EMMA: New Ground

Gaming

My interests lie in video games and live performance. There is a new catagory of video games called serious games www.seriousgames.org in which games are used for something other than entertainment. These games are used mostly by the military for training but also used by health care professionals, police and firefighter training, political canvasing and other ways. Where is the line between the symbolic interaction and the real interaction? I once made audio tapes of myself being whatever I wanted to be and it helped me to not be so shy. Be hearing my own voice give me advice I could llisten better and I trusted the speaker. I find the same kind of symbolic interaction in video games. Often especially in the beginning of a game you are led through the lanugage of the game and how to interact in that world. Online chat or video Chat is similar in that you invent a personality and can interact with real people in real time.

I really liked the Kaprow readings because unlike the intellectual thoughts of Wilson in his article "Light and Dark Visions" Kaprow just does the thing that he sets out to do. Like Chris Burden the study is in the act of doing and to learn what it is he does, you have to do the thing rather than talk about it. http://www.crownpoint.com/artists/burden/burden.html

Vivian Sobchack clearly sees the difference between the body and technology having a prosthetic leg and an open mind. Her rant against JG Baudrillard for his erotic fantasies with metal is different from gaming. She states that one is a gamer to escape the body but one cannot escape the body only distract the mind. I believe that what games do is distract the mind from survival issues and create an experience similar to arriving in a foreign land.

posted by Unknown @ 7:08 PM