Did I spend the last 19 years going in a circle? Or is everything a web of connections, where we do not walk forwards, but back and forth, weaving a net rather than spinning a thread? Reading Panofsky was stepping into the past for ideas and thoughts which resonate through the work I do now. The main argument of the little book from 1951 was that the patterns of scholarly writing would spread from one topic to an other, and everything would mirror the scholastic manner of arguing. The form of the scholastic argument spread, according to Panofsky, to all the other forms of expression, but seen most clearly in the gothic churches and cathedrals.

What does this have to do with my work? One of the original claims when I started studying computer games was that the structure of the media of expression and creativity for the computer literate generation will alter not just the way they approach games, but the way they think and express themselves. The patterns of computer game play will spread to other areas of life and creativity. I don't think I can definitely prove this, but if I manage to point to the patterns that computer games teach, it might be possible to see later on if they can be found elsewhere, in scholarly thought, in play, in architecture, in different types of expressive art, or even religion.