I spent the afternoon with the lap-top in front of the television. A social chat-room was turned into a news-room within minutes after the first plane hit the World Trade Center. A dutch banker and stockbroker kept me updated on the news from Reuter through ICQ. My friend in New York, Matthew, couldn't get home to Brooklyn or call out from work, as he was evaquated within minutes after the second crash, and the cell-phone antennas were on top of the World Trade Center, so there was no signal. He checked in through the net, so I wouldn't worry, spending hours trying to call people on Manhattan from a friend's apartment, to be able to reassure others through the net that their loved ones were fine.
This was a surreal afternoon. Adam, a student and friend at the Columbia University set this as his automated response to any who might page him: "Auto response from DaseinDilettante: I'm ok...things here are a little crazy...everyone's just wandering aimlessly around in this surreal approximation of real life that today has turned into. I'll be back in a bit." But the net worked as a communication device when the phones broke down. It works as it is designed.
Monday, September 10, 2001
lightningfield.com
Last fall I spent four months living in Brooklyn, and a lot of my free time I spent walking around in the Bay Ridge Area, with trips to Prospect Park, taking pictures of details: houses, gardens, decorations. For a Norwegian, a garden of plastic Santas mixed with angels, or perhaps particularly the many Halloween-decorations were very exotic. However, when I got home, I sent the films by mail to have them developed - and they got lost. I don't have one picture from that period, none of my children's visit in their fall break, nothing.
This is why finding these beautiful pictures of details of buildings in Prospect Avenue is such a thrill for me. The architecture of Brooklyn is whimsical at one moment, ugly the next, just like the gardens or door-steps would be: one housefront barren, ugly and worn down, perhaps with garbage blown up in a corner, next door it would be bright, decorated and neat, cared for to the extreme.
Last fall I spent four months living in Brooklyn, and a lot of my free time I spent walking around in the Bay Ridge Area, with trips to Prospect Park, taking pictures of details: houses, gardens, decorations. For a Norwegian, a garden of plastic Santas mixed with angels, or perhaps particularly the many Halloween-decorations were very exotic. However, when I got home, I sent the films by mail to have them developed - and they got lost. I don't have one picture from that period, none of my children's visit in their fall break, nothing.
This is why finding these beautiful pictures of details of buildings in Prospect Avenue is such a thrill for me. The architecture of Brooklyn is whimsical at one moment, ugly the next, just like the gardens or door-steps would be: one housefront barren, ugly and worn down, perhaps with garbage blown up in a corner, next door it would be bright, decorated and neat, cared for to the extreme.
Friday, September 07, 2001
I just dipped into Cybertext by Espen Aarseth again, searching for the difference between Cyber- and Hyper-texts, and this is how I understood it:
Hyper-texts are the structuring of texts with links, whether it is mediated by paper or computers. Cyber-text is a perspective of texts where a text is not the same as the message in a sender-message-receiver-model, but a part of different communication systems where the system takes part in the creation.
Not clear yet? I'll be back to this, but I do feel that a hypertext is a series of links in a tree- or net- or what-ever structure, while a Cybertext is a game, where the text isn't even created until that stage in the game "happens." I am tucking the book into my bag right now, bringing it with me home to read - again.
Hyper-texts are the structuring of texts with links, whether it is mediated by paper or computers. Cyber-text is a perspective of texts where a text is not the same as the message in a sender-message-receiver-model, but a part of different communication systems where the system takes part in the creation.
Not clear yet? I'll be back to this, but I do feel that a hypertext is a series of links in a tree- or net- or what-ever structure, while a Cybertext is a game, where the text isn't even created until that stage in the game "happens." I am tucking the book into my bag right now, bringing it with me home to read - again.
Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies
Introducing Cyberculture by David Silver is an interesting piece of writing, both for what it includes and what it excludes. Are games not part of Cyberculture - or I guess I should ask: has the position of games in Cyberculture been static since Turkle published Life on the Screen in 1995?
Introducing Cyberculture by David Silver is an interesting piece of writing, both for what it includes and what it excludes. Are games not part of Cyberculture - or I guess I should ask: has the position of games in Cyberculture been static since Turkle published Life on the Screen in 1995?
www.ludology.org
How to save Gonzalo from becoming a murdering maniac? I have thought about that problem for quite a while. As Lars points out, "Everyone in the field of computer game studies and you might add media studies in general are subject to this kind of inferior way of looking upon media: the so-called media effects. These studies might be dangerous in many ways. "
One of these days (unless somebody beats me to it) I will sit down and write the history of media panics, the myth of how new media will have power over the simple minds of everybody but the few responsible souls who see the danger and worry on behalf of the rest of the brainwashed public. It's a story of academic arrogance, of conservative views expressed as fear and concern, and of a clever move of projection; where the problems of society are projected to the new media rather than to where they belong.
Children don't spend 10 hours a day before the television because it's so hypnotic, they do it because their parents can't afford to spend time with them and take them out to have first-hand experiences. Parents don't use television as a baby-sitter because they are idiots, but because the mobile society leaves them isolated, without a social network and with no other options. Blaming the media is so much cheaper than giving social support to single mothers or building child-care centers and supporting sports or cultural activities for the older children.
Perhaps the people who blame the media are right that the public is easily fooled - at least, judging from the many many requests I get for doing lectures on: "Why computer-games are bad for children," the public is easily distracted from the real issues of power and distribution of resources.
How to save Gonzalo from becoming a murdering maniac? I have thought about that problem for quite a while. As Lars points out, "Everyone in the field of computer game studies and you might add media studies in general are subject to this kind of inferior way of looking upon media: the so-called media effects. These studies might be dangerous in many ways. "
One of these days (unless somebody beats me to it) I will sit down and write the history of media panics, the myth of how new media will have power over the simple minds of everybody but the few responsible souls who see the danger and worry on behalf of the rest of the brainwashed public. It's a story of academic arrogance, of conservative views expressed as fear and concern, and of a clever move of projection; where the problems of society are projected to the new media rather than to where they belong.
Children don't spend 10 hours a day before the television because it's so hypnotic, they do it because their parents can't afford to spend time with them and take them out to have first-hand experiences. Parents don't use television as a baby-sitter because they are idiots, but because the mobile society leaves them isolated, without a social network and with no other options. Blaming the media is so much cheaper than giving social support to single mothers or building child-care centers and supporting sports or cultural activities for the older children.
Perhaps the people who blame the media are right that the public is easily fooled - at least, judging from the many many requests I get for doing lectures on: "Why computer-games are bad for children," the public is easily distracted from the real issues of power and distribution of resources.
Thursday, September 06, 2001
lightningfield.com
because when I miss New York, that also means I miss Brooklyn. I'll be watching this blog for pictures.
because when I miss New York, that also means I miss Brooklyn. I'll be watching this blog for pictures.
"True Love" or "To Lie"?
I was surfing safely along, checking out some favourite blogs, when I looked in on Lane and Stu's site, damnthepacific.com. The story the site told was really a modern love-story. They were young, attractive, in love - and separated by the Pacific Ocean. To give an edge and a sense of urgency to their desire to meet each other, he had cancer. Now they were displaying their love and warmth, giving others a chance to contribute some money to letting two true lovers meet.
In The Princess Bride Goldman lets the dead hero moan "true love" as his reason for wanting to return to life, and the hag and wife of the necromancer yells at her husband for not helping, true love being the most noble of all causes. Her husband claims that what he heard was "to lie", and if he helps, he will eventually be cheated. This is the dilemma I experienced as I read the story of Lane and Stu the first time - true love or an inventive hoax?
I linked them in my blog, and commented on this. Soon Jill had seen the post. Since she feels that Melbourne is local (no matter where she is, Melbourne is close) and this should be possible to check, within seconds her fingers flew over the keyboard composing an email to the Melbourne journalist Jenny Sinclair. Jenny Sinclair had seen the blog already, but didn't consider it "a case" until Jill pointed her to my blog, and the possibility that it might be a hoax. At that point the journalist agreed that it was worth following up on anyway, if it wasn't a hoax, then it was a really sweet little human-interest story.
The rest is documented in damnthepacific.com, and the story can be read at the Age's site. Sadly, we don't get to see the pictures Lane thinks are so great of Stu.
This is an interesting example of how small the world is. When making a little effort - and since Stu had provided a cell-phone-number and was nice enough to agree to the interview - it is actually possible to check on people on the net. Somebody knows somebody - and suddenly the person you want to know something about isn't such a stranger after all. It's also somehow disappointing. As long as they might have been extremely clever con-artists, Lane and Stu had an aura of mystery. Now they are just a couple of cute kids who are hoping that some stranger will take pity on them and support the most noble cause: true love.
As for me? I guess I am more of the necromancer than his hag: when others hear "true love" I hear "to lie".
I was surfing safely along, checking out some favourite blogs, when I looked in on Lane and Stu's site, damnthepacific.com. The story the site told was really a modern love-story. They were young, attractive, in love - and separated by the Pacific Ocean. To give an edge and a sense of urgency to their desire to meet each other, he had cancer. Now they were displaying their love and warmth, giving others a chance to contribute some money to letting two true lovers meet.
In The Princess Bride Goldman lets the dead hero moan "true love" as his reason for wanting to return to life, and the hag and wife of the necromancer yells at her husband for not helping, true love being the most noble of all causes. Her husband claims that what he heard was "to lie", and if he helps, he will eventually be cheated. This is the dilemma I experienced as I read the story of Lane and Stu the first time - true love or an inventive hoax?
