Many ambitious and experimental game forms don't fit into the digital download or retail distribution channels that support so-called “traditional” video games. Instead, these games are supported by ...a new global movement in video game curation. This special edition of the Video Game Art Reader features an international collaboration of video game professionals working together to create a resource for game exhibition organization, design, and curation. Professionals, artists, and others who organize and curate video game exhibitions and events act within a rhizomatic network of methods, missions, and goals. They establish organizations like galleries, collectives, and non-profits. Methods of sharing video games as critical cultural phenomena continue to evolve and expand. Conceived during the first meeting of GAIA (Game Arts International Assembly), the Game Art Curators Kit documents and shares the collective experience of an international network of video game curators and organizers. Sharing practical tips on everything from accessibility to preservation, the book also serves as a guide to support a new global movement in video game curation.
A finales de los años 90 y durante la primera década del s. XXI, con la difusión de las cámaras de video domésticas y semiprofesionales, se producen propuestas audiovisuales previas a la creación de ...plataformas de video online que se agrupan en torno al festival 143Delicias. Este artículo aborda un análisis de las dinámicas del festival a la luz de la deriva del consumo del audiovisual en el actual sistema tardo capitalista. Revisa la propuesta del inicio del milenio en contraposición a la sobreexposición y absorción del medio audiovisual por el mercantilismo de las plataformas. 143D se caracteriza por la socialización directa y la visualización activa en grupo, fuera de las salas de cine o de los espacios dedicados al arte contemporáneo, donde el videoarte se experimenta de forma compartida, sin subordinación a un sistema de valores cerrado o controlado. Las piezas proyectadas abordan temas sociales y políticos a través del humor, mediante estéticas a menudo cercanas al videoclip, sin renunciar a la experimentación con los medios, la conceptualización, la cita, el apropiacionismo o el cuestionamiento del propio medio audiovisual.
Images have never been as freely circulated as they are today. They have also never been so tightly controlled. As with the birth of photography, digital reproduction has created new possibilities ...for the duplication and consumption of images, offering greater dissemination and access. But digital reproduction has also stoked new anxieties concerning authenticity and ownership. From this contemporary vantage point,After Uniquenesstraces the ambivalence of reproducibility through the intersecting histories of experimental cinema and the moving image in art, examining how artists, filmmakers, and theorists have found in the copy a utopian promise or a dangerous inauthenticity-or both at once.From the sale of film in limited editions on the art market to the downloading of bootlegs, from the singularity of live cinema to video art broadcast on television, Erika Balsom investigates how the reproducibility of the moving image has been embraced, rejected, and negotiated by major figures including Stan Brakhage, Leo Castelli, and Gregory Markopoulos. Through a comparative analysis of selected distribution models and key case studies, she demonstrates how the question of image circulation is central to the history of film and video art.After Uniquenessshows that distribution channels are more than neutral pathways; they determine how we encounter, interpret, and write the history of the moving image as an art form.
Hanan Al-Cinema Marks, Laura U
2015, 2015-09-25, 2015-10-16
eBook
An examination of experimental cinema and media art from the Arabic-speaking world that explores filmmakers' creative and philosophical inventiveness in trying times.
Scholars, critics, and creators describe certain videogames as being “poetic,” yet what that means or why it matters is rarely discussed. In Game Poems: Videogame Design as Lyric Practice, ...independent game designer Jordan Magnuson explores the convergences between game making and lyric poetry and makes the surprising proposition that videogames can operate as a kind of poetry apart from any reliance on linguistic signs or symbols. This rigorous and accessible short book first examines characteristics of lyric poetry and explores how certain videogames can be appreciated more fully when read in light of the lyric tradition—that is, when read as “game poems.” Magnuson then lays groundwork for those wishing to make game poems in practice, providing practical tips and pointers along with tools and resources. Rather than propose a monolithic framework or draw a sharp line between videogame poems and poets and their nonpoetic counterparts, Game Poems brings to light new insights for videogames and for poetry by promoting creative dialogue between disparate fields. The result is a lively account of poetic game-making praxis. “Everyone who loves the true power of games will benefit from the treasure trove of insights in Game Poems.” — Jesse Schell, author of The Art of Game Design “Magnuson shines a sensitive and incisive light on small, often moving, videogames.” — D. Fox Harrell, Ph.D., Professor of Digital Media, Computing, and Artificial Intelligence, MIT “Game Poems tells a new story about games— that games can be lyrical, beautiful, emotionally challenging—to inspire creators and critics alike.” —Noah Wardrip-Fruin, author of How Pac-Man Eats “Even as the news swells with impending doom for creativity, writing, and text itself, this literate and crafty book pursues poetry not through implacable algorithms but in concrete and personal play. It should be an indispensable guide for anyone who aims to maintain the true, human promise of technical poetics.”