comm theory
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Game, narrative, database
Game studies
the study of games is now an academic discipline, asserting an
identity as a field of endeavor separate from media studies.
Raessens argues that with the rise of computer games, culture
undergoes a "ludification" where identities are formed by play.
Games are as important to understand as film, television, and
for some demographics their influence (particularly on notions
of self) may be greater than traditional media.
Ludology vs narratology
in studying computer games, researchers have operated from
two competing paradigms--those who study games as a form of
play (ludology) and those who study games as a form of
storytelling (narratology).
Raessens argues that it is possible to study games integrating
these approaches.
Narrative
as you know stories have a beginning, middle, and an end.
Most Hollywood films, and many plays follow a three-act
structure.
Most narratologists argue that all stories follow a sequence or
structure.
Narrative is an elaboration of cause and effect.
LUDOLOGY--studies the elements and dyamics of play within a
game structure
1. Narrative begins with a setting of
the scene and introduction of
characters in an initial situation, a
state of relative equilibrium.
2. It then proceeds to a disruption of
this equilibrium, with the
emergence of some sort of catalyst.
(antagonist)
3. An exploration of the causes,
implications or consequences
follows. Various attempts at
resolution build toward a climax, a
high point of tension, bringing
revelation or catharsis.
4. It ends with a resolution in a new
state of relative equilibrium.
Plot vs Story
Plot are the details that the (film, book, novel, play, game) gives
you about the story. Plot describes everything presented to us. Story
is what the view/user/reader creates out of the plot. Story is the
viewer's imaginary construction of all events in the narrative.
The total world of the story action is called diegesis. Includes
events presumed to have occurred as well as those depicted.
Narration is the plot’s way of distributing story information in order to achieve specific effects. The moment-by-moment process that guides our in building the story out of plot, involving the range and depth of story information.
In Birth of a Nation, the narration is unrestricted: we know more and see more than the characters in the film. In Singin’ we know unlike the characters that the Jazz Singer signals the onset of the era of the talkies. We also know that Cathy is at the same party as Don even though neither of them knows. Suspence is created by the revealing of this fact to the both of them. Akin to third person, omniscient narration in novels.
In films that are narrated via a voice over of one of the lead characters, we tend to know only as much as the lead character. This kind of narration is restricted. Akin to writing in the first-person in a novel.
Further increases when the point of view shot is taken from the perspective of the narrator, or if we hear sounds from his or her perspective. Perceptual subjectivity.
When we hear the character’s thoughts, an internal voice that different from the outward narration that frames the shot, this is mental subjectivity. Can also be accomplished through dream, hallucinations, fantasy sequences. 8 ½ is a prime example of this. Though one can argue that through this plethora of depicting the subjectivity of the director, we get to objectively view him, much more so in a film that might deploy an unrestricted narration with the guise of an objective camera.
Dziga-Vertov—Man With a Movie Camera could also be called Woman with Editing Equipment working with the database of footage
Always already the making of the itself.
Kino-eye
Vertov wrote "I am kino-eye, I am mechanical eye, I, a machine, show you the world as only I can see it." And he boldly asserted: "My path leads to the creation of a fresh perception of the world I decipher in a new way a world unknown to you."
The camera is superior to the human eye and it reveals the world and its details to us.
(Benjamin’s notion of the optical unconscious”)
But also the camera fuses with the human become a cyborg hybrid long before Donna Haraway wrote The Cyborg Manifesto.
The db is a structured collection of data (that does not at least overtly tell a story)
All film is db; film are shot out of order according to production schedule not screenplay; editor assembles it into a narrative
The algorithm—the creation of a narrative in a computer/video game
Dziga-Vertov uses an algorithm to lace together MWAMC—it does not follow traditional narrative logic
The db logic is pervasive in new media—reverses the paradigm/syntagm hierarcy.
Sentences and outfits are syntagms the result of paradigmatic choices. The db makes visible the paradigm, prioritizing the pull down menu rather than the sentence
The db exists materially (or its visible) and the narrative only exists virtually in the connections or links that the user/viewer makes
Film has privileged the narrative but not necessarily in its production phase (in pre and post the demands of narrative are privileged and then reconstituted). It exists at the intersection between database and narrative
MWAMC is “perhaps the most important example of a db imagination in modern media art.”
We see the editing room with the shots organized in shelves, according to no visible hierarchy.
Three levels:
the sequences of a cameraman shooting film
the audience watching the finished film
the film itself, consists of footage shot by Dziga-Vertov and edited by his wife—shot in three places but meant to to portray the progression of a single day in a single location.
