Oh, baby
do I have a groovy new little toy...

First we'll take Manhattan...
Or actually, it's Brooklyn I am about to re-invade. Bay Ridge area is traditionally Norwegian turf, so it is very home-like. There are meat-balls and milk chocolate from Freia in the deli by the subway, a danish bakery and - best of all - I can see the sea with just a five minute walk. OK, so its somewhat more brakkish than Voldsfjorden, but it smells of salt and there are boats on it, more than the two ferries running back and forth over the fjord. I'll be in Brooklyn from tomorrow and for two weeks, hiding from all the trivial questions like how to keep the roof dry, the car running and the food on the table, immersing myself in the big, important questions, such as: "how can I cut an other 22 pages from this (bloated) manuscript"?

Citing Games II
Jill asks who to put as author. It is complicated, and I may get it wrong, but there are a few hints.

If there are sequels, and one or more names show up in the same main spot: for instance as director, creative director, lead artist or what all those titles are, fairly high on the list, either on top or with just a producer or some administrative positions above, I take my chances with that/those name(s). I also try to read about the game, interviews etc. That's a lot easier when I know which names to look for, search engines are wonderful things. I occasionally try to write the press-department, but so far I have only had one reply. For those of you who might need to cite Myst or Riven, here it is:

Dear Torill,
There are several methods of displaying bibliographical data (APA, MLA). I'm not sure which you're using. Here's one format:

Cyan Worlds, Inc., "Myst", 1993. Ubi Soft Entertainment, SA
Cyan Worlds, Inc., "Riven", 1997. Ubi Soft Entertainment, SA
Presto Studio, Inc., "Myst III Exile", 1999. Ubi Soft Entertainment, SA
Cyan Worlds, Inc., "URU", 2003. Ubi Soft Entertainment, SA

The authors of Myst and Riven are as follows:
Author/Developer: Cyan, Inc.
Publisher: Broderbund (originally), now they are both published by Ubi Soft
Entertainment, SA.

Myst III Exile:
Author/Developer: Presto Studios, Inc.
Publisher: Broderbund (originally), now published by Ubi Soft
Entertainment, SA.

URU (to be released August 2003)
Author/Developer: Cyan Worlds, Inc.
Publisher: Ubi Soft Entertainment, SA

Chris Brandkamp

As you see, for Myst and Riven, there is no personal author, but a company. Espen, beloved advisor to both Jill and me, insists on a personal author while the company developing the game insists on a collective author in the shape of a company. This is an interesting conflict which reflects the creative process of a game as opposed to the more traditional products for academic analysis. This problem is already discussed in film theory, read for instance Bordwell and Thomson: Film Art, where they emphasize the point that a film is a collective effort . In some cases, such as with Tomb Raider, the game originates with one person who is listed in the credits, in other cases a game is the result of collective thought, brainstorming in groups within the different companies. This indicates that both the personal and the collective approach is "correct" - and that a poor scholar will never win...

Chapter 11
Which might easily be chapter 10 before I am done, is sent off for proof-reading. Now I just need to slash 51 pages from the 350 page document, to achieve the desired 299 pages the thesis should sprawl over. I already have a taker for chapter 10, if I don't use it in the thesis (it's a really good chapter, I think it's my favourite, but I am not sure if it belongs in the dissertation. At the same time... I removed an entire chapter from my master's thesis, with disastrous effect!). I have two days left at the college before I take two weeks off from administration and teaching. It's been a rough fall and winter, I have been pushing and pushing against the sluggish material of final editing, while introducing a three-year education rather than the two-year one I left, implementing the "quality reform" and since just before Christmas leading the Information study. Now I have two weeks away from all of that, starting Friday. This was supposed to be a vacation, but it will be used to finish the thesis. When I return from NYC I hope it's the last time I carry the manuscript - the next time I'll carry the book instead.

Cyborg Mommy
I just found the blog of a woman I have seen in real life. Pattie Belle Hastings was Cyborg Mommy at DAC 2000 in Bergen. The name of her blog? Cyborg Mommy of course. And I found it by way of Cyborg Woman... one of the Cyborg family at blogspot? Actually - there is a http://cyborg.blogspot.com/, but cyborgman, cyborgdad and cyborgboy are still open.

Here or there
Sherry Turkle quotes one of her interviewees:
Finally, Thomas took a job as a bellhop in the hotel where I had just given my lecture. "I thought that working evening hours would let me continue looking for something that would get me back into the middle class," Thomas says. "I haven't found that job yet. But MUDs got me back into the middle class."
Thomas sees himself as someone who should be headed for a desk job, a nice car and life in the suburbs. "My family is like that," he says, "and they spent a lot of money sending me to college. It wasn't to see me bellhop, I can promise you that." during the day Thomas carries luggage, but at night on MUDs he feels that he is with and recognized by his own kind. (Turkle 1995:240)