—Stuart Moulthrop, coauthor of Twining: Critical and Creative Approaches to Hypertext Narratives “For far too long videogames have flourished – and commanded both capital and attention – in a kind of counterculture that they seem to have created as if ex nihilo for themselves and their players. But we are these players, and their culture has always been integrated with all of our own. In this evenhanded artist-scholar’s ars poetica Jordan Magnuson respects the material cultural specificity of videogames while regarding them through the ‘lens of poetry’ in order to discover – and help create – a practice and an art of Game Poems within the wider field. Magnuson formally, int(erv)entionally embraces this art as lyrically poetic.”—John Cayley, Brown University “In Game Poems, Magnuson listens carefully to videogames, and hears them speak to questions of art, language, and meaning that connect our written past to our software future. Read this book and you will hear it too.”—Frank Lantz, Director, NYU Game Center “Jordan Magnuson has created a work that ties together the worlds of poetry and videogames in a deep and enlightening way. For those of us who care about the potential of poetic games, Jordan greatly improves the language of how we talk about them and expands our ability to see what this unique form can become. This is one of my favorite books on game design and I apologize in advance to those whom I will end up cornering and not being able to stop talking to about it.”—Benjamin Ellinger, Game Design Program Director, DigiPen Institute of Technology “A groundbreaking and accessible book that helps us think about games as poems. With patient tenacity, Magnuson teases out what he felt for years as he engaged in his own practice of making videogames. His mission to help us apply a ‘lyric reading’ to games so that our engagement with, and appreciation of, games can be enhanced feels deeply personal. Drawing from a wide range of games and computational media scholars, poetry scholars, game creators, and poets, Magnuson provides a rigorous, balanced, and unique interdisciplinary contribution. A must-read for videogame scholars, practicing game makers, and anyone interested in the potential of ‘game poems.’”—Susana Ruiz, University of California, Santa Cruz “This book tenaciously wrenches videogame hermeneutics from the insatiable maws of rhetoric and narratology—to the cheers of poets everywhere. In elucidating the lyric characteristics of the ""game poem,"" Magnuson demonstrates not just that poetry is a useful lens for understanding videogames, but also that videogames can be a useful lens for understanding poetry. A rewarding text for scholars, game designers, poets, and anyone in between.”—Allison Parrish, Interactive Telecommunications Program and Interactive Media Arts, NYU “A concise, passionate articulation - and defense! - of an artistic space between poems and videogames. If game scholars wish to prove that they are not engaged merely in an apologetics for violent pornography, they need only to teach this book.”—Chris Bateman, author of Imaginary Games and 21st Century Game Design “I feel I've found a kindred spirit in Jordan Magnuson and his practical recommendations for creating distilled, compelling, personal videogames – throw out the conventions of game design one at a time? Yes, please! The revelation for me in this book, however, is the heat and power of the language of poets and poetry brought close to videogame design. There's much in here worth pursuing to kindle the fires of new and exciting videogame poems, and Jordan is a capable and delightfully humble guide.”—Pippin Barr, author of How to Play a Video Game and The Stuff Games Are Made Of “With Game Poems, Jordan Magnuson lays to rest any last vestige of the notion that the implicit limits of games are as ‘entertainment products’. By taking games seriously as successors of the lyric poetry tradition, he opens up new avenues for how game designers can think about what they do, how critical game theorists can approach their many-faceted object of study, and how players can more fully engage with videogames.”—Soraya Murray, author of On Video Games “Game Poems shines an important light on a neglected area of videogame theory and provides unique guidance for those interested in exploring the poetic potential of videogames.”—Jenova Chen, designer of Flow, Flower, Journey, and Sky: Children of the Light “Popular frameworks for video game scholarship consistently fail to account for the most avant-garde and affective works of interactive art. With Game Poems, Jordan Magnuson provides not only a lens to understand these diverse and important titles but also a guide to constructing the next generation of personal and incisive games. With numerous examples from decades of experimental games, including Magnuson's own minimalist and insightful work, this book is an excellent introduction to the form for neophytes as well as finally providing words to describe a movement that many experienced game poets previously understood only intuitively.”—Gregory Avery-Weir, creator of The Majesty of Colors and Looming “Jordan Magnuson is one of a surprisingly small group of artists who see in the technology of videogames a versatile medium capable of expressing much more than conventional games.”—Michaël Samyn, co-founder, Tale of Tales; co-creator of Sunset, The Graveyard, and The Path “So much has been written about what games are, and yet there’s always a new way of thinking about them. In Jordan Magnuson’s Game Poems we discover that games are also a lyrical form of art; that games can be understood as poetry, and that the making games as poetry creates new modes of artistic expression. Jordan Magnuson’s book is a fascinating exploration of games as poetry, and the poetry of play.”