:22 PM, Kara Stone wrote:
>
> > >
>
> > > I wonder how important it is that blossoming game-makers actually
>
> > > understand how the programs they are using work.
>
> >
>
> > It's important for people to know their tools if their work is not to be
>
> > determined by them. Game development tools are not made by or for a
>
> > different constituency from the rest of the industry. In their
>
> > reification and distribution of solved technical problems they all but
>
> > force recapitulation of the status quo artistically, technically and
>
> > developmentally.
>
> >
>
> > > There seems to be something in particular about game-making that makes
>
> > > people want to hold on to the code, hierarchizing programming and
>
> > > ?techy-ness? above all other aspects of game-making.
>
> >
>
> > I went into games programming a few years after leaving art school and
>
> > was gobsmacked at management's resistance to paying for some decent
>
> > coloured pencils for the artist designing the characters for the game to
>
> > use.
>
> >
>
> > > The emphasis on ?knowing the tech? strikes me as a another way to
>
> > > ensure that women, POC, the debilitated, and the very young or old,
>
> > > are not part of the dominant game-world.Not to say that any of us
>
> > > can?t be techy,
>
> >
>
> > If being techy is such a determining signifier and enforcer of hegemony,
>
> > why would any of us want to?
>
> >
>
> > And what would we do instead? Simply recapitulating the status quo
>
> > through using tools determined by it is not a critical stance.
>
> >
>
> > > but to ensure that techyness is something dominated by white, cis,
>
> > > 20-30 year old men.
>
> >
>
> > Not entirely to their benefit:
>
> >
>
> > http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html
>
> >
>
> > - Rob.
>
> >
>
> > _______________________________________________
>
> > empyre forum
>
> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> empyre forum
>
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 21:00:05 -0700
> From: Rob Myers <rob at robmyers.org>
> To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23
> Message-ID: <53364545.4060005 at robmyers.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On 28/03/14 07:48 AM, Felan Parker wrote:
> >
> > Twine is a very different beast from Game Maker or Unity.
>
> It is. It is however not a very different beast from Storyscape. And its
> users recapitulating the forms of 80s interactive fiction and 90s
> interactive multimedia using it is a good example of my argument.
>
> - Rob.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 10:53:21 -0400
> From: Felan Parker <felan.parker at hotmail.com>
> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23
> Message-ID: <BLU176-W999493CD271EB63247FB29E610 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> I'd like to hear more from the practitioners on this, but a few thoughts in response to Rob.
> First, while Twine is clearly part of a longer tradition of interactive fiction and hypertext, I don't really see how that constitutes a "recapitulation of the status quo." These have always been marginalized practices, and don't represent any kind of hegemonic force.
> Second, the Twine new wave has been constituted in distinct communities of practice and reception from those early text-based gaming traditions. For the most part these are new artists are adopting these tools, and new audiences are being exposed to text-based games (thanks in part to the accessibility of the end product compared to a lot of earlier IF software). Kara's earlier post clearly demonstrated the value in this accessibility.
> Third, I think it is insufficient to say that Twine games are "the same" as these earlier traditions or merely a "recapitulation". Sure, there are plenty of Twine games that operate in familiar IF genres (The Matter of the Great Red Dragon for example: http://fearoftwine.com/14.html), but the games that have become most strongly associated with the platform are weird, queer, honest, and experimental. In the broadest terms, these games may share the "forms" of earlier IF and hypertext, but their content is distinct and they have a specific aesthetic sensibility and political orientation.
> Consider porpentine's Howling Dogs (http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/howlingdogs/howlingdogs.html#2o) and HIGH END CUSTOMIZABLE SAUNA EXPERIENCE (http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/sauna.html), or Merrit Kopas' Conversations With My Mother (http://mkopas.net/files/conversations/conversations.html), or Hannah Epstein's PsXXYborg (https://www.facebook.com/PsxxYborg), or Kara's recently-released Cyborg Goddess (http://cyborg-goddess.com). I could go on, but you get the idea. Why would we want to dismiss these weird and wonderful works? I wouldn't dismiss a new comic artist because she "recapitulates" the form of earlier comics. I am honestly confused.