I linked them in my blog, and commented on this. Soon Jill had seen the post. Since she feels that Melbourne is local (no matter where she is, Melbourne is close) and this should be possible to check, within seconds her fingers flew over the keyboard composing an email to the Melbourne journalist Jenny Sinclair. Jenny Sinclair had seen the blog already, but didn't consider it "a case" until Jill pointed her to my blog, and the possibility that it might be a hoax. At that point the journalist agreed that it was worth following up on anyway, if it wasn't a hoax, then it was a really sweet little human-interest story.
The rest is documented in damnthepacific.com, and the story can be read at the Age's site. Sadly, we don't get to see the pictures Lane thinks are so great of Stu.
This is an interesting example of how small the world is. When making a little effort - and since Stu had provided a cell-phone-number and was nice enough to agree to the interview - it is actually possible to check on people on the net. Somebody knows somebody - and suddenly the person you want to know something about isn't such a stranger after all. It's also somehow disappointing. As long as they might have been extremely clever con-artists, Lane and Stu had an aura of mystery. Now they are just a couple of cute kids who are hoping that some stranger will take pity on them and support the most noble cause: true love.
As for me? I guess I am more of the necromancer than his hag: when others hear "true love" I hear "to lie".
In the book by P.D. James I just read, Adam Dalgliesh lifted the hands of the victim. The right hand was stained red with blood, from gripping the handle of the knife with which her throath had been slit. Dalgliesh let his fingers slide gently along hers. His conclusion was that she was murdered, by someone who did not know she was left-handed. Why? She had a small callus on her left middle finger, from writing.
I know I have this thickening of the right middle finger, betraying that I write with my right hand - it's not really callused, just the first joint being slightly thicker than on the left hand. I wonder if this will change in the future? Will there perhaps be a slight thickening of the first joint of the right thumb, from hitting the space-bar? Will the muscles of the right arm, the ones that control the right middle finger, be more developed from controlling the mouse or joystick? What will the Dalgliesh of the future look for before he can rise from examining the victim, to say, in his calm, polite manner "she was murdered"?
I know I have this thickening of the right middle finger, betraying that I write with my right hand - it's not really callused, just the first joint being slightly thicker than on the left hand. I wonder if this will change in the future? Will there perhaps be a slight thickening of the first joint of the right thumb, from hitting the space-bar? Will the muscles of the right arm, the ones that control the right middle finger, be more developed from controlling the mouse or joystick? What will the Dalgliesh of the future look for before he can rise from examining the victim, to say, in his calm, polite manner "she was murdered"?
Wednesday, September 05, 2001
As I looked in on Azhad today, Jasalm, the coder, was very happy about his new feature: contest
CONTEST
Syntax: Contest
The contest command allows two characters to generate a probabilistic outcome based on their attributes. This is intended as a roleplaying aid for emoted combat and any situation where an objective comparison is needed.
Some examples of situations where contest might be used:
str - arm wrestling
dex - juggling
con - drinking contests
int - games of strategy
wil - staring contest
A "combat" contest is a somewhat different thing. Essentially it evaluates one combat attack, using all relevant attributes, skills, equipment, and magical affects of both characters. The command then
informs the room of the attack, the outcome, and the amount of damage done (if any).
See also: attack, execute, emote, attributes.
The point being: while you might not want to attack an opponent and fight to the death or until one party flees (as you do with the kill-command), you might want to demonstrate that you are using force and your character should be able to do what the player emoted.
This is an interesting feature, something between fighting and emoting, and possibly something Jasalm is the first to include in a MUD.
CONTEST
Syntax: Contest
The contest command allows two characters to generate a probabilistic outcome based on their attributes. This is intended as a roleplaying aid for emoted combat and any situation where an objective comparison is needed.
Some examples of situations where contest might be used:
str - arm wrestling
dex - juggling
con - drinking contests
int - games of strategy
wil - staring contest
A "combat" contest is a somewhat different thing. Essentially it evaluates one combat attack, using all relevant attributes, skills, equipment, and magical affects of both characters. The command then
informs the room of the attack, the outcome, and the amount of damage done (if any).
See also: attack, execute, emote, attributes.
The point being: while you might not want to attack an opponent and fight to the death or until one party flees (as you do with the kill-command), you might want to demonstrate that you are using force and your character should be able to do what the player emoted.
This is an interesting feature, something between fighting and emoting, and possibly something Jasalm is the first to include in a MUD.
And this is where I nicked the picture: Willkommen bei inkognito
The artist is Michael Sowa, the picture is called Dompteur
The artist is Michael Sowa, the picture is called Dompteur
PopCultures.com (a.k.a Sarah Zupko's Cultural Studies Center)
Sarah Zupko didn't have the article I am looking for by Brecht on radio theory (I have it in Norwegian and have ordered the German text, I am hunting for an english version), but her site is very useful!
Sarah Zupko didn't have the article I am looking for by Brecht on radio theory (I have it in Norwegian and have ordered the German text, I am hunting for an english version), but her site is very useful!
Tuesday, September 04, 2001
Musical Expression and Digital Media
The development of new music services was helped enormously by the increasing dialogue with and between media users. Interactivity was an important requirement of Berthold Brecht's radio theory long before the start of the multimedia era. Brecht saw radio not just as a medium of distribution but as a medium of communication. It was digital technology, however, which opened the way to wide-ranging interactive measures in the media landscape. They are found in the music sector in constantly refined forms, providing access to specific media products through analysis of usage, calculated by 'hits' to website files. But more than this, they allow the development of exchange forums about the beauty of music, and of its channels.
The development of new music services was helped enormously by the increasing dialogue with and between media users. Interactivity was an important requirement of Berthold Brecht's radio theory long before the start of the multimedia era. Brecht saw radio not just as a medium of distribution but as a medium of communication. It was digital technology, however, which opened the way to wide-ranging interactive measures in the media landscape. They are found in the music sector in constantly refined forms, providing access to specific media products through analysis of usage, calculated by 'hits' to website files. But more than this, they allow the development of exchange forums about the beauty of music, and of its channels.
mikro.net.radio.linx
Berthold Brecht envisioned for radio what we today do, online. Can you imagine the conversations, crossing and crisscrossing in the ether, as voices mingle with the freedom of a two-way public radio?
The vision has been a dream of media democracy since it was written down. Today we can better imagine the limitations, but also better understand how such freedom can be achieved.
Berthold Brecht envisioned for radio what we today do, online. Can you imagine the conversations, crossing and crisscrossing in the ether, as voices mingle with the freedom of a two-way public radio?
The vision has been a dream of media democracy since it was written down. Today we can better imagine the limitations, but also better understand how such freedom can be achieved.
~*Winston's Journal*~
Do we have a secret admirer? Winston here has linked almost the entire list of blogs in the gaming/computing/gender/digital media "cluster" I keep visiting. He is a student in Singapore, and writes of his explorations and revelations on the ideology of theory.
One day I will return to Singapore, an Indian psychic on the street with her psychic (trained) parrot consulted the numbers and told me so. She also told me I'd have a new house within 2 years, and it took 5 years, so I guess "returing to Singapore" doesn't have to happen in this reincarnation....
Do we have a secret admirer? Winston here has linked almost the entire list of blogs in the gaming/computing/gender/digital media "cluster" I keep visiting. He is a student in Singapore, and writes of his explorations and revelations on the ideology of theory.
One day I will return to Singapore, an Indian psychic on the street with her psychic (trained) parrot consulted the numbers and told me so. She also told me I'd have a new house within 2 years, and it took 5 years, so I guess "returing to Singapore" doesn't have to happen in this reincarnation....
Monday, September 03, 2001
damnthepacific dot com
and while we are talking of lane and stu...
looks like stuart is meeting with a journalist, and will have his face in a paper! This is rather convincing.
So why do I trust newspapers more than blogs? Because newspapers are part of public, traceable organisations which can be held economically and legally responsible for their errors. A journalist has to do research, and they have access to tools for tracking the identity of a person. And not the least: that paper will be read by the people living where Stuart lives. He might think ripping off anonymous strangers would be good if it worked, but when your neighbours learn what you are up to, then you have committed your reputation and your social status, not just some hours spent online.
Geography still matters.
Where the body resides is where you will most easily feel the result of your actions. I'll be waiting to hear about the interview, and then who knows, once the media pick up on the story the dollars they need might be theirs without any of them needing to sell computers, webcams or other essentials of this Information Age.
and while we are talking of lane and stu...
looks like stuart is meeting with a journalist, and will have his face in a paper! This is rather convincing.
So why do I trust newspapers more than blogs? Because newspapers are part of public, traceable organisations which can be held economically and legally responsible for their errors. A journalist has to do research, and they have access to tools for tracking the identity of a person. And not the least: that paper will be read by the people living where Stuart lives. He might think ripping off anonymous strangers would be good if it worked, but when your neighbours learn what you are up to, then you have committed your reputation and your social status, not just some hours spent online.
Geography still matters.
Where the body resides is where you will most easily feel the result of your actions. I'll be waiting to hear about the interview, and then who knows, once the media pick up on the story the dollars they need might be theirs without any of them needing to sell computers, webcams or other essentials of this Information Age.
Hmm. The scandinavian-flavoured cluster.
In the cluster I feel like a part with, are people I like to talk to and exchange opinions with. Hilde - I have been chatting with her every day for the last year at lingua MOO, Jill - I exchange emails with her, blog back and forth, and chat with her and Adrian when I see them at lingua, Lisbeth, Elin, Gonzalo - I meet them at conferences and can exchange everything from just polite nods to deep personal information depending on the situation.
It's people I like to talk to. Is it elitist to choose a medium which makes our conversations public? If we discussed a topic which didn't belong in the academic sphere, and so didn't rely quite as much on our cultural capital, would it be less elitist that we linked to each others and discussed among ourselves?