Final
COM203 Fall 2012
FINAL ESSAY – Due 18
December 5pm
Answer one question in a full essay of at least two typed
pages. Use quotations from your reading; cite all sources, use MLA style. If
you plagiarize, you fail. Requirements: Double space, using 12 pt type and Times
New Roman, one inch margins. Your grade goes down one full grade if your essay
is shorter than requested. Hand in to my mailbox in the Media Culture office. No email attachments. Remember you cannot
successfully answer these questions by repeating my lecture notes; you must
know the readings well.
1 Discuss the importance of
narrative, play, meta-communication, and gender identity in videogames. Refer
to all of our reading about play and game theory (Caillois, Bateson, Burrill,
McGonigal).
2. Discuss the usefulness of the
term “convergence culture” to describe the contemporary mediascape. What does
Henry Jenkins mean by this term? What does he mean by the black box fallacy?
Relatedly, what do the terms “transmedia storytelling” and “remediation” mean?
Apply these terms to discuss a particular example of contemporary media.
Exra credit: In no more than one
page explain Umberto Eco’s theory of “how culture conditions the colors we
see”?
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
convengence etc
googlezon
Convergence Culture: "Welcome to c c, where old and new media collide, where grassroots and corporate media intersect, where the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways." (2)
vs divergence
Henry Jenkins at Google
joshua green
Remediation--new media consists of the recontextualization of old, or already-existing media. The constant remix of older media; think of the use of sampling in music--contemporary music recorded digitally relies upon older analog recordings in order to provide it with relevance, to refer back but at the same time to make it sound contemporary.
http://www.technorhetoric.net/6.1/reviews/blakesley/glossary.html
paul miller aka dj spooky the sublimal kid
transmedia storytelling--a narrative that moves across different forms of media (matrix comic books, movies, fan fiction) see http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html
"Bricks and mortar still matter" the physical realm, one's actual place in a territory.
bricks and mortar vs clicks and mortar
a business that has a physical presence (a store you go to) vs a store like Amazon. com that you can only visit virtually.
Black box fallacy--all of media is not going to be obtained from one central device.
see http://chrisstephenson.typepad.com/chrisstephenson/2007/04/the_black_box_f.html
user generated content
crowd-sourcing
lev manovich
the man with a movie camera
ryan trecartin
http://psych.hanover.edu/krantz/art/figure.html
http://www.psychologie.tu-dresden.de/i1/kaw/diverses%20Material/www.illusionworks.com/html/figure_ground.html
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
goffman and play
Performance and Erving Goffman—
1. The distinction of two modes of
communication - expressions we give and expressions we give off.
The expressions we give is the concretely
intended and conscious form of expression, as epitomized by verbal communications
using language. Expressions we give off is the non-verbal, presumably
unintentional, form of communication that is not concretely expressed in speech
but nevertheless have efficacy in communicating, consciously or unconsciously,
some things about the person expressing it. It is important to keep in mind
that, while expressions we give is always intentional, expressions we give off
does not necessarily have to be unintentional in turn and, in fact, people are
capable of manipulating them as well.
We present a social Front that is related to our job, our
caste, our gender, our social class
First there is the
setting
Then there is the personal front divided into appearance and behavior
The effective front is one
that has coherence, a unity of appearance, behavior, and setting so that the
meaning of the performance is clear. Goffman uses the example of the Mandarin
in the Chinese city
Yet eh front is also “a
collective representation” and when a social actor takes on a role “the front
has already been established for it.”
Social fronts are employed in
hospital in keeping of the ranks between drs, nurse, anaestologists, etc,
especially quite often the tasks involved are overlapping. Social fronts
reassert the credentialism of the larger culture. We perform our advanced
degrees as well as our social inheritances.
Dylan uses the setting of the
hotel room to perform his role as petulant artist; Kennedy uses the meeting
hall to perform the incoming President. A role he redefines and uses his
telegenics to extend his image.
Dramatic realization
Example of the baseball
umpire. He will emphatically call a strike even though there may be a moment in
which he discerned if it was a strike or a ball. Violonist, prize fighters, and
others whose work is in public are given to dramatic realization making sure
that their tasks are visible, readable. But it “involves more than merely make
invisible costs visible.” Favors expression over action.
We all know people who do
little work but call attention to how hard they are working—they make a show of
it. Projecting competency rather than inhabiting it.
Idealization
Performance “will tend to
incorporate and exemplify the officially accredited values of the society.”
A performance highlights the
common official values of the society – and in this, has aspects of ceremony.
