Whatever belongs to the sphere of the profane does not participate in being, for the profane was not ontologically established by myth, nor has it a perfect model.
Mircea Eliade
Two perspectives upon Facebook
Facebook is a pretty powerful application. What you probably don’t know is that there are more people that play Farmville through Facebook than there are Twitter accounts out there. Because it’s Saturday and my turn to rest, I’m offering below two wholly different perspectives upon the Facebook phenomenon.
The first is a quite tainted ironic cultural response, in the last episode of South Park. You can watch below as Kyle is being literally sucked into the world of Facebook.
The second perspective is that of the video game designer, that tries to analyze Facebook’s wide success with minigames. It’s a long watch, but it’s definitely worth it. If you feel lazy, here are some of the things discussed, in a nutshell:
- games are no longer all about fantasy, but are actually slipping into the real; not literally, as in the case of South Park, but to provide authenticity to the human experience, that has kind of lost it’s veritable sense when the cut off from nature occurred; we need this autheniticty because we can no longer be self sufficient
- technology convergence is bullshit; with one exception, pocket gadgets like the iPhone which were designed to be modern Swiss Knives
- technology is slowly becoming disposable: one PC might have more technology than was necessary to send the man on the moon, but that will never keep us from throwing it away in favor for a better one
- a rather gloomy view upon a fully monitored future human life: sensors will record all our actions and turn life into a game with achievements to encourage or discourage our sense of awareness to some types of subjects; such games have already emerged, see GeoCaching.
Queer (in the nonsexual way)
Just when I thought I’m on the right track my other selves had to come and twist me up again a bit. Some of the old symptoms are back:
- I’m drink-bullshitting again, as if the multitude of lying sinning selves just can’t play with each other anymore and they need to take it out on innocent people
- I got scared of a semi-squished Rafaello candy as it resembled a sort of a dead animal at first to me
- I’m having panic attacks when I hear the sound of my heart beats again
- my hearing is worse than ever, as if I can’t concentrate on reality anymore
- I’ve dreamed someone was trying to steal my soul, three times in a row, the same night. At least he didn’t succeed in doing it, but I did get up already wasted
I do hope it’s the cold I’ve caught. I pray it to be the cold. This hyper reality, this under reality, they’re splicing my blood cells.
Video games: ludic qualities versus representational dimension
The academic literature has made a bad habit out of defining video games as a form of cultural discourse that replicates the texts of either literature or cinema. But I think that firstly, video games should be at first studied as such, as games. In this respect, though, games still are a fuzzy concept. Nevertheless, as Buckingham (2006) admits, we can argue that games are defined through play, the framework of which is sketched out through rules. Games, in contrast to other forms of media, “are not self-contained and they involve a different type and level of participation from that of reading a novel or watching a movie”. But, besides this participational aspect of play, it is disputable what other aspects should be encompassed by the term “video game”.
The best part of Easter
Easter is the time of the year when you can become the lucky owner of a teddy bear with an opposable thumb! Talk about evolution…
Seeing video games as an academic field of study
I got up this morning with the crazy idea of recommending a website to you all. www.gamestudies.org will surely change your view upon the video game industry. This periodical academic journal has engaged in analyzing video games form all cultural points of view. Whether you want to find out how multiplayer shooters like Counter-Strike generate new language, compare The Sims to other popular titles (Grannies really ARE cooler than trolls, don’t you think?!) or just gain another point of view on one of the most famous games of the 21st century (World of Warcraft), you are surely bound to find out interesting things.
Video games have emerged as a cultural field of study for about nine years, with the launch of the first international scholarly conference on computer games, in Copenhagen in March 2001. The same academic year saw regular graduate programs in computer game studies being offered for the first time in universities. That is when scholars and academics first took computer games seriously, as a cultural field whose value is hard to overestimate.
