Medium As Message
notgames
Instead of seeing feedback as rewards for problem-solving, I think we should see them as a way to increase the feeling of presence in our virtual worlds. It is the ability to “kick back” that makes the virtual worlds of videogames so compelling and so different from other media like novels and film. If we see feedback as a tool of immersion, we can also stop seeing all interaction as problems.
When we expand the meaning-making conventions that make up human culture, we expand our ability to understand the world and to connect with one another.
Mainstream games ask for and receive a very high level of time commitment, which can be very enjoyable but disappointing to me when I put down a game after several hours of play and realize that I have nothing important to think about about other than motions my avatar was performing and perhaps what I was killing. On the other hand, art typically has to be rapidly consumable, typically in just a few minutes or even seconds. My favorite art fits into that short amount of time so much story or concept that it gives me enough interesting things to think about and digest that it takes longer to do so than it took to experience the piece.
(via kasparallenbach)
Games are never just games, just as lived life is not a commodifiable, indistinct, enumerable asset. I like to think about the notion of “games” in a far wider meaning, like Fluxus or the Situationists did, with a “game” constituting something realistically-grounded-and-psychologically-enforced rather than a self-contained magic circle. This is probably the largest issue at hand in advanced game design, indie, art or commercial or otherwise: how to expand this notion and be able to talk about it in a concise manner. (via It’s All Fun and Games Until Someone Blows Their Brains Out | Art21 Blog)
People are becoming infused with technology, merging with it, if not physically then at least cognitively. (…) I feel that an art today that does not involve its publics/audience in a considerable manner makes little sense.