That of Brahmins in India who has obligations to show grace and purety (but
gamble and drink privately). WASPs at debutante balls or auction houses versus
at a family dinner.
p.38—Goffman argues “the
ignorant, shiftless, happy go-lucky manner” of blacks in the South is a put on,
used in interactions with whites.
But Goffman fails to see
“whiteness as performance”
Similarly he is quick to
point out the american college girl “play down their intelligence” when in the
presence of datable boys. But does not see the idealized beformance deployed by
college boys that plays up their intelligence or athleticism. That is the male
gender performance is unmarked just as white cultural performance is unmarked
by Goffman.
He also sees the beggar
begging (what we now call homeless) as a public performance of abjection but
the “scenes that beggars stage seem to have declined in dramatic merit.” Surely
these performances of destitution in U.S. cities has intensified.
Maintenance of Expressive Control
Example he uses
Minimal unmeant gestures or
verbal gaffes that are inconsistent with the social front
A false front is also
possible through Misrepresentation—an
unauthorized performance, a masquerade.
Certain kinds of drag
performance reveal themselves as drag; others atttempt realness
There are gradations of
misreprentations. And as in the law, intent matters.
For Goffman” to be a given
kind of person, then, is not merely to possess the required attributes, but
also to sustain the standards of conduct and appearance that one’s social
grouping attaches thereto.” A status “is a pattern of appropriate conduct,
coherence,, embellished, and well articulated.” Its not a material thing.
Caillois
With bataille, and othes started college de sociologie,
(leiris was part of this) wayward social scientist influenced by surrealist
movement—but had broke with it in part because the surrealist lauded the
individual not the collective—interested in the sacred, the sacrilege, ritual.
Agon—the debate between antagonist and protagonist posed
before the chorus, contest. Important for the Nietzschean left—the contestation
of ideas as generative. Crista Acompora
Alea—aleatory (structuring chance in the creative process) from
latin word for dice
Ilinx—vertigo, perception-changing, urge toward
disequilibrium, a voluptuous panic
From Greek word for whirlpool. The joy/risk in losing
balance. Suspension of inevitability
Mimicry—imaginative role-play, make-believe (as if). Examples
remarkably include insects. “inspire fear in others”
Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia—camouflaging, chameleon-like
behavior; phobias, obsessions, compulsions, or excessive
anxiety.
Of Mimicry and Man-- Homi Bhaba—the menace of colonial mimicry; its
threat (and imbedded hostility) to the colonial endeavor to have the native
imitate the ruler.
Children imitating adults (repeating their words)
Jean Rouch Les Maitres Fous
Paris is Burning—
Mimicry and Ilinx rely upn distinctive performances of the body in
their execution. Agon relies upon distinctive training; virtuosity, strength,
strategy. Alea perhaps a separation from the event, a faith in its outcome.
Paidia to ludus—games placed on a continuum from chaos to order, from
improvisation to rules, from impulse to calculation, uncontrollable fantasy to
discipline. From throwing rocks to baseball.
Cf the distinction between regulative and constitutive in Searle’s
speech act theory—though he is referring to events in language he uses examples
from sport/games –american football/chess are constitutive—the rules create the
game vs regulative where the rules regulate behavor that pre-exists ie
eating—every human being that can eats but regulative rules govern the process
(use of various cutlery, hands, etc) or driving a car where the legal rules,
signaling, stopping, are regulative.
My favorite line: on kite-flying—“the player accomplishes a kind of
auscultation upon the sky from afar.” Auscultation is form of diagnosis that
involves listening to the organs of the body—didn’t think of kite flying in
that way more about the proximal and the distal—a distance conquering – but the
idea of projecting presence is there.
For Caillois certain combinations of agon alea ilinx and mimicry are
possible :
Horse racing—for the jockeys (and the horses) there is agon
As part of the spectacle, the audience simulates behavior; for the
better there is alea (if not also agon, related to betting and horses/jockeys)
There are also forbidden relationships between the categories—vertigo
(ilinx) destroys –or neuralizes-- agon (skill). So are simulation (mimicry) and
alea. If one submits to alea, there is no opportunity to deceive chance by way
of disguise. You come as you are.
But combinations of alea and vertigo are possible as are agon and
mimicry. Games of chance can provoke elation and ecstasy (as well as misery) .
Competition are always already spectacle, and by nature necessitate a form of
restored behavior. This is me at a basketball game acting like everyone else there.
In play and games, agon and alea are regulated by rules; mimicry and
ilinx enlist improvisation, which is not subjugated to regulation.
