O artigo discute a natureza dos ambientes gráficos participativos em tempo real, que correspondem à configuração que viabiliza uma ampla variedade de gêneros de games de ação. Ao adotar uma ...definição positiva de virtualidade, argumento que a noção de virtual dá conta do status ontológico desses ambientes. Inicio o argumento apresentando como a oposição entre ação e representação leva o conceito de virtualidade a um beco sem saída para, a seguir, explorar outras abordagens possíveis. Essa exploração culmina na conclusão de que, diferentemente dos modelos abstratos e concretos do jogar mimético não-computadorizado, a simulação da realidade física nos games é capaz de constituir seu próprio e irredutível terreno de percepção e ação. Quando avaliados desde um ponto de vista objetivo e externo, os modelos espaço-visuais gráficos dos jogos de computador são modelos de segunda-ordem. Entretanto, em uma perspectiva fenomenológica, o sujeito é capaz de, de fato verdade obrigado a se engajar com eles como se fossem modelos de primeira-ordem, como se fossem objetos e ambientes concretos, não informacionais. Do ponto de vista do participante, a participação em simulações gráficas em tempo real não apenas simula, mas cria, uma ontologia separada.
In this paper I will give a phenomenological account of embodied presence through computer game avatars, based on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of bodily intentionality, bodily space and bodily ...extensions (2002 1962). The core idea is that when we play, directly controllable avatars like Mario or Lara Croft, as well as racing cars or other kinds of controllable vehicles, function as prosthetic extensions of our own body, which extend into screen space the dual nature of the body as both subject and object. Because they act as proxies or stand-ins for our own body within the gameworld, prosthetic avatars are crucially different from more familiar kinds of bodily extensions, like tools or musical instruments.
In navigable 3D environments, the main “body” of the avatar, in the phenomenological sense, is not the controllable marionette itself (for example Mario or Lara), but the navigable virtual camera, which becomes an extension of the player’s locomotive vision during play. In this way, the navigable camera, extending from the player’s eyes and fingers, re-locates the player’s bodily self-awareness – the immediate sense of “here” as opposed to “there” – into screen space. This displacement of our visual perceptual apparatus through prosthetic avatars creates a distinctive kind of prosthetic telepresence, a phenomenon that nineteenth-century philosophy could not imagine or foresee. Prosthetic telepresence operates at the ground level of the phenomenology of the body, and does not rely on imagination or fictionality. Prosthetic telepresence offers – and indeed demands – full perceptual immersion, yet is not dependent on technologies of audiovisual immersion.
What are the characteristic features of avatar-based singleplayer videogames, from Super Mario Bros. to Grand Theft Auto? Rune Klevjer examines this question with a particular focus on issues of ...fictionality and realism, and their relation to cinema and Virtual Reality. Through close-up analysis and philosophical discussion, Klevjer argues that avatar-based gaming is a distinctive and dominant form of virtual self-embodiment in digital culture. This book is a revised edition of Rune Klevjer's pioneering work from 2007, featuring a new introduction by the author and afterword by Stephan Günzel, Jörg Sternagel, and Dieter Mersch.
This article seeks to clarify the role of the image in video game representation. I argue that virtuality is incompatible with depictive representation and that the distinction between virtual ...environments and interactive depiction is important in game theory and analysis. In the first part, I combine a critical modification of Kendall Walton’s concept of reflexive representation with Edmund Husserl’s concept of image consciousness, in order to clarify the ontological difference between physical models and depictive images. In the second part, I discuss the relationship between physical models and virtual things, and the difference between photographic depiction and screen-mediated prosthetic vision. Finally, I show how this theoretical framework can help clarify the nature of interactive depiction in games.
PDF