For me, blogging goes in waves, sometimes I find things which interest me in the blogs of my friends, sometimes I find interesting things in blogs of people I never knew, sometimes I just read books and think about them instead. I don't do the "you blog me I blog you" thing, as the online-lovers lane and stu from damnthepacific.com so aptly call "linkslutting", but I do the: "you talk about something that interests me or annoys me or makes me think and I blog you" thing. After all - I am the editor of this blog. What I think is interesting is what goes. Perhaps I need some new friends?
In the cluster I feel like a part with, are people I like to talk to and exchange opinions with. Hilde - I have been chatting with her every day for the last year at lingua MOO, Jill - I exchange emails with her, blog back and forth, and chat with her and Adrian when I see them at lingua, Lisbeth, Elin, Gonzalo - I meet them at conferences and can exchange everything from just polite nods to deep personal information depending on the situation.
It's people I like to talk to. Is it elitist to choose a medium which makes our conversations public? If we discussed a topic which didn't belong in the academic sphere, and so didn't rely quite as much on our cultural capital, would it be less elitist that we linked to each others and discussed among ourselves?
For me, blogging goes in waves, sometimes I find things which interest me in the blogs of my friends, sometimes I find interesting things in blogs of people I never knew, sometimes I just read books and think about them instead. I don't do the "you blog me I blog you" thing, as the online-lovers lane and stu from damnthepacific.com so aptly call "linkslutting", but I do the: "you talk about something that interests me or annoys me or makes me think and I blog you" thing. After all - I am the editor of this blog. What I think is interesting is what goes. Perhaps I need some new friends?
Do I want copyright on these pages?
A lot of other academic bloggers are getting that by now. Jill has had it for a while, Lisbeth just got it, Lars just got it.
Let's go back and review what this is. It's a way for me to update my friends, to let my hands write around my real work, to store links which I might or might not use... mainly, this blog is the excess of my intellectual life (and sometimes the garbage). While I will track down and do nasty things to whoever tries to claim they wrote my academic papers or my thesis, these are the left-overs or the surplus, and if somebody else finds value in it, well, at least I trust their source of information!
A lot of other academic bloggers are getting that by now. Jill has had it for a while, Lisbeth just got it, Lars just got it.
Let's go back and review what this is. It's a way for me to update my friends, to let my hands write around my real work, to store links which I might or might not use... mainly, this blog is the excess of my intellectual life (and sometimes the garbage). While I will track down and do nasty things to whoever tries to claim they wrote my academic papers or my thesis, these are the left-overs or the surplus, and if somebody else finds value in it, well, at least I trust their source of information!
Friday, August 31, 2001
Didn't get my three pages today, only one, but that was a good one. Now I am leaving for Oslo again, I have this apartment I need to sell there. How are your elderly Oslo relatives doing? Any of them wealthy and about to move out of those large cumbersome downtown apartments and into something a little safer, easier to keep and in a classy neighbourhood? In that case - point them my way!
I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out the templates today. Even made this blog to have a place to play around. I managed to adjust that template, and so I felt pretty cocky as I attacked the template I wanted for this blog. Luckily I didn't feel so cocky I didn't save the old one. I hope you like it guys, I think this might be here for a while yet...
Gender and computing
This is a blog I'll be watching eagerly, having witnessed the birth I will enjoy seeing it grow strong and beautiful!
This is a blog I'll be watching eagerly, having witnessed the birth I will enjoy seeing it grow strong and beautiful!
BloggerdyDoc
Elin explains why she hasn't been blogging for a while, and her new blog is up and running smoothly now, from a new site.
Elin explains why she hasn't been blogging for a while, and her new blog is up and running smoothly now, from a new site.
Thursday, August 30, 2001
I have spent the afternoon flat out in bed, reading Jesper Juul's article in Gamestudies. He writes of narratives and games, pointing out that games are not narratives, although narratives can be constructed from games.
I find myself agreeing and disagreeing with him. At one point I would like to expand on what he says: "It is also an oft-repeated but problematic point that game sessions are experienced linearly, just like narratives. (See Aarseth 1997 p.2.) " Espen might say this, but are games truly experienced linearly? And Jesper continues: "I will return to this but briefly note that this idea ignores the player's experience of being an active participant - this experience is so strong that most people will involuntarily change bodily position when encountering interactivity, from the lean backward position of narratives to the lean forward position of games. And playing a game includes the awareness that the game session is just one out of many possible to be had from this game. "
Walking from a to b, we do not experience the walk linearly. Our attention is constantly shifting, and while we might focus consciously on less than one thing at the time, unconsciously we have experienced things we did not realise at the moment. And we are picking up a wide range of stimuli: scent, temperature, sound, the effort of walking, the feeling of the surface beneath our feet. Not even our eyes are seeing linearly, the gaze sees both focused and peripherally, and switches from point to point, darting about, seeing more than we need and at the moment can consciously process. If we are asked later, did you see the tractor in the field, we can often know that yes, we did notice a green tractor in the field, just outside the area on which we focused. But if you ask me how the walk was, I will arrange the story about it linearly, creating a progression, either spatially or chronologically, or centered on some special event.
Playing a game, particularly a graphic, fast-moving game with details and complex actions, we perceive in the same manner. Almost in trance, the experienced player processes several signals at the same time, not experiencing the actions linearly at all, but rather nodally, or perhaps not even that, as the attention focuses nodally, but the perception is a stream of mixed signals. Perception is not limited to the structure of narration - description and verbal language is, however, and when putting experiences into words, linearity insists on making itself known.
I find myself agreeing and disagreeing with him. At one point I would like to expand on what he says: "It is also an oft-repeated but problematic point that game sessions are experienced linearly, just like narratives. (See Aarseth 1997 p.2.) " Espen might say this, but are games truly experienced linearly? And Jesper continues: "I will return to this but briefly note that this idea ignores the player's experience of being an active participant - this experience is so strong that most people will involuntarily change bodily position when encountering interactivity, from the lean backward position of narratives to the lean forward position of games. And playing a game includes the awareness that the game session is just one out of many possible to be had from this game. "
Walking from a to b, we do not experience the walk linearly. Our attention is constantly shifting, and while we might focus consciously on less than one thing at the time, unconsciously we have experienced things we did not realise at the moment. And we are picking up a wide range of stimuli: scent, temperature, sound, the effort of walking, the feeling of the surface beneath our feet. Not even our eyes are seeing linearly, the gaze sees both focused and peripherally, and switches from point to point, darting about, seeing more than we need and at the moment can consciously process. If we are asked later, did you see the tractor in the field, we can often know that yes, we did notice a green tractor in the field, just outside the area on which we focused. But if you ask me how the walk was, I will arrange the story about it linearly, creating a progression, either spatially or chronologically, or centered on some special event.
Playing a game, particularly a graphic, fast-moving game with details and complex actions, we perceive in the same manner. Almost in trance, the experienced player processes several signals at the same time, not experiencing the actions linearly at all, but rather nodally, or perhaps not even that, as the attention focuses nodally, but the perception is a stream of mixed signals. Perception is not limited to the structure of narration - description and verbal language is, however, and when putting experiences into words, linearity insists on making itself known.
The Norwegian phonebook is online, and it just helped me do a little detective job all on my own, enabling me to tell my mother that "no, you haven't tied half your pension for the rest of your life to paying for a service you don't need."
Playing around with quotes, blame Hilde... But I when I found this one, I was surprised, baffled, and suddenly wished I had been old enough to know this man:
I had now made about 45 pictures, but what had I become? I knew all too well: a phallic symbol. All over the world I was, as a name and personality, equated with sex.
Errol Flynn
I had now made about 45 pictures, but what had I become? I knew all too well: a phallic symbol. All over the world I was, as a name and personality, equated with sex.
Errol Flynn
An other from BrainyQuote - Clint Eastwood
I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will.
Clint Eastwood
I never could resist Clint!
I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will.
Clint Eastwood
I never could resist Clint!
BrainyQuote - E. E. Cummings -- To be nobody but yourself...
To be nobody but yourself in a world that's doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting.
E. E. Cummings
For Hilde.
To be nobody but yourself in a world that's doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting.
E. E. Cummings
For Hilde.
Wednesday, August 29, 2001
Tuesday, August 28, 2001
Lane is upset that I am sceptical, and she wonders what sceptics want... All I can say to her is: if you're for real, then what I think and mean doesn't matter. You are what you are and do what you do, and what a cynic at the other side of the world thinks about you makes nothing to change what you are. However, we live in world where there are more than enough hoaxes, and somebody will doubt you at some point. To make a love-story public the way you two do might also become a strain, there are worse beasts than me out here. There are flamers, stalkers and people who will disagree with you and people who will want to make you both unhappy just for the pleasure of it. Keep your real names away from the net, don't spread your addresses around and stay safe.
I did it - for the first time in a month, I reached my self-imposed limit of three pages a day. I had to start from the beginning though, as I felt I had lost the overview and didn't know what to write. This is officially the start of the rewrite, and outlining the chapters to follow in the first three pages of my thesis helped me put everything neatly into place. I am not as far behind as I thought and the new deadline no longer looks impossible.
Haven't we all wanted to be somewhere else with someone special sometime? Lane and Stu at damnthepacific dot com certainly do. I am still trying to figure out how I feel about this - but after cycling through a long list of emotions I have ended up with: "how can I know this isn't another internet hoax?" It's a nice story, two really cute youths begging for spare change to fullfill their dreams and be together. Now if one of them develops a disease which puts some pressure on the audience, cancer, for instance, and we get to admire their fortitude in the face of this tragedy, that should set the pennies rolling into their accounts.