In agon, the player relies on will, in alea she renounces it. In
mimicry the awareness of make-believe is presupposed, while vertigo erases
awareness.
(however in possession like and ecstatic states vertigo and mimicry is
on the level of the unconscious. For caillois it is in the realm of the sacred.
The pursuit of chance and vertigo is not generative, creating nothing
that can be developed.
Agon and alea, which can be seen as opposite (the latter dependent upon
fate/beyond the self, the former dependent upon skill and determination hence
the self) combination favors one.
Similarly in mimicry and ilinx—even as mimicry involves expertise and
rehearsal and ilinx privileges spontaneity and submission, they combine—in artmaking. Games of
simulation lead to the arts of the spectacle. Energized by vertigo. But the status/myth
of the troubled artist is perhaps
related to the countervailing forces of ecstasy and anxiety embedded in the
taxonomy of play.
Playing and reality winnicott cf freud fort/da
A theory of play and fantasy – Bateson --- the playful nip denotes the
bite, but it does not denote that which is denoted by the bite.”
Dogs etc, spin the bottle,
Play enframes, spatially, creates zones of generative activity where
statements are paradoxical and
metacommunicative, and neither true nor false, but govern the activity within
the frame.
Jenkins—narratology vs ludology
Game designers
create spaces not stories. They are narrative architects:
1.
not
all game tell stories
2.
some
games aspires to narrative
3.
narrative
analysis is not prescriptive (it doesn’t redesign the game)
4.
experience
is not reducible to story
narratologist
don’t suffer from “cinema envy” if
there are stories, those stories illustrate and define the contours of the
space itself.
Games fit into a
tradition of spatial stories—hero’s odysseys, quest myths, travel narratives,
picareques, science fiction, stories that eschew character development and are
pre-occupied with world-making.
Voyage to
Purilia—Elmer Rice
Suggesting that
games in terms of narrativity in space may owe more to the subgenres of the
novel than to film
“Environmental
storytelling creates the preconditions for an immersive narrative experience in
at least four ways”
1.
spatial
stories evoke pre-existing narrative associations
2.
provide
a staging ground for narrative
3.
embed
narrative information within mise-en-scene
4.
provide
resources for emergent narratives
But spatial
stories are held together be a telos. By a destination and a sense of
progression. If gaming involves mapping, it also involves journey.
Accordian
structures—some moment/places offer possibilities for expansion, others are
restricted
Distinction
between plot and story. The story can involve a past of characters.
McKenzie—Jenkins
middle ground is slanted toward narratology – it emphasizes story and game
stories as disctinct (though he uses film and literature) rather than an
emphasis upon event or experience (or player performance)
Juul Game Time
There is the
time that it takes to play the game -- playtime
There is the
experience of time within the game – gametime.
Further there is
event-time –the time of events happening in the game world in realtime games.
To play a game
is to interact with the game state. The game state is the state of the game at
the given time.
To play a game
is to create maps (ie space) by way of the relationship between playtime (the
duration of playing a game) and
event time. Mapping is a projection onto the game world. “the process of
claiming that what the player does is also something in event-time; a
projection of the play-time onto event-time.”
One acts in an
actual world and a fictive world simultaneously but temporally in two different
realms. This activity creates space.
Analogy
plot/story the player not the
designer creates space; by way of mapping which is the relationship between two
temporal realities. The interaction of temporal realities is that which gives
the game dimensionality; it is that which provides depth to flat surfaces.
Flow is mental
state of enjoyment when immersed in an activity, which also creates the experience
of subjective time.
Hours condense;
minutes become elastic
Cc Williams, and
broadcasting
In a game a
state of flow is related to difficulty and virtuosity, and progression avoiding
repetition and frustration (Juul, suggested that frustration can also be
motivating)
Play as Communication
PLAY / FRAME
what is true here
----------------
\ is not true \
\ here \
\ \
----------------
play / fantasy
through play and fantasy, the child gains an identity. by
pretending to be another, one learns how to become one's self.
through fantasy, one begins to define reality. the playground is
a laboratory of self-exploration. games are serious work.
play is
a concept and a word in all languages--Huizanga.
the concept's diverse significations are usually covered by two
or more distinct terms. In English, we have play, game,
contest--each term contesting for primacy in our lexicon.
What are the various meanings signified by the word "play"?
Homo Ludens
Huizinga asserted that the human is a playing animal and that
play is a universal feature of how human beings express and
communicate. Huizinga: " Play is a thing by itself. The playconcept
as such is of a higher order than seriousness. For
seriousness seeks to exclude play, whereas play can very well
include seriousness."