> Felan
> > Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 21:00:05 -0700
> > From: rob at robmyers.org
> > To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23
> >
> > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> > On 28/03/14 07:48 AM, Felan Parker wrote:
> > >
> > > Twine is a very different beast from Game Maker or Unity.
> >
> > It is. It is however not a very different beast from Storyscape. And its
> > users recapitulating the forms of 80s interactive fiction and 90s
> > interactive multimedia using it is a good example of my argument.
> >
> > - Rob.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 09:10:39 -0700
> From: Mark Chen <markdangerchen at gmail.com>
> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23
> Message-ID:
>         <CADSSqPh07gdcbh0YSr7G9pkgEf_9MzwH_RnSZtDOTaRFmG_j9Q at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> I agree with Felan. Also, I don't really view Twine in the same vein as IF
> where there's a parser. The process of thinking what to type at the prompt
> is different than choosing from a list of options. IF to me is more about
> problem solving than it is about exploring a narrative. Twine's more like
> the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books but reappropriated and transformed by a
> mass consumption platform, allowing a low-barrier entry for all sorts of
> voices to share their stories. (And yes, this is way over generalized...)
>
> There is something to the idea that tools constrain, though. Picking
> Construct or GameMaker biases a designer towards certain types of games,
> just as picking Twine does. Experimentation can come from rebelling against
> the constraints of the tool (using Construct to make a visual novel maybe?)
> as well as rebelling against the common voice (using Twine to tell a
> personally meaningful story).
>
> mark
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 7:53 AM, Felan Parker <felan.parker at hotmail.com>wrote:
>
> > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> > I'd like to hear more from the practitioners on this, but a few thoughts
> > in response to Rob.
> >
> > First, while Twine is clearly part of a longer tradition of interactive
> > fiction and hypertext, I don't really see how that constitutes a
> > "recapitulation of the status quo." These have always been marginalized
> > practices, and don't represent any kind of hegemonic force.
> >
> > Second, the Twine new wave has been constituted in distinct communities of
> > practice and reception from those early text-based gaming traditions. For
> > the most part these are new artists are adopting these tools, and new
> > audiences are being exposed to text-based games (thanks in part to the
> > accessibility of the end product compared to a lot of earlier IF software).
> > Kara's earlier post clearly demonstrated the value in this accessibility.
> >
> > Third, I think it is insufficient to say that Twine games are "the same"
> > as these earlier traditions or merely a "recapitulation". Sure, there are
> > plenty of Twine games that operate in familiar IF genres (The Matter of the
> > Great Red Dragon for example: http://fearoftwine.com/14.html), but the
> > games that have become most strongly associated with the platform are
> > weird, queer, honest, and experimental. In the broadest terms, these games
> > may share the "forms" of earlier IF and hypertext, but their content is
> > distinct and they have a specific aesthetic sensibility and political
> > orientation.
> >
> > Consider porpentine's Howling Dogs (
> > http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/howlingdogs/howlingdogs.html#2o)
> > and HIGH END CUSTOMIZABLE SAUNA EXPERIENCE (
> > http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/sauna.html), or Merrit Kopas'
> > Conversations With My Mother (
> > http://mkopas.net/files/conversations/conversations.html), or Hannah
> > Epstein's PsXXYborg (https://www.facebook.com/PsxxYborg), or Kara's
> > recently-released Cyborg Goddess (http://cyborg-goddess.com). I could go
> > on, but you get the idea. Why would we want to dismiss these weird and
> > wonderful works? I wouldn't dismiss a new comic artist because she
> > "recapitulates" the form of earlier comics. I am honestly confused.
> >
> > Felan
> >
> > > Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 21:00:05 -0700
> > > From: rob at robmyers.org
> > > To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23
> > >
> > > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> > > On 28/03/14 07:48 AM, Felan Parker wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Twine is a very different beast from Game Maker or Unity.