Now of course, if they are for real I have been cold and cynical. But how can I know the difference? There is no way to prove their identity and the reality of their emotion online, and there is no way for me to prove otherwise, unless this develops into an other kaycee nichole episode... at which point they might be looking at a charge for fraud.
Now of course, if they are for real I have been cold and cynical. But how can I know the difference? There is no way to prove their identity and the reality of their emotion online, and there is no way for me to prove otherwise, unless this develops into an other kaycee nichole episode... at which point they might be looking at a charge for fraud.
And while I am busy updating all kind of odd stuff: Elin, a bright norwegian student at the moment studying at MIT in Boston, has one post in her blog, and this is a sharp critcism of an old post of Jill's. Elin's post is from may 15th. With all the people who know Elin and have linked to her from their different pages, I find it embarassing every time I check to see if she has written something new and interesting, and find the same post. By now I experience her words not just as sharp criticism, but aggressive, and since Jill's blog has moved on and changed, the gap between this single attack and the fluid nature of weblogs becomes increasingly obvious.
Digiplay Initiative
Lisbeth just reminded me of this site. I know I have looked in here before, but that's quite a while ago, before they got the fancy lay-out.
Lisbeth just reminded me of this site. I know I have looked in here before, but that's quite a while ago, before they got the fancy lay-out.
I admit it, I am vain enough that I did a Google search on "thinking with my fingers", to see if there were people I didn't know of who had linked to my site. And yes, there were, and some links which left me very flattered. The search however brought up a whole lot of other uses of the phrase, and most of them were - excuses. A very common one was like this: "I am sorry, I am tired, I guess I am just thinking with my fingers." Only at one point did a site on journalism and writing point out that thinking with your fingers means thinking while you write, something all journalists should do. I mean, it certainly beats thinking after you have finished the part and passed the writing on to the desk for editing and printing!
Then there were the musicians, describing how their fingers would have to do the thinking at a certain point in a performance, how technique and practice would lead to the conscious mind not being occupied with what the fingers did, and the fingers thinking on their own, and a few other technicians and artists also mentioning how their fingers would come up with solutions seemingly independent of the brain.
The last quote however gave a totally new twist to the term. Google, despite me asking it to search for the exact phrase, insisted on searching for thinking .... my fingers. While this lead me to the Isaac Asimov quote further down, it also brought me this: "Then you get another hard-on thinking about my fingers."
Then there were the musicians, describing how their fingers would have to do the thinking at a certain point in a performance, how technique and practice would lead to the conscious mind not being occupied with what the fingers did, and the fingers thinking on their own, and a few other technicians and artists also mentioning how their fingers would come up with solutions seemingly independent of the brain.
The last quote however gave a totally new twist to the term. Google, despite me asking it to search for the exact phrase, insisted on searching for thinking .... my fingers. While this lead me to the Isaac Asimov quote further down, it also brought me this: "Then you get another hard-on thinking about my fingers."
March 3, 2000
Kathleen Thomas can't think when she can't move her fingers - odd, painful, and familiar.
Kathleen Thomas can't think when she can't move her fingers - odd, painful, and familiar.
Untitled-6
Notice the quote from Isaac Asimov?
Thinking is the activity that I love best, and writing to me is simply thinking through my fingers. Isaac Asimov
I had no idea I was in such distinguished company when I named this blog once upon a time several months past.
Notice the quote from Isaac Asimov?
Thinking is the activity that I love best, and writing to me is simply thinking through my fingers. Isaac Asimov
I had no idea I was in such distinguished company when I named this blog once upon a time several months past.
Slottet varsler lang bryllupsreise
I just love the way the Norwegian royal family handle the press. They are so polite and open, they never flee or get annoyed, they look straight into the cameras and smile and answer, they keep their appointment, they go from point A to point B according to schedule, they pause to give photographers their shots, they roll down the dark windows to wave and smile and be available rather than protective and protected...
And then they turn around, slip into jeans, go out the backdoor with little more than a nod to the guard, and disappear in the crowds. As they did this time. The Royal Yacht arrived in Copenhagen on schedule - but the newly wedded Crown Prince and Princess were not aboard. They had left the boat hours ago - the Prince most likely telling the sailors: "skip the rituals, and pass me those suitcases, we are out of here. Say hello to the journalists in Copenhagen from me!"
And Håkon? If I meet you and Mette-Marit walking from one cabin to the next among the mountains of Sunnmøre with backpacks in the rain, I promise I won't tell, but can I have a picture of you and her, all cold, wet and blistered, just because?
I just love the way the Norwegian royal family handle the press. They are so polite and open, they never flee or get annoyed, they look straight into the cameras and smile and answer, they keep their appointment, they go from point A to point B according to schedule, they pause to give photographers their shots, they roll down the dark windows to wave and smile and be available rather than protective and protected...
And then they turn around, slip into jeans, go out the backdoor with little more than a nod to the guard, and disappear in the crowds. As they did this time. The Royal Yacht arrived in Copenhagen on schedule - but the newly wedded Crown Prince and Princess were not aboard. They had left the boat hours ago - the Prince most likely telling the sailors: "skip the rituals, and pass me those suitcases, we are out of here. Say hello to the journalists in Copenhagen from me!"
And Håkon? If I meet you and Mette-Marit walking from one cabin to the next among the mountains of Sunnmøre with backpacks in the rain, I promise I won't tell, but can I have a picture of you and her, all cold, wet and blistered, just because?
Monday, August 27, 2001
simblog
I found this interesting blog from the life of Sims through the blog silent type, which Jill found after he had found us. Kind of roundabout, but that's fun, and now I have them all bookmarked.
I found this interesting blog from the life of Sims through the blog silent type, which Jill found after he had found us. Kind of roundabout, but that's fun, and now I have them all bookmarked.
The Amazon
I dreamt of swords last night.
I dreamt of battles last night.
I dreamt I fought by your side
armed and strong, last night.
A hard flash of lightning came from your hand
and the troll fell at your feet.
Our troops closed in around us and sang
in the threat of silent darkness.
I dreamt of blood last night.
I dreamt of death last night.
I dreamt I fell by your side
with a mortal wound, last night.
You never even noticed that I fell.
So grave was your mouth.
With steady hand you held your shield
and went upon your way.
I dreamt of fire last night.
I dreamt of roses last night.
I dreamt my death was fair and good.
That is how I dreamt last night.
Karin Boye
I dreamt of swords last night.
I dreamt of battles last night.
I dreamt I fought by your side
armed and strong, last night.
A hard flash of lightning came from your hand
and the troll fell at your feet.
Our troops closed in around us and sang
in the threat of silent darkness.
I dreamt of blood last night.
I dreamt of death last night.
I dreamt I fell by your side
with a mortal wound, last night.
You never even noticed that I fell.
So grave was your mouth.
With steady hand you held your shield
and went upon your way.
I dreamt of fire last night.
I dreamt of roses last night.
I dreamt my death was fair and good.
That is how I dreamt last night.
Karin Boye
Lars Konzack
Looks like Lars thinks I don't I take games seriously, and hey, here's somebody confirming what I just wrote about Miran: he thinks I am narrow-minded too!
Coming from media theory, I come from a background of media panics. Film was sinful, radio was dangerous, television the source of all violence, the video would lead to constant television use and the computer would abolish reading for ever. To reduce the power of computer games, claiming they won't lead to instant attitude change doesn't mean to take them less seriously, it means not viewing them like the work of the devil, appointing them the new source of all which is evil in society.
and Lars:
While it is fine to look at computer games in a broader media sense, I find it narrow-minded to look on computer games only in a media perspective since computer games are so much more than what is possible to see from that angle.
I hope you don't suggest that one researcher should look at computer-games from every possible angle? I would like to remind you of the first lines of the post you're quoting:
Games: why it's important to write about their structure, content and style, genres and characteristics, their use and their utilisation of technology.
Dangerous question, and one with as many answers as there are people doing research in the field (and some for the people who are not).
I did the good academic thing and covered the diverse opinions of others before I aired my own : )
Looks like Lars thinks I don't I take games seriously, and hey, here's somebody confirming what I just wrote about Miran: he thinks I am narrow-minded too!
Coming from media theory, I come from a background of media panics. Film was sinful, radio was dangerous, television the source of all violence, the video would lead to constant television use and the computer would abolish reading for ever. To reduce the power of computer games, claiming they won't lead to instant attitude change doesn't mean to take them less seriously, it means not viewing them like the work of the devil, appointing them the new source of all which is evil in society.
and Lars:
While it is fine to look at computer games in a broader media sense, I find it narrow-minded to look on computer games only in a media perspective since computer games are so much more than what is possible to see from that angle.
I hope you don't suggest that one researcher should look at computer-games from every possible angle? I would like to remind you of the first lines of the post you're quoting:
Games: why it's important to write about their structure, content and style, genres and characteristics, their use and their utilisation of technology.
Dangerous question, and one with as many answers as there are people doing research in the field (and some for the people who are not).
I did the good academic thing and covered the diverse opinions of others before I aired my own : )
Miran is turning into a little bitch.
OK, so who's Miran? That's my new role-play character at Azhad, religious, self-righteous and inflexible spoiled girl. I catch myself wondering where this comes from, trying to recognize her in the image of myself I have in my head. I guess people who read this might have less problems than me seeing why she can be a child of my imagination and personality. I believe Robin and Jodi were right: roleplay doesn't mean being all yourself, but you can never be more than yourself - which means somewhere in there I have a 19-year old moralist.
OK, so who's Miran? That's my new role-play character at Azhad, religious, self-righteous and inflexible spoiled girl. I catch myself wondering where this comes from, trying to recognize her in the image of myself I have in my head. I guess people who read this might have less problems than me seeing why she can be a child of my imagination and personality. I believe Robin and Jodi were right: roleplay doesn't mean being all yourself, but you can never be more than yourself - which means somewhere in there I have a 19-year old moralist.