—Miguel Sicart, author of Play Matters, Beyond Choices: The Design of Ethical Gameplay, and Playing Software “In Game Poems, I found a new perspective on the kind of videogames that are dearest to me: short, personal, poetic games. By looking at games through the lens of lyric poetry, Jordan Magnuson puts into focus the workings of that mysterious hodgepodge of audio, visuals, and interactivity: the language of videogames. Both experienced and novice game makers will find approachable, practical advice on the craft of videogames. And anyone who plays short games will find new ways of appreciating and talking about them. I know I will be returning to it for inspiration when making my own small games!”—Adam Le Doux, creator of Bitsy “As a creator and researcher, Jordan Magnuson has been able to demonstrate through the utmost visual simplicity, by enhancing basic geometric forms, the empathetic capacity of the videogame medium. Game Poems explores this idea and the reconfiguration of the videogame beyond its ludic component, highlighting the artistic and poetic potential of games.”—Antonio César Moreno Cantano, University Complutense of Madrid “Poems ask us to slow down, pay attention, and take the time to appreciate our experiences. Emerging from Magnuson's need to find ways to talk about his own creative practice, this book is all about discovering ways to do this with videogames. Magnuson explores what it means to view videogames as poetry, and provides insight, as a practitioner, on how to make game poems that enable and encourage this type of reflection. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from literature and philosophy to game studies and game design, this book covers a lot of material, but always remains grounded in concrete examples and solid theory. The book ends with a call to “go make some game poems!” After reading the book, I was keen to do exactly that. I urge you to do the same!”—Alex Mitchell, National University of Singapore “To many, poetry is a dying – or dead – art form. Few people sit down at night to open their favorite poet’s chapbook with the latest streaming service at hand or their favorite videogame console s
Bergs discusses Caroline Déodat's video work "Sous le ciel des fétiches," which explores the history and cultural significance of Sega, a genre of music and dance from Mauritius, and its entanglement ...with colonialism and tourism. Sous le ciel des fétiches is a sixteen-minute video that addresses the entanglement of the present-day tourist industry with much longer histories of travel, spectatorship, and exploitation throughout the colonial era. In Déodat's work, Sega is examined as a compromised and problematic, yet resistant, phenomenon--the history and reception of which is deeply informed by and intertwined with the colonial history of Mauritius, which did not become independent until 1968. More specifically, she is interested in the fetishization of the dance (and of the Black bodies performing it), which commenced in colonial times and extends into the present, as commercialized and commodified variations have become a common spectacle and tourist attraction.
La conservación de videoarte en España sigue siendo un grave problema y reciente motivo de estudio. A día de hoy, una cantidad importante de obras concebidas en soportes de tipo electromagnético ...permanece fuera de las políticas de archivo y preservación de las llamadas instituciones de la memoria (universidad, filmotecas, museos, etc.). La naturaleza frágil y efímera de este tipo de soportes, unida a un problema como el de la obsolescencia tecnológica, han puesto en un serio riesgo la supervivencia de estos materiales. Frente al estado de dispersión y abandono de una gran parte de estos trabajos, y ante la desidia demostrada por parte de algunas de estas instituciones a la hora de proceder a su recuperación y revalorización, este texto pretender servir, en último término, para introducir al ámbito académico la iniciativa VideoFlux: una estructura/metodología de trabajo dedicada a la recuperación y conservación del patrimonio videográfico producido en Euskal Herria.
This special edition of the VGA Reader, guest-edited by Christopher W. Totten and Enrica Lovaglio Costello, focuses on the connections between video games and architectural design. Each of the essays ...in this volume engages in critical investigations that reveal how game spaces evoke meaning, enhance game narratives, and explore unconventional themes.
In computing, overclocking refers to the common practice of increasing the clock rate of a computer to exceed that certified by the manufacturer. The concept is seductive but overclocking may destroy ...your motherboard or system memory, even irreparably corrupt the hard drive. Volume 4 of the Video Game Art Reader (VGAR) proposes overclocking as a metaphor for how games are produced and experienced today, and the temporal compressions and expansions of the many historical lineages that have shaped game art and culture. Contributors reflect on the many ways in which overclocking can be read as a means of oppression but also a strategy to raise awareness of how inequities have shaped video games.
The inaugural issue of VGAR celebrates video game culture as inclusive and global. Opening with an interview with the art director of the first independent Cuban video game, Savior, while the ...following essays from art historians, literary theorists, game designers, artists, educators, museum curators, and programmers all engage with video games as an important part of the global art landscape. Each engages with what makes good game art with special attention to the transnational cadre of gamers that play them.