Ellen Dissanayake
Read all three of these Week 1
Other readings...
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Game Engines
Art Game Lists and Blogs
Introductory Lecture to Art Games
Intro Lecture PPT - PDF
Formal Art Games
- Catacombs of Solaris by Ian MacLarty
- continually reconstructs space using screenshots
- Multibowl by Bennet Foddy
- a "videogame collage" of exciting moments from +300 historical games across dozens of platforms.
- Gecko Ridemption by Theo Triantafyllidis (here's more work by the artist)
- plays with movement mechanic, feeling sloppy, unresolved -- frustrating and compelling.
- Untitled Game (videos: 1, 2) by Jodi foregrounds flow by
- instead of trying to "win" the game, the challenge is to figure out how to even "play" the game. This may redefine what a "hardcore game" might even mean.
- using non-Euclidean space and changing how space is simulated on each level.
- decoupling the visual representation of a wall with the physical representation of the wall (the collision plane)
- abstracting the familiar Quake enemies into colorful cubes.
- displaying the code that is controlling the game in real-time.
- Super Mario Clouds by Cory Arcangel
- Renders console hardware grittily visible. Rather than left hidden under the hood of a product consumed, makes computer chips and bits somehow malleable, opaque, and ephemeral all at once.
- Here's the source code
- Mondo Agency (video) by Cactus
- plays with flow through it's use of existential horror. The abstracted 2D enemies in a 3D world that changing it's rules is terrifying. It's like the game was not quite made for a human being (or better yet, how the concept of the human is itself unsure and unstable) - sort of like David Lynch's films.
- Loop Raccord by Nicolai Troshinsky
- atomizes experience of video into looping, playable pieces
- The Night Journey by Bill Viola and the Game Innovation Lab
- plays with video aesthetic of games
- Randy Balma Municipal Abortionist by Messof
- Sexy Hiking (video) by jazzuo
- the game mechanic is functional but ill-suited for the environment, making movement extremely awkward
- GIRP and QWOP by Bennett Foddy are some better known examples.
- Rom Check Fail - scroll down (video) is a formal meta-game because :
- it mashes many gaming conventions and mechanics together into a single work but does so without resolving the dissonant logics of characters, environments and enemies. For example the Spy Hunter car can shoot ghosts in the Pac-Man level which makes it super easy, however other levels prove impossible.
- it is a game that summarizes the medium of games
- Standard Bits (video)
- each room redefines the relationship of the player to the space in which she's trying to navigate
- Standard Bits is available to play on the Indie City Games Arcade Cabinet at the Emporium Barcade on N Milwaukee: http://emporiumchicago.com/
- Trauma Tube by Kent Sheely
- Not a "game" but opens up questions about the artistic power of the player and viewer as co-artists.
Formal Approach to Film
What is film good at? Slavoj Žižek:
Pervert's Guide to Cinema
Possesed 1931(film showing magic of film)
Blue Velvet
Red Pill, Blue Pill and Videogames
Pervert's Guide to Ideology
What is film good at Lev Kuleshov
What are comics good at? Scott McCloud vs Robert Crumb
What are videogames good at? Ian Bogost vs Doug Wilson (more on Wilson)
High Versus Low Art
Schrank Lecture PPT - PDF
Flow as low art, kitsch game design
Jenova Chen's Intro to flow and Designing for Flow.
Political Art and Games Lecture
Schrank Lecture PPT - PDF
Political Games and Events
Executable Games:
Alternate Reality Game (ARGs):
- The Beast
- World Without Oil
- ARGs are political without always explicitly trying be so. This is because they open up the relationship between people or the relationships between people and the systems / spaces in which we live, work, sleep, shop, commute, etc. They reframe some ritual aspect of everyday life as something that's transformable and fungible. Playing in public is itself a political act because society exerts incredible pressure to minimize disruption to the flow of our collective movement, ideas, and capital. Doing public games or events will require you to do some dry runs and might draw public ire, so they are not for the feint of heart!
Reality Games:
- Seed Bombing
- BorderXing
- Toywar
- Reality Games are different from ARGs because they shed the premise of an "alternate" reality altogether and often openly break laws, whether it's trespessing or litering. DO NOT BREAK ANY LAWS with this project, however.
Griefer Art Events:
Griefer Art Groups
Hacks
Other Famous Political Game Folks
Notes on Rhythm
Metafilter conversation
Lecture on Inclusion in Game Communities
Schrank Lecture PPT - PDF |