Sunday, August 26, 2001
My colleague Anne Mangen came back to Norway after spending the spring and summer in California. Her eyes were shining, and she was talking about her work with self-reliance and enthusiasm, something which made me envious, but also happy. She is working with an analysis of Myst, originally looking at the way it relies on film theory. By now she was convinced that hyper-text theory and narratology was the right way to approach it. I agree with her, Myst and Riven are narratives to a much larger degree than the games I work with, and narratology can work. I would almost say that they are NOT games, although if I look at them as games I am certain I could fit them into the categories of both Huizinga and Callois. If narratology fits on any of the productions labeled "games", I guess Myst and Riven are the ones.
As for me, I am still wondering why I am so little enthused about the book by Isabel Allende I just finished. I read it fast - devoured it, but it left me oddly hungry. I think this one stopped still in the game - unlike stories, it wasn't rounded off and ended, like a game, it invited me to log on and continue. Why do I love that in games, but hate it in books? I guess that's so simple I shouldn't even ask - I can return to the game, when the book ends, it ends. I feel like I want to write the next chapter about Gregory Reeves, and give him the life I would have wanted, if I was a man of his means and abilities. Perhaps that is still good though...
As for me, I am still wondering why I am so little enthused about the book by Isabel Allende I just finished. I read it fast - devoured it, but it left me oddly hungry. I think this one stopped still in the game - unlike stories, it wasn't rounded off and ended, like a game, it invited me to log on and continue. Why do I love that in games, but hate it in books? I guess that's so simple I shouldn't even ask - I can return to the game, when the book ends, it ends. I feel like I want to write the next chapter about Gregory Reeves, and give him the life I would have wanted, if I was a man of his means and abilities. Perhaps that is still good though...
Friday, August 24, 2001
AzhadWiki: AzhadWiki
Almost as easy to use as blogger and more flexible, as it doesn't insist on cronological posting, Azhad uses a Wiki to create a website where the players can be active and participate not only through playing on the MUD, but also through developing the fictitous framework of the MUD, discussing and exploring different aspects of a make-belief culture.
Azhad is trying to give more power to the players than is normal in mudding, for (at least) two reasons:
1) To give the players the pleasure of personal mastery, achievement and satisfaction, and so enhance the playing experience.
2) To relieve the administration of the very demanding task of running plots when players can come up with more and are able to devote more time to running their own plot.
It's an interesting experiement, and they have a great player base to test on, as a lot of the people from the fading (and hopefully soon-to-be-reborn) Aarinfel have followed them here.
Almost as easy to use as blogger and more flexible, as it doesn't insist on cronological posting, Azhad uses a Wiki to create a website where the players can be active and participate not only through playing on the MUD, but also through developing the fictitous framework of the MUD, discussing and exploring different aspects of a make-belief culture.
Azhad is trying to give more power to the players than is normal in mudding, for (at least) two reasons:
1) To give the players the pleasure of personal mastery, achievement and satisfaction, and so enhance the playing experience.
2) To relieve the administration of the very demanding task of running plots when players can come up with more and are able to devote more time to running their own plot.
It's an interesting experiement, and they have a great player base to test on, as a lot of the people from the fading (and hopefully soon-to-be-reborn) Aarinfel have followed them here.
Fragment.nl > Thesis
Jill provided me with an other useful link: Frank Schaap, a dutch ethnographer. I am downloading his thesis as I blog...
Jill provided me with an other useful link: Frank Schaap, a dutch ethnographer. I am downloading his thesis as I blog...
Azhad
A new game by some of the people behind Aarinfel. For those who like it RP-intensive and complex, I think this is a good world to visit!
A new game by some of the people behind Aarinfel. For those who like it RP-intensive and complex, I think this is a good world to visit!
Wednesday, August 22, 2001
Background Briefing - 12/08/01: Knowledge Indignation: Road Rage on the Information Superhighway
I stole the link from Jill...
and the discussion is very interesting, displaying the catch of living in the information age rather than the industrial age.
I stole the link from Jill...
and the discussion is very interesting, displaying the catch of living in the information age rather than the industrial age.
Tuesday, August 21, 2001
Games: why it's important to write about their structure, content and style, genres and characteristics, their use and their utilisation of technology.
Dangerous question, and one with as many answers as there are people doing research in the field (and some for the people who are not).
This is the question I have been asking myself for the last ... seven years? I think I have been asking it longer.
In 1991 I started playing computer games not just to enjoy them, but to learn about them, trying to figure out what made them almost addictive. Anything with that kind of holding power had to be a good medium for communication and spreading information, particularly a good teaching-tool and an agent of attitude change. From 1994-1996 (published in 1997) I worked on understanding a game created by the Norwegian board of Health to teach boys about sex and gender. The game, called Det store manndomsspranget (the great step to manhood) was never published, even after almost 6 years of developing it - the christian Prime Minister stopped it in 1998, saying it might lead to lowering the sexual debut age in Norway. If you ask me... that game was so boring, it wouldn't have made anybody more interested in sex. It made a good object for study though, and with its many flaws and complex structure it made me ask again about whether games could be used for the purpose of changing attitudes at all.
By now I think: no, it is not a good agent of attitude change. It's a good way to learn things that should be remembered, and new knowledge can lead to changing attitudes - but the game itself is considered a game, something apart, something not to be integrated in the set of experiences which act formative. Games are by nature outside of real life, and distinguishing the difference is a sign of sanity.
Why are they still important objects of research?
Their structure can teach us new things about perception, about the potential of a new media for widening our knowledge of how humans receive and act on impressions, stimuli, how we focus and about the human ability to multitask on several levels.
Content teaches us what can be talked about in which manners. Where are the taboos and do they change when they are discussed in the medium of a game, with the potential for choosing and discarding which a computer offers?
Style teaches us how aesthetics connects to function, to the social and to economy, as well as about identity and the formation of identity based on the complex messages of style - and yes, you should read Subculture, the meaning of style to know what I am aiming at.
Genres - that's more a matter of understanding the interplay between economy, literature and old styles of games - how history influences the development of what is considered new.
Technology is pretty obvious at least to me... but again economy, culture and the diffusion of innovations - and no, I am not just talking Rogers here.
Espen has his own answers to this question. I have a little problem with his view of games as an object of study in themselves. While I find them important, I want to understand how they connect to the wider media world. They are not isolated, no more than literature is isolated from other media, or perhaps a more obvious example, as literature strives to be isolated: Television from film, radio, music or popular written literature or journalism... we are facing a world of composite media, and computer games are becoming an important part of that.
Dangerous question, and one with as many answers as there are people doing research in the field (and some for the people who are not).
This is the question I have been asking myself for the last ... seven years? I think I have been asking it longer.
In 1991 I started playing computer games not just to enjoy them, but to learn about them, trying to figure out what made them almost addictive. Anything with that kind of holding power had to be a good medium for communication and spreading information, particularly a good teaching-tool and an agent of attitude change. From 1994-1996 (published in 1997) I worked on understanding a game created by the Norwegian board of Health to teach boys about sex and gender. The game, called Det store manndomsspranget (the great step to manhood) was never published, even after almost 6 years of developing it - the christian Prime Minister stopped it in 1998, saying it might lead to lowering the sexual debut age in Norway. If you ask me... that game was so boring, it wouldn't have made anybody more interested in sex. It made a good object for study though, and with its many flaws and complex structure it made me ask again about whether games could be used for the purpose of changing attitudes at all.
By now I think: no, it is not a good agent of attitude change. It's a good way to learn things that should be remembered, and new knowledge can lead to changing attitudes - but the game itself is considered a game, something apart, something not to be integrated in the set of experiences which act formative. Games are by nature outside of real life, and distinguishing the difference is a sign of sanity.
Why are they still important objects of research?
Their structure can teach us new things about perception, about the potential of a new media for widening our knowledge of how humans receive and act on impressions, stimuli, how we focus and about the human ability to multitask on several levels.
Content teaches us what can be talked about in which manners. Where are the taboos and do they change when they are discussed in the medium of a game, with the potential for choosing and discarding which a computer offers?
Style teaches us how aesthetics connects to function, to the social and to economy, as well as about identity and the formation of identity based on the complex messages of style - and yes, you should read Subculture, the meaning of style to know what I am aiming at.
Genres - that's more a matter of understanding the interplay between economy, literature and old styles of games - how history influences the development of what is considered new.
Technology is pretty obvious at least to me... but again economy, culture and the diffusion of innovations - and no, I am not just talking Rogers here.
Espen has his own answers to this question. I have a little problem with his view of games as an object of study in themselves. While I find them important, I want to understand how they connect to the wider media world. They are not isolated, no more than literature is isolated from other media, or perhaps a more obvious example, as literature strives to be isolated: Television from film, radio, music or popular written literature or journalism... we are facing a world of composite media, and computer games are becoming an important part of that.
Monday, August 20, 2001
Back before the computer. In the backpack is an other side-track: Simone de Beauvoire: the second sex. While I could have been a busy bee in Oslo, I rested aching muscles and exercised My head, thinking of gender and control.
Wednesday, August 15, 2001
OK... So I am not writing much. That's because I am painting, packing, carrying, unpacking, taking apart, putting together, rearranging everything and my life, it feels like. But I love this new house. I really really love it, it feels like I have, after 19 years of waiting more or less anxtiously to leave home and 21 years of living temporarily somewhere I always knew I wouldn't stay, found a place where I could settle. It's scary.
But now I am packing books on fantasy literature and aesthetics, and leaving for Oslo. I hope to be back wiser and with the computer packed with notes.