> > >
> > > It is. It is however not a very different beast from Storyscape. And its
> > > users recapitulating the forms of 80s interactive fiction and 90s
> > > interactive multimedia using it is a good example of my argument.
> > >
> > > - Rob.
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > empyre forum
> > > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Mark Chen, PhD | @mcdanger | markdangerchen.net
> Indie Game Designer, Ed Tech Researcher, Consultant, Adjunct Prof at
> Pepperdine, UW Bothell, and UOIT, Accidental Hero and Layabout
> This was sent from a PC with a full-size keyboard; misspellings and brevity
> are entirely my fault.
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 10:41:44 -0700
> From: Irina Contreras <icontreras at cca.edu>
> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23
> Message-ID:
>         <CAEBmxhw3D41_yf3hSHfa1o=fEDcLNZN4FLSRSt-EVsJPY8Nrgg at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Hello,
>
> I have been trying to follow this month as gaming and game creation (though
> through a more performative lens perhaps?) is something that interests me
> and guides my work quite a bit these days.
>
> Just wanted to point people towards this LOL, which is a queer person of
> color maker/hacker space in Oakland. I have been meaning to do the
> programming workshops that happen there and I know as many spaces they are
> always looking for help/donations etc.
>
> http://oaklandmakerspace.wordpress.com/
>
> What this also brings me to partially around this question of inherent
> politics and thus maybe who does gaming and who doesn't, which I think is
> some of what I was reading...?
>
> Another huge part is I wonder where secrecy fits? I know that a lot of
> people, I think might be coming from angles of academia and tech world
> nuances/gaming culture etc but what about the places of possibility that
> may not lend one's self to being visible.
>
> Not sure anyone will have anything to say about that but I wanted to put it
> out there! As a novice, this is something I think about or wonder about.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Irina
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 7:53 AM, Felan Parker <felan.parker at hotmail.com>wrote:
>
> > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> > I'd like to hear more from the practitioners on this, but a few thoughts
> > in response to Rob.
> >
> > First, while Twine is clearly part of a longer tradition of interactive
> > fiction and hypertext, I don't really see how that constitutes a
> > "recapitulation of the status quo." These have always been marginalized
> > practices, and don't represent any kind of hegemonic force.
> >
> > Second, the Twine new wave has been constituted in distinct communities of
> > practice and reception from those early text-based gaming traditions. For
> > the most part these are new artists are adopting these tools, and new
> > audiences are being exposed to text-based games (thanks in part to the
> > accessibility of the end product compared to a lot of earlier IF software).
> > Kara's earlier post clearly demonstrated the value in this accessibility.
> >
> > Third, I think it is insufficient to say that Twine games are "the same"
> > as these earlier traditions or merely a "recapitulation". Sure, there are
> > plenty of Twine games that operate in familiar IF genres (The Matter of the
> > Great Red Dragon for example: http://fearoftwine.com/14.html), but the
> > games that have become most strongly associated with the platform are
> > weird, queer, honest, and experimental. In the broadest terms, these games
> > may share the "forms" of earlier IF and hypertext, but their content is
> > distinct and they have a specific aesthetic sensibility and political
> > orientation.
> >
> > Consider porpentine's Howling Dogs (
> > http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/howlingdogs/howlingdogs.html#2o)
> > and HIGH END CUSTOMIZABLE SAUNA EXPERIENCE (
> > http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/sauna.html), or Merrit Kopas'
> > Conversations With My Mother (
> > http://mkopas.net/files/conversations/conversations.html), or Hannah
> > Epstein's PsXXYborg (https://www.facebook.com/PsxxYborg), or Kara's
> > recently-released Cyborg Goddess (http://cyborg-goddess.com). I could go
> > on, but you get the idea. Why would we want to dismiss these weird and
> > wonderful works? I wouldn't dismiss a new comic artist because she
> > "recapitulates" the form of earlier comics. I am honestly confused.
> >
> > Felan
> >
> > > Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 21:00:05 -0700
> > > From: rob at robmyers.org
> > > To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23
> > >
> > > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> > > On 28/03/14 07:48 AM, Felan Parker wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Twine is a very different beast from Game Maker or Unity.