As Espen Aarseth, in the editorial for the Game Studies journal admits:
We have a billion dollar industry with almost no basic research, we have the most fascinating cultural material to appear in a very long time, and we have the chance of uniting aesthetic, cultural and technical design aspects in a single discipline. This will not be a painless process, and many mistakes will be made along the way. But if we are successful, we can actually contribute both constructively and critically, and make a difference outside the academy. I am not too optimistic about influencing a multibillion industry. But in the long run, who knows?
And I really think games deserve a reality check, before they explode in an uncontrolled, poor quality pseudo-reality.
Short meditation upon reality
As a very determined video game player (call me a gamer, if you must), I’ve many times wondered if I’m not crossing the border between real and unreal too often at some point. What I mean is, am I trying to compensate for a sort of insufficient reality? Am I better off as a very voluptuous Lara Croft, or as a sensual assassin wreaking havoc in the Italian countryside? Or as an evil mastermind building cities and rushing against my opponent? Are video games my drugs? Giving me a sense I sometimes miss in my own life?
What really startles me is not the nature of my virtual reality. But the nature of reality itself. I read a couple of days ago, while doing the daily research on my BA project, that “society is a kind of fiction too”. I honestly forgot who said that, I tend to remember ideas, but not their bearers. Anyway, my point then is: how is society, the present human reality, any better than the reality of video games? I think we have the gift of turning virtualities into real things, just through the power of mind. You may not think of the games you play for fun as your future universe, but give it a thought. I think man invented society to shield himself from nature, which was in the past the true reality. Now, nature is just an idea and society IS reality. But a manufactured one, one interwoven with the very human interests. And we’re slowly heading towards an over-reality, the cyber-reality which will soon overwhelm our minds and overload them. It’s interesting that, between the three states of material, information and soul, the human being tends to embrace the informational one. Is it the mirage of consciously wielding an infinite potentiality? Is the passivity of the soul the one that scares us away from the spiritual path? And can information be the way, another way to dissolution into eternity?
Tip for a long life
Embrace the typewriter in your voice.
The randomness of beauty
Sweet traveler, smell the foulness of everyday life. As every rose eventually shows its thorns (good ol’ Shakespeare was wise), such is the nature of beauty. Common sense has it that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I’d rather say that beauty is everywhere. A thick explosion of perfection, right here under our eyes. Symmetry and perverse geometry. That’s what it all is. I’m not only talking about nature, but also about the Divine Comedy of the human being. Mountains of womanly curves, sumptuous smiles, gracious moves that teem with broken promises. A rash of a freckle, an O in an orgasm, the illusion of peace altogether with the tired white dove, a twisted arm, a bent neck, hair blowing in the wind. Isolate the shy, distinct image from the ugly whole and you have symbol within symbol of love, of chaos ingesting the order. Give everyone a try, cause everyone is ready to carve apart that slice of love from their body. Waste not, want not.
Back, and less polite!
After a consistent absence online, I’ve been resurrected by a FUZZY presence in my world wide life. I’ll sacrifice a lamb and probably the same virgin (mind) over and over again to that presence every time I get the time and I will also immortalize it in ye olde hug of the month. Beware! Meanwhile, note to self: don’t entrust too many people with your passwords these days. Especially not the post-its OR the fluffy over-sized dinosaurs. You might end up siteless, portfolioless and blogless and with less online aims than it’s humanly possible. But I’m not here to complain, I’m just here to admit that any time is a good time to rebuild. So thank you, lost friend, for the chance of letting me be better. Every butt kick is a step forward and here’s my blog, one step further in linguistic and lickerish therapy. To you I dedicate some wise words, by Paul Auster:
It’s a new world we’re living in. Ain’t nobody can own another’s body no more. A woman ain’t chattel to be bought and sold by men, least of all one of them new women like the master’s lady. They love and hate, they grapple and spoon, they want and don’t want, and as time goes on they each sink deeper under the other’s skin. It’s a real show, patty cake, the follies and the circus all rolled into one, and dollars to doughnuts it’s going to be like that till the day they die.