But now I am packing books on fantasy literature and aesthetics, and leaving for Oslo. I hope to be back wiser and with the computer packed with notes.
Thursday, August 09, 2001
OOOpS!
this was funny, Jill made me aware that my blog changed directions quite dramatically with my last post.
Where I have been playing and chatting "bonk" is a short term for an automated emote from the game, saying something like: "Urk hits you over the head." Little did I know that in other parts of the Universe "bonking" means being fucked really hard and fast. OK, perhaps that would have done the trick though, and yes, I might at times be tempted to say that... but on this occasion I was unintentionally lewd.
this was funny, Jill made me aware that my blog changed directions quite dramatically with my last post.
Where I have been playing and chatting "bonk" is a short term for an automated emote from the game, saying something like: "Urk hits you over the head." Little did I know that in other parts of the Universe "bonking" means being fucked really hard and fast. OK, perhaps that would have done the trick though, and yes, I might at times be tempted to say that... but on this occasion I was unintentionally lewd.
Wednesday, August 08, 2001
Sometimes I feel like saying: please, bonk me.
I had been trying to wring and wiggle to make a quote I disagreed with into a good point to start when describing the process of creating a game, just because it came from a book with the words "Interface" and "Culture" in the title. When it was pointed out that I am not that much of a verbal contortionist, I had to look again. I have been refusing to think of games as a type of film for so long, my mind has shied away from the most obvious of comparisons when it comes to complex cooperations in the creation of entertainment: the film. So now I am reading David Bordwell's Film Art with a slightly sheepish look on my face. Why I look silly? Because this book has been on the reading-list for our undergraduates for years... and I didn't even think to look that way.
I had been trying to wring and wiggle to make a quote I disagreed with into a good point to start when describing the process of creating a game, just because it came from a book with the words "Interface" and "Culture" in the title. When it was pointed out that I am not that much of a verbal contortionist, I had to look again. I have been refusing to think of games as a type of film for so long, my mind has shied away from the most obvious of comparisons when it comes to complex cooperations in the creation of entertainment: the film. So now I am reading David Bordwell's Film Art with a slightly sheepish look on my face. Why I look silly? Because this book has been on the reading-list for our undergraduates for years... and I didn't even think to look that way.
Pirate Software, LLC HomePage
This looks like every gamers dream: find a group of talented people you want to work with, and build the game you would love to play in. At this point, what makes them different from the administrators of games like Dragon Realms, Aarinfel, Azhad and Lu'Tamohr is ambition and vision. They aim high! That makes me curious to see more of what they might already have written, what games they use as their models, how they expect to find funding, and will they be stubborn enough to go through with this massive project?
A lot of gamers have made real money on their dream. Once upon a time there was a little group who called their world "White Wolf"... How many talented young people aren't dreaming today of building a game rather than writing a book or being a movie star? And hey, I am already making a living from my interest in games!
This looks like every gamers dream: find a group of talented people you want to work with, and build the game you would love to play in. At this point, what makes them different from the administrators of games like Dragon Realms, Aarinfel, Azhad and Lu'Tamohr is ambition and vision. They aim high! That makes me curious to see more of what they might already have written, what games they use as their models, how they expect to find funding, and will they be stubborn enough to go through with this massive project?
A lot of gamers have made real money on their dream. Once upon a time there was a little group who called their world "White Wolf"... How many talented young people aren't dreaming today of building a game rather than writing a book or being a movie star? And hey, I am already making a living from my interest in games!
Tuesday, August 07, 2001
just so you know, Adrian, I am reading your blog, despite the tiny print and the green which blurs when I try to read it, and I think I have to read Cybertext again... because I understood Cybertext and Hypertext opposite of how you explain it. OK, perhaps I admitted something foolish now (the potential of not having understood something! Eeeep!) - but I did not experience the frustration you are having with this.
www.ludology.org
Gonzalo continues his crusade against games as narratives, and he has some interesting links to comments on Gamestudies. His blogg is developing into a nice portal for game-study topics.
Gonzalo continues his crusade against games as narratives, and he has some interesting links to comments on Gamestudies. His blogg is developing into a nice portal for game-study topics.
Jill is obviously getting some criticism of her blogging, when others claim that it's exhibitionism. I have to say: isn't it all? I can't lecture without showing off. I insist that from 20-200 students stare at me for two hours. I insist on their attention, and I display my entire sorry self to them: my taste (or lack of it) in clothes, my errors when using technological equipment, my language and voice, not to talk of my scent and any unconscious habits I might not know about... believe me, the students know them intimately. I also write papers for international conferences, I have taken exams and I have assessed exams... All those insecure girls, dreading having to exhibit a piece of themselves on the oral exams, wouldn't life have been so much easier if somebody had told them that it's OK, that you need to be a bit of an exhibitionist to manage?
So what's wrong with exhibitionism? What's wrong with vanity? Or is perhaps nothing wrong, it's just that I hear those words as dysfemisms, good Scandinavian Protestant that I am? (OK, you might want to scratch good.)
So what's wrong with exhibitionism? What's wrong with vanity? Or is perhaps nothing wrong, it's just that I hear those words as dysfemisms, good Scandinavian Protestant that I am? (OK, you might want to scratch good.)
"The 'eye' is a product of history reproduced by education. This is true of the mode of artistic perception now accepted as legitimate, that is, the aesthetic disposition, the capacity to consider in and for themselves, as form rather than function, not only the works designated for such apprehension, i.e., legitimate works of art, but everything in the world, including cultural objects which are not yet consecrated - such as, at one time, primitive arts, or, nowadays, popular photography or kitsch - and natural objects."
Returning to Bourdieu's Distinction I find the reasoning behind my view of aesthetics, that which I have not made explicit in the last chapter. Then the question is: does aesthetics have a value when it's just the result of history and education? Should I even try to mess with the "aesthetic qualities" when they do not exist independently, but as a sum of factors?
I say yes. Aesthetics is still a product: it's an evaluation method developed to suit a purpose... and as such it says as much about the purpose as does any other method I could choose in research, journalistic, scientific or just with the investigating imagination of town gossip. Any method aims at including and excluding certain variables - what variables does the aesthetics of computer games play around with?
Returning to Bourdieu's Distinction I find the reasoning behind my view of aesthetics, that which I have not made explicit in the last chapter. Then the question is: does aesthetics have a value when it's just the result of history and education? Should I even try to mess with the "aesthetic qualities" when they do not exist independently, but as a sum of factors?
I say yes. Aesthetics is still a product: it's an evaluation method developed to suit a purpose... and as such it says as much about the purpose as does any other method I could choose in research, journalistic, scientific or just with the investigating imagination of town gossip. Any method aims at including and excluding certain variables - what variables does the aesthetics of computer games play around with?
Monday, August 06, 2001
My language or yours?
I have been writing in English, having delusions of grandeur and lots of readers, but also because I really hate having to translate concepts which are already common and have a settled meaning in English, but are still not translated into Norwegian - or translated in some obscure report which have been sold in 5 copies, and those are to the libraries at the colleges where the writer has friends.
Somebody whose opinion I care about suggested I translate the whole thesis into Norwegian - concepts and all - because that would make my language clearer. After a little while of being depressed, I decided to get a few other opinions, and I seeked out a victim in my store of english-language academic friends.
He liked my language, and indicated the lack of lucidity might be in the work, not the language.
Great.
Back to the desk, to look deeper than to the structure of my sentences. At least I know I have to look at everything again now... and won't walk around in ignorance, thinking everything is fine and I am writing a grand work of academic philosophy, to stun the world... at least not yet.
I have been writing in English, having delusions of grandeur and lots of readers, but also because I really hate having to translate concepts which are already common and have a settled meaning in English, but are still not translated into Norwegian - or translated in some obscure report which have been sold in 5 copies, and those are to the libraries at the colleges where the writer has friends.
Somebody whose opinion I care about suggested I translate the whole thesis into Norwegian - concepts and all - because that would make my language clearer. After a little while of being depressed, I decided to get a few other opinions, and I seeked out a victim in my store of english-language academic friends.
He liked my language, and indicated the lack of lucidity might be in the work, not the language.
Great.
Back to the desk, to look deeper than to the structure of my sentences. At least I know I have to look at everything again now... and won't walk around in ignorance, thinking everything is fine and I am writing a grand work of academic philosophy, to stun the world... at least not yet.
Aesthetics.
I have to reconsider what it is. I think of it as a product of culture: the critheria for what is pleasing about a certain object in a certain culture.
As cultures are dependent on social and economic factors, aesthetics will depend on this as well - and politics will influence aesthetics - through culture. To me, that means that aesthetics at no point exists independently of culture, of economy, of social differences and of politics. These set the frames within which aestetics works to confirm or challenge the establishment.
I have to reconsider what it is. I think of it as a product of culture: the critheria for what is pleasing about a certain object in a certain culture.
As cultures are dependent on social and economic factors, aesthetics will depend on this as well - and politics will influence aesthetics - through culture. To me, that means that aesthetics at no point exists independently of culture, of economy, of social differences and of politics. These set the frames within which aestetics works to confirm or challenge the establishment.
Tuesday, July 31, 2001
So it's tuesday, and where have I been for several days?
yes, you are right. I have been doing serious work. I have been on a barbeque (saturday) with Adrian Miles, Jill Walker, Jan Rune Holmevik and Hilde Corneliussen. Sunday I spent with a friend who isn't connected to the department of humanistic informatics at all, but Monday I was back among them. It's 1.37 am Tuesday, I have discussed the future of the DAC conferences, I have discussed seduction, power and computers and games, I have learned and shared some amazingly juicy gossip which I am keeping to myself, thank you, and I have remembered, in between all of this, why I enjoy doing research, and why I actually think I can finish the project I started.