Play is serious business as well as frivolity. Seriousness is
always stern. The work of play is always communicative.
Children remember this; adults forget.
Huizinga privileged the ludic (playfulness) impulse. Almost as if
it is encoded in our DNA.
All statements within this frame
are untrue.
I love you
I hate you
-------------------------
\ ALL STATEMENTS WITHIN \
\ THIS FRAME ARE UNTRUE \
\ I LOVE YOU \
\ I HATE YOU \
--------------------------
play/not play
this is play
this is a map--an actor in love on the stage lies and tells the true in the same moment.
play creates a frame around
itself--it defines space--it creates its own map, distinct from the territory
this is not play
this is a territory
the nip vs the bite
Bateson;"The playful nip denotes the bite but it does not denote
what would be denoted by the bite."
thus in play if A = B and B = C, it does not mean that A = C. the
playful nip is not the same as the bite, even though they share
a signification. in play, a simulated punch at the schoolyard is
not a real punch.
A frame is metacommunicative. It
is communication about
communication. What is true
inside the frame may not be true
outside it. A message within a
frame gives the receiver
instructions on how to act within
the frame.
frames
Every communicative message
defines the set of messages
about which it communicates --
Bateson
figure/ground
the ground is as important as
the
figure.
PLAY / FRAME
what is true here
----------------
\ is not true \
\ here \
\ \
----------------
play / fantasy
through play and fantasy, the child gains an identity. by
pretending to be another, one learns how to become one's self.
through fantasy, one begins to define reality. the playground is
a laboratory of self-exploration. games are serious work.
play is
a concept and a word in all languages--Huizanga.
the concept's diverse significations are usually covered by two
or more distinct terms. In English, we have play, game,
contest--each term contesting for primacy in our lexicon.
What are the various meanings signified by the word "play"?
Homo Ludens
Huizinga asserted that the human is a playing animal and that
play is a universal feature of how human beings express and
communicate. Huizinga: " Play is a thing by itself. The playconcept
as such is of a higher order than seriousness. For
seriousness seeks to exclude play, whereas play can very well
include seriousness."
Play is serious business as well as frivolity. Seriousness is
always stern. The work of play is always communicative.
Children remember this; adults forget.
Huizinga privileged the ludic (playfulness) impulse. Almost as if
it is encoded in our DNA.
All statements within this frame
are untrue.
I love you
I hate you
-------------------------
\ ALL STATEMENTS WITHIN \
\ THIS FRAME ARE UNTRUE \
\ I LOVE YOU \
\ I HATE YOU \
--------------------------
play/not play
this is play
this is a map--an actor in love on the stage lies and tells the true in the same moment.
play creates a frame around
itself--it defines space--it creates its own map, distinct from the territory
this is not play
this is a territory
the nip vs the bite
Bateson;"The playful nip denotes the bite but it does not denote
what would be denoted by the bite."
thus in play if A = B and B = C, it does not mean that A = C. the
playful nip is not the same as the bite, even though they share
a signification. in play, a simulated punch at the schoolyard is
not a real punch.
A frame is metacommunicative. It
is communication about
communication. What is true
inside the frame may not be true
outside it. A message within a
frame gives the receiver
instructions on how to act within
the frame.
frames
Every communicative message
defines the set of messages
about which it communicates --
Bateson
figure/ground
the ground is as important as
the
figure.
Caillois
Ludus (structured) to paidia (loose spontaneous)
Caillois
argues that we may understand the complexity of games by referring to four play
forms and two types of play. The four forms are:
- Agon, or competition. E.g. Chess is an almost purely agon game.
- Alea, or chance. E.g. Playing a slot machine is an almost purely alea game.
- Mimicry, or mimesis, or role playing.
acting
- Ilinx (Greek for
"whirlpool"), or vertigo, in the sense of altering
perception. E.g. taking hallucinogens, riding roller coasters, children spinning until they
fall down
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Paper on Paris is Burning
Due 4 December
Describe and analyze how the film Paris is Burning foregrounds issues of race and gender. Use the term "representation" as defined by Stuart Hall. Refer to Judith Butler's theories of gender performance. At least two pages.
Take the time to meet with Brian before you hand in the final version of the paper. Remember it is required for each student to meet with Brian during the semester.
Describe and analyze how the film Paris is Burning foregrounds issues of race and gender. Use the term "representation" as defined by Stuart Hall. Refer to Judith Butler's theories of gender performance. At least two pages.
Take the time to meet with Brian before you hand in the final version of the paper. Remember it is required for each student to meet with Brian during the semester.
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