The new game for women called There takes the consequences of this desire to be middle class. In There players can go shopping and design items. The items you design can be worn by your avatar or sold to others in the game. This sale of designed items happens with "There-bucks". The difference from MUDs is that there-bucks have to be bought. In this manner There inc. try to avoid Sony's "problem" with EverQuest, as described by Edward Castranova in his by now well-known article Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand account of Market and Society in the Cyberian Frontier. In EverQuest people sell the items their avatars gain in the game for real-world money, on e-bay. In There not only is There inc. planning to keep the profit of their products (or rather, the products of Nike and Levi Strauss), but also a profit of the designs you make and might want to re-sell. And to keep complete control, you can't just design any old sweater to wear in There, it has to be approved. After all, the game has an image to uphold:

"It's more like Club Med than the real world," said Darla Marcomb, 38, a controller with a health care company in Fremont, Calif. "Hunger and death don't exist in There. But shopping does. The start-up last week announced partnerships with Levi Strauss and Nike to make their apparel available in the game, so players can dress their avatars in the latest styles." (Chris Gaiter)

An easier online life, more chatting and shopping, less effort and less life-like qualities than Sims Online is supposed to be the way to success. Personally, this game makes me want to sign up for Sims Online out of solidarity.

Game Credits
These can be tricky to track down. I am increasingly relying on Moby Games. If anybody know of a better site to find the credits of the bibliographic data of games, I'd love to hear from you!

Computer illiterate
ph8 rants about how hackers are supposed to work for free for "the suits". Being a person who can't hack, I tend to fish for favours for hackers, but I normally reward them somehow, and I totally agree that anything else is rude. However, there was this interesting little passage:

Aside: What's so special about this so-called "computer illiteracy"? Most people you meet who genuinely cannot read (are illiterate) are duly ashamed of their illiteracy, and many are (commendably) working to overcome it, but only a vanishingly small number of the self-described "computer illiterate" are even remotely embarassed by their failing -- many of them act proud of their (invariably self-imposed) ignorance. Far more annoying, these "technologically challenged" types use their "challenge" as an excuse to avoid work -- how many times have you heard (or uttered) "Oh, I'm computer illiterate, so you'll have to do it for me"? Simply using (as opposed to hacking on) a computer is no more difficult than driving a car and obeying the most basic traffic laws, but you don't hear people (seriously) trying to escape a ticket with the excuse "Oh, I'm vehicularly illiterate, so you can't expect me to obey stop signs".

I have heard, over and over again, people try to avoid doing a job by saying: "I don't know how to operate the dishwasher." "I always botch the laundry." "I can't help out because I really don't know how to cook anything but a fried egg." "Sorry, but I don't know how to clean the floors." And there are people who commit to life-long contracts - called marriage - in order to be permitted to do these things for their partners... Hopefully, the cooking and cleaning illiterate are vehicularly and lawn-movering literate.

MUD performance
I want to point to Ragnhild Tronstad's exellent article on Semiotic and nonsemiotic MUD performance (pdf). She argues the distinction between theatricality and performance in MUDs, and she does so comprehensively and elegantly.

Using performance and theatricality as metaphors to describe MUD adventure games this paper starts out by defining a difference between ’performative’ and ’theatrical’ acts within MUDs. Performative acts differ from theatrical acts in that they are effecting ’real’ changes to the MUD environment, thus directly influencing the game in one way or another. It is argued that to understand the performative aspects of MUDs it is necessary to separate ’acts’ from ’meaning’, and to pay special attention to the former in order to avoid confusing the questing process (which should be our main focus of attention) with the experience of having solved a quest.

Space and place
In ph8, an other interesting weblog from the blogs of note list (whoever picks that list these days has a taste in blogs disturbingly close to mine), there's an interesting little prelude to a discussion of space and place in computer games. There are no references in the blog, but read that post with Marc Augé: Non-places for full intellectual enjoyment.

New blog of note: Game related
By way of bloggers blog of note list: Games * Design * Art * Culture by Greg Costikyan, among many other things game designer and member of the board of reviewers for Game Studies. His blog is an other interesting addition to the developing field of game criticism, and I add it to my blogroll with great enthusiasm!

Fragile sun: Volda version
Jill wrote about suddenly seeing the church in sunlight, and the pale, pale sky. Up here the church is so close to the water level that the sun doesn't reach it at winter, so I can't match her near-religious experience of beauty that way. I had one which was perhaps a little more - ummmm - sensual?

A benefit from working at Volda College is free access to the very nice pool. I try to go swimming at least once, preferably twice a week in the winter half of the year. This morning as I arrived, me and my friend Heidi agreed that we would NOT turn the lights on. The windows face south-west, and from the pool we could see the sky change colour from a dusky blue to that fragile eggshell colour of the winter sky. Contrasted against that delicate colour was a mountain, Rotsethornet, at first a faint pink, but as the sun rose and the rays coloured the snow-covered mountainside it turned a bright, intense colour. We swam through the shadowy waters of the pool, watching this spectacular display of winter colours: warm and comfortable and all alone in that large pool, privileged and sheltered against the elements, while nature was putting on a colour-show more fantastic (and with more daring colours) than any lazer designer could imagine.

I think perhaps some night, I'll try to get Heidi to go swimming with me while we can watch nothern lights from the pool. That would be so decadent!