It might look like playing, chatting or fooling around... but when you hit the wall and can't do anything through all the normal rituals of discipline, the carnevalesque way of not taking your work seriously and making fun of everything is sometimes the best way to break the dry spell. And tonight was not a dry night. I am already looking forwards to writing again. Thanks, folks!
yes, you are right. I have been doing serious work. I have been on a barbeque (saturday) with Adrian Miles, Jill Walker, Jan Rune Holmevik and Hilde Corneliussen. Sunday I spent with a friend who isn't connected to the department of humanistic informatics at all, but Monday I was back among them. It's 1.37 am Tuesday, I have discussed the future of the DAC conferences, I have discussed seduction, power and computers and games, I have learned and shared some amazingly juicy gossip which I am keeping to myself, thank you, and I have remembered, in between all of this, why I enjoy doing research, and why I actually think I can finish the project I started.
It might look like playing, chatting or fooling around... but when you hit the wall and can't do anything through all the normal rituals of discipline, the carnevalesque way of not taking your work seriously and making fun of everything is sometimes the best way to break the dry spell. And tonight was not a dry night. I am already looking forwards to writing again. Thanks, folks!
Thursday, July 26, 2001
Did you ever yell at your computer? Curse it for being stubborn, stupid and trying to trick you? Well, you're not the only one to treat your computer as if it has feeling and intent. Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass did a study on how people treat computers like real people. They let a group of people be tutored by a computer which thought itself to be a very good tutor. Afterwards some of the people evaluated the performance of the computer on the same machine which had tutored them, while others evaluated the performance on an other machine, or with pen and paper. The people evaluating the machine they were still on were significantly nicer in their evaluation. they were POLITE to the machine.
I think this is fascinating. Reeves and Nass explain this with the human brain being "old", and since it has no concept of anything but humans displaying certain signs of humanity, it will treat everything which behaves like a human in come communication aspects as if it IS human.
I wonder if there's more research out there about what people treat as if it's human? We display loyalty to brands, as we do to teams of athletes, for instance. But we also become territorial, and defend and protect territories - can the computer have become a territory we need to protect and where we wish to find positive features which makes it worth protecting? I know that I get fiercely territorial about objects, not the least of those computers, and mac-users are like a clan ready to battle under the sign of the holy apple. I never before considered apple in the context of the snow-white story before, by the way. I'll have to think a bit more about what that might mean.
I think this is fascinating. Reeves and Nass explain this with the human brain being "old", and since it has no concept of anything but humans displaying certain signs of humanity, it will treat everything which behaves like a human in come communication aspects as if it IS human.
I wonder if there's more research out there about what people treat as if it's human? We display loyalty to brands, as we do to teams of athletes, for instance. But we also become territorial, and defend and protect territories - can the computer have become a territory we need to protect and where we wish to find positive features which makes it worth protecting? I know that I get fiercely territorial about objects, not the least of those computers, and mac-users are like a clan ready to battle under the sign of the holy apple. I never before considered apple in the context of the snow-white story before, by the way. I'll have to think a bit more about what that might mean.
Wednesday, July 25, 2001
jill/txt
Psst: Jill: your blog used to be called jill/weblog
And I loved your thoughts on exhibitionism. What's wrong with enjoying to be seen, noticed, admired? It's how women are supposed to behave after all: be perfect dolls to be admired. Perhaps what's different with your kind of exhibitionism is that this doll talks! You are doing what men hate, displaying not your tits, but your ideas.
Psst: Jill: your blog used to be called jill/weblog
And I loved your thoughts on exhibitionism. What's wrong with enjoying to be seen, noticed, admired? It's how women are supposed to behave after all: be perfect dolls to be admired. Perhaps what's different with your kind of exhibitionism is that this doll talks! You are doing what men hate, displaying not your tits, but your ideas.
I just got a book from Amazon.co.uk: The Cybercultures Reader, edited by Barbara M. Kennedy and David Bell. I was very curious about this book - I constantly have this fear that there are a lot of essential articles out there which everybody know about while I have no idea, so I buy readers...
Sometimes I am lucky with them, and they contain all those articles which I have been trying to collect in different filing-systems, bad copies with imprecise information on publications and perhaps lacking a page where it's been copied twice. Sometimes, like today, I sit staring at the list of articles and writers and wonder what planet they are at... or I am at... since we don't overlap at all. It was comforting to see that at least Mike Featherstone and Donna Haraway were represented. We might be on the same planet after all.
Sometimes I am lucky with them, and they contain all those articles which I have been trying to collect in different filing-systems, bad copies with imprecise information on publications and perhaps lacking a page where it's been copied twice. Sometimes, like today, I sit staring at the list of articles and writers and wonder what planet they are at... or I am at... since we don't overlap at all. It was comforting to see that at least Mike Featherstone and Donna Haraway were represented. We might be on the same planet after all.
NETTAVISEN INNENRIKS: Bryllupsmiddag uten Behn
The Norwegian crown prince, a very handsome young man, is getting married to this single mother of no particularly aristocratic background, Mette-Marit. I think that's nice, but the weddig-perparations are getting a little overgrown. There's a long list of artists, politicians and sportsmen who are invited to the wedding dinner... and then there's this young woman who has a picture on the net, her name on the list and is treated like the writers and musicians she's put on the same list as. What has she accomplished? She's Mette-Marit's "best man".
She should of course be on the list of guests for the wedding. But is she nothing but a friend of Mette-Marit? Being her "best man" takes about 30 minutes - OK, perhaps an hour and a half for a long ceremony like this. She has to have something else to do with her life. Perhaps she works in a kindergarten, perhaps she has a PhD in mathematics, perhaps she is a student, perhaps a carpenter or a hairdresser. Why can't she be allowed to be presented as a person with her own interests and accomplishments?
Of course, she is Mette-Marit's best man. But she is her own person as well. Come on, journalists, figure it out: people have lives which are not related to your most immediate news even if they are not famous!
The Norwegian crown prince, a very handsome young man, is getting married to this single mother of no particularly aristocratic background, Mette-Marit. I think that's nice, but the weddig-perparations are getting a little overgrown. There's a long list of artists, politicians and sportsmen who are invited to the wedding dinner... and then there's this young woman who has a picture on the net, her name on the list and is treated like the writers and musicians she's put on the same list as. What has she accomplished? She's Mette-Marit's "best man".
She should of course be on the list of guests for the wedding. But is she nothing but a friend of Mette-Marit? Being her "best man" takes about 30 minutes - OK, perhaps an hour and a half for a long ceremony like this. She has to have something else to do with her life. Perhaps she works in a kindergarten, perhaps she has a PhD in mathematics, perhaps she is a student, perhaps a carpenter or a hairdresser. Why can't she be allowed to be presented as a person with her own interests and accomplishments?
Of course, she is Mette-Marit's best man. But she is her own person as well. Come on, journalists, figure it out: people have lives which are not related to your most immediate news even if they are not famous!
Tuesday, July 24, 2001
Europe's Spin on Web Reporting
The "European spin" is interesting, but not really a solution for the larger newspapers which have put a lot of resources into developing for the web.
The "European spin" is interesting, but not really a solution for the larger newspapers which have put a lot of resources into developing for the web.
Who, What, Where, Why and Web
Some interesting comments on online journalism. This is what we have tried to avoid in Volda, and there are other ways of doing it. After all, journalists aren't coders or designers, and why should they be? They weren't typographers either, before Murdock used computers to change the industry.
Some interesting comments on online journalism. This is what we have tried to avoid in Volda, and there are other ways of doing it. After all, journalists aren't coders or designers, and why should they be? They weren't typographers either, before Murdock used computers to change the industry.
Monday, July 23, 2001
Ph.D.-students are such masochists. We spend the days locked up in little rooms, comparing ourselves to the writers of the most interesting and brilliant works which become the base for our own work and the measuring stick for quality. Of course most of us have to fail in our own minds. Our topics become familiar and trivial... and doubt eats at what little confidence we might have left. I wonder how come we endure. Sometimes I think it's just that we are too stupid to realise that what we are trying to do is impossible. Luckily, we are skilled at hiding truths like that from ourselves. Or at least I am. I don't know about the rest of the world, really, I am just generalising from a very small universe. That's qualitative methods, right?
Some days are worse than others. Some days should just be skipped. But occasionally, bad days can be turned around to much better days. Here I was, all alone at the office, with most of my colleagues gone on vacation. I was indulging in feeling sorry for myself, thinking about how much I miss having my friends around me, and I was doing a really good job at it.
That's when I started to get little pings from a friend and colleague in Bergen, demanding to know exactly when I am coming down there. When she was satisfied, I opened the email to find a story from a friend, who has a lot more reason to be down than I do... but her problems are just so uncommon, they made me laugh and feel a lot better. So I managed to go fetch a cup of coffee. On the way back I met an other colleague, one of the few not in Spain, Greece or somewhere else sunny and warm, who had a hug and an offer for help with moving (yes, we'll be moving in August). I had to leave him because my phone was ringing, and it was an other friend who just wanted to say hello because he likes hearing my voice, and as I was talking to him, I opened the mailbox again, and there was a gushing eulogy to friendship, where I was included in a group hug with some of the people I really admire, as the kind of friends the sender was ecstatically happy about having.
So I am not complaining about being alone and forgotten in this deep, dark fjord on the west-coast of Norway any more. The fjord is still dark and it's still a long way from where I want to be... but I am starting to think my friends are all psychic, and that defies distance.