> > >
> > > It is. It is however not a very different beast from Storyscape. And its
> > > users recapitulating the forms of 80s interactive fiction and 90s
> > > interactive multimedia using it is a good example of my argument.
> > >
> > > - Rob.
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > empyre forum
> > > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 18:06:00 +0000
> From: Sandra Danilovic <s.danilovic at mail.utoronto.ca>
> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23
> Message-ID:
>         <54f3ad74846e4701b4baa702791b9888 at DM2PR03MB509.namprd03.prod.outlook.com>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"
>
> Felan -I wholeheartedly agree with your posts?
>
> You say:
> "Sure, there are plenty of Twine games that operate in familiar IF genres (The Matter of the Great Red Dragon for example: http://fearoftwine.com/14.html), but the games that have become most strongly associated with the platform are weird, queer, honest, and experimental. In the broadest terms, these games may share the "forms" of earlier IF and hypertext, but their content is distinct and they have a specific aesthetic sensibility and political orientation."
>
> Your point above is very much in line with my own personal vision of Twine games and experimental games in general. I specifically chose the metaphor of 'honest and experimental games' to address the recent emergence of games, such as Twine (but not limited to Twine) that are raw, courageous and compelling expressions of artistic soul and vision. But also equally important, something I may have failed to mention, I chose this idea of 'honest and experimental games' to represent the great generosity, kindness, support and love that has blossomed from these emergent gamemaking communities, both online (ex: Anna Anthropy's and Porpentine's websites, TwineHub and others) and offline (ex: Dames Making Games) in reimagining digital game design practice as a shared and shareable creative and collaborative practice that, perhaps, I am not sure, intervenes in the competitive model of indie games development and other inequitable forces. Now, this model of "open access" or share-abilit
>  y is not new and not without its flaws and assumptions, of course.
>
> To trump a little on the positive side of things, I am really committed to this idea of sharing with others, non-judgmentally, non-competitively, compassionately, to help foster strong and inclusive communities of creative practice, which is how I see the trajectory of these communities...And as a scholar in training, I want to do anything I can to enable this process, even if it is flawed (it will be flawed no matter how hard any of us try).
>
> So what about "recapitulation"?  As Kara also rightly pointed out in this direction, the personal, social and subjective *pleasures* of game making trump any concerns of recapitulation or aesthetic judgment (at least for myself). So, here we have these experimental game communities and individuals that are boldly disregarding games criticism from a variety of sources for their right to make games on their own terms or on their own community's terms, regardless of how they are perceived or judged. In these processes, originality emerges, and I feel that it has emerged, no matter how cynical we are (I am guilty as charged in this regard, being cynical of originality in my first post). ;-)
>
> My point is: as game scholars, artists, designers, curators, we need to first and foremost support each other given the social, creative, affective and technical affordances of these nascent tools (Twine and others). And I think in many respects this has been happening.
>
> I am placing special emphasis on how these games are representative of values that inspire us, connect us, give us meaning and bring joy to our lives. As authors and producers of creative content, we have not much control over the multiple meanings and readings they will engender in the context of aesthetic judgment and criticism.
>
> Cheers,
> Sandra
>
> Sandra Danilovic, BFA, MA, SSHRC Doctoral Fellow
> Faculty of Information, University of Toronto
> http://current.ischool.utoronto.ca/students/sandra-danilovic
>
> ________________________________________
> From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au <empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au> on behalf of Rob Myers <rob at robmyers.org>
> Sent: March 29, 2014 12:00 AM
> To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23
>
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> On 28/03/14 07:48 AM, Felan Parker wrote:
> >
> > Twine is a very different beast from Game Maker or Unity.
>
> It is. It is however not a very different beast from Storyscape. And its
> users recapitulating the forms of 80s interactive fiction and 90s
> interactive multimedia using it is a good example of my argument.
>
> - Rob.
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre mailing list
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/
>
>
> End of empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 26
> ***************************************