Procrastination and urgency
I have a reputation for being a very good administrator and very accessible for the students. What the world doesn't know is that it's all procrastination. I sit here with the text full of Espen's hand written comments on the desk next to me, I have the appropriate file open on the computer, and every time I try to edit the thesis I remember something which needs to be fixed - right now. Good thing there's a cleaning service at this place, or I'd have washed the entire College because it was so urgently needed...

I think there might be a formula there somewhere, where urgency of n tasks depend on level of resistance to task A. Perhaps I should track down somebody who can help me work out that formula... perhaps I should do that right now...

A brief introduction
Jonas Heide Smith writes Computer Game Research 101 - a brief introduction to the literature in Game Research. The article is exactly what it says it is. Good for a start - don't lean back and assume you've found it all after reading this.

Delight, envy and guilt
is what I feel, in that order, as Hilde Corneliussen, a dear friend and fellow PhD candidate, announces that she'll defend her thesis February 21st.
CONGRATULATIONS HILDE!!!.

Now if you'll all excuse me, I have a thesis to finish.

Anticipation
I am getting a new lap-top, but I don't know exactly which one yet. Yes, I leave such an important decision to the College IT department. After all, they are the ones who will suffer when my computer for some reason doesn't work. Sometime next week, I'll have a new toy. It feels better than Christmas!

Live Action Role-Playing
I have only done it once, so if you'd like to get a hint at what it's about, have a look at Esther's photos of the wonderful players in her group. One of the things I really like about role-playing is the incredible creativity displayed in all details.

Practical Existentialism
SMS story by Robert F. Walsh

"But I need to find myself," I stammered. My father picked up the newspaper saying, "If I were you, I'd find myself cutting the lawn."

From the-phone.book.com

And for some friends out there: Dream of a Ph.D.

The sound of my own voice
Doing research, isolated in my office, my topic and my head for months - not to say years - blogging was a way to hear my own voice. All the little things that I was thinking, all the things that somehow connect to other ideas and thoughts, but didn't belong in the thesis, came out here.

Over the last couple of months I have become increasingly annoyed with my blogging. Not because I think it takes too much time - no, it's as easy and effortless as ever - but because I don't feel that urge to communicate. After the first few lectures this semester, I think I see what happened. I have started teaching again, lecturing, interacting with students, answering questions and introducing ideas, questions and thoughts directly to an active, intelligent and critical audience. When a lecture is good, I manage to weave my own thoughts and ideas into it, show the students how current affairs connect to theory, demonstrate how the things I read and enjoy can be analyzed and questioned. I get to display different types of criticism, I get to recommend books, and I get involved in discussions over the topics that interest me.

This is exactly what blogging does for me.

However: where the lectures and topic-bound and sporadic, the blogging is constant. My mind works all year too - so lectures can't fill all the need for a place to think and express myself, even if I don't get to hear my own voice here. It's actually a pleasant, clear and distinct voice which sounds very good on radio or television, although it doesn't cut through the din of a noisy auditorium. (My silence is very loud though.) I am hoping that my writing voice, my blog voice will settle to be something of the same. (Although I imagine that silence in the blog will not give the same effect as silence in front of the class... "ssshhhh, stop the writing on the net everybody, so Torill can start....")

Guardian teachers
I just finished the lecture, and am still riding on the high of a good performance. Because it is a performance. For 2 x 45 minutes, I have kept about 100 people in their places, watching me and listening to me. Of course other things than their fascination with my voice does that. The structure we are within has considerable power: I am a teacher with more power than for instance their high-school teachers. Besides trying to teach them what is in the books, I can influence what books they have to read, I can influence the questions they have to answer to their exam, and most important: I will be part of setting their all-important grades at the end of the semester, based on what they have understood of the literature I refer to, and of my teaching. All of these things make students come to the lectures, it makes them sit relatively still and behave reasonably well.

These things can't make them attend to what I am actually saying beyond the automatic taking of notes which academia teaches us. The trick is to make the students think. If I can make that happen, I don't mind if what they think is: "I am going to show that bitch that she's wrong even if I have to read through the entire library to prove it!" That particular trick was something my favourite Norwegian-teacher from high-school, Marta Lynge, taught me - 23 years ago perhaps? Marta greatly encouraged my poetry and writing, but I fear I disappointed her there. However, she also influenced my thinking by being a role-model and an example of how it's possible to be woman, intellectual, independent and strong and still keep a wicked sense of humour and adventure.

One of the male students claimed grandly that women should always fight oppression, and should never take advantage of the fact that they were women. He was of course quite annoyed with the fact that his female future colleagues might one day get a better interview than he could just because the men in power might feel protective or attracted to the female journalist. My argument was that to put such a burden on women as a group is further oppression. Still... women would not have the opportunities we have today without the individuals who are willing to live their lives acording to their ideals. And when ever I talk to students about feminism, gender differences and individualism (actually, on quite a few other topics as well, she never put limits on her opinions while teaching), Marta is there in the back of my mind. She is not a conventionally beautiful woman, her laughter is characteristic and not for its pearly qualities, she can be quite sharp and outspoken and she is able to argue the other side of any point given 5 second notice... but she's the closest thing to a guardian angel I'll ever have in the auditorium.