That's when I started to get little pings from a friend and colleague in Bergen, demanding to know exactly when I am coming down there. When she was satisfied, I opened the email to find a story from a friend, who has a lot more reason to be down than I do... but her problems are just so uncommon, they made me laugh and feel a lot better. So I managed to go fetch a cup of coffee. On the way back I met an other colleague, one of the few not in Spain, Greece or somewhere else sunny and warm, who had a hug and an offer for help with moving (yes, we'll be moving in August). I had to leave him because my phone was ringing, and it was an other friend who just wanted to say hello because he likes hearing my voice, and as I was talking to him, I opened the mailbox again, and there was a gushing eulogy to friendship, where I was included in a group hug with some of the people I really admire, as the kind of friends the sender was ecstatically happy about having.
So I am not complaining about being alone and forgotten in this deep, dark fjord on the west-coast of Norway any more. The fjord is still dark and it's still a long way from where I want to be... but I am starting to think my friends are all psychic, and that defies distance.
Saturday, July 21, 2001
For a week my main concerns have been to dress warmly enough, to plan dinners for 10-13 people including a baby and four sisters with widely different tastes in food, not to mention my own two teen-agers, to manage to sleep in a bed which makes my back ache worse with every night, to choose the right spinner for the tiny trout in the little lake which we have to walk past several very cuddly cows (that's a challenge, have you tried to get past a 500 kg cow while it's insisting on being petted and talked to?) to reach and to make the appropriate sounds when I was asked how I liked the paint/food/children/wine/ideas of my wide and assorted family. This is complicated. I found myself longing for the simplicity of the research and the comfort before the computer screen more than once. But not as many as three times...
Friday, July 13, 2001
OK, now I know why it was impossible to finish that chapter. It was two chapters. This feels so much better, I sent off one and can go on working on the next without feeling trapped by the size of a chapter. This is good. I hope.
Next week I'll be visiting my mother's summer house, together with at least two of my elder sisters, and their husbands and dogs. I am already exhausted, and it's raining. I just hope the rain lets up, so that I can get to go for a lot of very long and exhausting walks. That always makes it easier to be without access for as long as a week.
Next week I'll be visiting my mother's summer house, together with at least two of my elder sisters, and their husbands and dogs. I am already exhausted, and it's raining. I just hope the rain lets up, so that I can get to go for a lot of very long and exhausting walks. That always makes it easier to be without access for as long as a week.
NETTAVISEN KULT og KULTUR: Nett-anarki trues med søksmål
Hvordan kommer anarchy online til å utvikle seg? Rent bortsett fra at det er norsk, er tanken på et så stort, kommersiellt flerbrukerspill veldig interessant. Jeg må bare bli ferdig med denne avhandlingen....
Hvordan kommer anarchy online til å utvikle seg? Rent bortsett fra at det er norsk, er tanken på et så stort, kommersiellt flerbrukerspill veldig interessant. Jeg må bare bli ferdig med denne avhandlingen....
wap games
the cellphone as the new tool for playing? Well, my daugher plays what I remember as early arcade games on her cell-phone, there are stories written explicitely for sms, and there are adventure- and puzzle- games which use sms and cell-phones as part of the way to communicate with the play-central. Of course it will develop, a game-boy which is also a phone, a diary, an email-box and a hand-held computer? YAY!
the cellphone as the new tool for playing? Well, my daugher plays what I remember as early arcade games on her cell-phone, there are stories written explicitely for sms, and there are adventure- and puzzle- games which use sms and cell-phones as part of the way to communicate with the play-central. Of course it will develop, a game-boy which is also a phone, a diary, an email-box and a hand-held computer? YAY!
The Art of Computer Game Design - Chapter 1
I just found this, by following a link from a discussion-group: usablegames@smartgroups.com . Interesting, but I am not sure it's as simple as just going by this book - while it does discuss games, online multi-player games are their own breed, just chess as and football are diffent games, as well.
I just found this, by following a link from a discussion-group: usablegames@smartgroups.com . Interesting, but I am not sure it's as simple as just going by this book - while it does discuss games, online multi-player games are their own breed, just chess as and football are diffent games, as well.
Articles: Anarchy Online - The Perils Of Pushing Products
werdna at slashdot claim that anarchy online has bit off more than it can chew. Now that is precise critizism...
I am still tempted to say: I told you so. But I didn't tell them, so I'll shut up about that.
However, I don't totally agree with werdna either, because there are graphic multi-player worlds out there which are functioning, and Anarchy Online is still young, it might still establish its own culture and community. It's worth watching.
werdna at slashdot claim that anarchy online has bit off more than it can chew. Now that is precise critizism...
I am still tempted to say: I told you so. But I didn't tell them, so I'll shut up about that.
However, I don't totally agree with werdna either, because there are graphic multi-player worlds out there which are functioning, and Anarchy Online is still young, it might still establish its own culture and community. It's worth watching.
Thursday, July 12, 2001
xrefer - aesthetics, problems of
OK: So upon what grounds do the players make the judgement: this is a good game? That's the question I have to stick to. And I think I have. Now just to write the next 2 pages...
OK: So upon what grounds do the players make the judgement: this is a good game? That's the question I have to stick to. And I think I have. Now just to write the next 2 pages...
xrefer - aesthetic judgement
Hmmm... OK, so I am not as far off the track as I thought... This is what I have been doing and discussing...
Hmmm... OK, so I am not as far off the track as I thought... This is what I have been doing and discussing...
Philosophical Dictionary: Aesthetics-Altruism
What IS this I am trying to do? The net has answers for everything.
What IS this I am trying to do? The net has answers for everything.
Activity as a quality with a work of art, as an aspect bringing pleasure, and pleasure as a way of enhancing activity, isn't new. In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle writes:
This may be seen, too, from the fact that each of the pleasures is bound up with the activity it completes. For an activity is intensified by its proper pleasure, since each class of things is better judged of and brought to precision by those who engage in the activity with pleasure; e.g. it is those who enjoy geometrical thinking that become geometers and grasp the various propositions better, and, similarly, those who are fond of music or of building, and so on, make progress in their proper function by enjoying it; so the pleasures intensify the activities, and what intensifies a thing is proper to it, but things different in kind have properties different in kind.
So what are the proper properties of games?
This may be seen, too, from the fact that each of the pleasures is bound up with the activity it completes. For an activity is intensified by its proper pleasure, since each class of things is better judged of and brought to precision by those who engage in the activity with pleasure; e.g. it is those who enjoy geometrical thinking that become geometers and grasp the various propositions better, and, similarly, those who are fond of music or of building, and so on, make progress in their proper function by enjoying it; so the pleasures intensify the activities, and what intensifies a thing is proper to it, but things different in kind have properties different in kind.
So what are the proper properties of games?
Wednesday, July 11, 2001
Tuesday, July 10, 2001
I have started an other blog with some of my colleagues at Volda College - so far as an experiment. It's called infobloggen and discusses - in Norwegian - subjects relevant for the Public Information Education at Volda College, where all the participants work. Not too many have participated yet, but I expect it might pick up come fall and the end of vacations.
Digital Kringkasting
The Department of Media Studies at Volda College is arranging a little conference on Digital Broadcasting. It's in Norwegian, so for those reading Norwegian out there with an interest in this topic - which I think will become quite important in the close future - keep October 25th - 26th 2001 open. No fee for participating, you have to pay for the trip and housing.
The Department of Media Studies at Volda College is arranging a little conference on Digital Broadcasting. It's in Norwegian, so for those reading Norwegian out there with an interest in this topic - which I think will become quite important in the close future - keep October 25th - 26th 2001 open. No fee for participating, you have to pay for the trip and housing.
Friday, July 06, 2001
I am not writing much here these days. I am not writing much anywhere, these days.
Tired.. so tired... and my office is too warm. So I brought Beardsley, on Aesthetics, out of the office and into a room not as strategically placed in the sunlight. My mind is slowly, with the speed of melting ice-cream, wrapping itself around the images of an aesthetics of playing. What I have to write about isn't just what a good game is, but also what is good playing. Because playing in itself is an aesthetic act, and so there is a certain beauty to experiencing a game as well as to creating it.
Like going to the opening of an art exhibition. Of course, you can just trudge through wearing the same as always. But if you dress up, and everybody else dress up, you will all make the pleasure of being there more pronounced, and add to the experience. And in my opinion the people who think it's really important to be invited to the opening of exhibitions are playing a role-play game with as much intensity as any computer geek.
Tired.. so tired... and my office is too warm. So I brought Beardsley, on Aesthetics, out of the office and into a room not as strategically placed in the sunlight. My mind is slowly, with the speed of melting ice-cream, wrapping itself around the images of an aesthetics of playing. What I have to write about isn't just what a good game is, but also what is good playing. Because playing in itself is an aesthetic act, and so there is a certain beauty to experiencing a game as well as to creating it.
Like going to the opening of an art exhibition. Of course, you can just trudge through wearing the same as always. But if you dress up, and everybody else dress up, you will all make the pleasure of being there more pronounced, and add to the experience. And in my opinion the people who think it's really important to be invited to the opening of exhibitions are playing a role-play game with as much intensity as any computer geek.
Tuesday, July 03, 2001
Game studies. Issue 1, 2001.
It's here, the first journal on the Studies of Games.
I hope it will go well, it's the brain-child of people I know, people I love and people I admire, and I want to see it grow and flourish.
It's here, the first journal on the Studies of Games.
I hope it will go well, it's the brain-child of people I know, people I love and people I admire, and I want to see it grow and flourish.
Monday, July 02, 2001
here's a link to a Norwegian-language article by me on net aesthetics - if there is such a thing. I claim there is, but that it's the aesthetics of self-expression and user-control. Disagree? The editors have given everybody exellent opportunity to protest!
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