Given that the fundamental element of Minecraft (Mojang Studios, 2011) is appreciably large, what... more Given that the fundamental element of Minecraft (Mojang Studios, 2011) is appreciably large, what its players discover is a sandbox-style game in which the ubiquitous block, Minecraft's atom, stands for an unparalleled degree of immediacy. Alongside the seemingly counteractive effort of modding communities to overhaul a videogame with higher-resolution textures and examples drawn from a range of other media, this article reinterprets Minecraft's functionally retrograde look as symptomatic of nostalgia for a mechanically direct conception of reality and what Henri Lefebvre (1974/1991) theorized as any space's continuous "production." Compared with the endless regression of nature-and, consequently, its decreasing comprehensibility-implicit in a materialist worldview, the geo-and biological stratigraphy of a Minecraft environment may be thought ontically homogeneous, insofar as a house and mountain will vary principally in their number of 16 px 3 blocks. These issues are motivated toward a consideration of the artificial shortcomings of digital games generally, or their "fictional incompleteness," and the paradoxes that arise from the suggestion of visual depth. After introducing what I describe as the translation from life, or "itemization," of those objects, settings, and events that form the content of digital games, a final discussion of the miniature allows me to revisit Minecraft's appeal at the phenomenological level. In turn, the clean manageability of ludic artifacts is understood as a desire for control in increasingly opaque daily life.
Drawing upon twentieth-century literary fiction and cinema as well as the philosophy of Dan Zahav... more Drawing upon twentieth-century literary fiction and cinema as well as the philosophy of Dan Zahavi and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, this article first identifies the doppelgänger trope in videogames as a battle against the self. It does so through close readings of Joseph Conrad’s short story “The Secret Sharer” and an analysis of Part of You, Celeste’s villain; this culminates in the psychoanalytic observation that the protagonist, Madeline, is “learning to ask herself questions.” Between the will to control and controlling an object that presents fictionally as an anthropomorphic subject, this unstable, chiasmic identification with an avatar is drawn out through a consideration of self-recognition, othering and ontological ambiguity. Such tension is implicit in roleplaying: the ebb and flow of engagement which suggests game-players both are and aren’t their avatars. Cases in which masculine, diegetic centrality is upset by the avatar are also considered at length. From this perspective, the identification players have toward player-characters is shown to be dependent upon the quality and context of their (interpretive) control. Not unlike standing before a full-length mirror, a human player, controlling and roleplaying as an anthropomorphic self, is ultimately described as themself a kind of ghostly doppelgänger haunting the avatar.
In this examination of spatiotemporality’s representation in two- and three-dimensional videogame... more In this examination of spatiotemporality’s representation in two- and three-dimensional videogames, diegetic time and how a game’s overriding metaphors may be reflected in both gameplay and a storyworld’s virtual environment are considered at length through the idealist philosophy of George Berkeley, with an important adaptation of what Ludwig Wittgenstein referred to as ‘information-time’ experienced by conscious players operating in ‘memory-time.’ After considering a number of examples from Outer Wilds and the Legend of Zelda franchise, the question as to whether videogames are ontically presentist is resolved by way of a synthesis between the expression of time in spatial terms and every videogame’s minimum of interactivity, a distinction I adapt from Henri Bergson and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The continual creation of a digital world, while materially a fact of hardware limitations, is shown to lend itself metaphorically to an eidetic reading, bound to our intuitive association of time and space with inhabitation.
This article works out a logic for trash in videogames through its consideration of the ludic art... more This article works out a logic for trash in videogames through its consideration of the ludic artifact. Defining videogame trash as that which graphically outlives the execution of its ludic function, the essay distinguishes trash from objects that signify as real-world refuse, like Mario Kartʼs banana peels, and the merely decorative. It also addresses the correlation between technical capability and a graphic verisimilitude that generates trashscapes. Examining videogames from Super Mario Bros. to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, this articleʼs philosophical, technical, and art-historical approach departs from narratology and garbage studies to offer a prolegomenon for further inquiry.
Through critical appropriation of J. J. Gibson’s theory of ecological affordance, this speculativ... more Through critical appropriation of J. J. Gibson’s theory of ecological affordance, this speculative article broadens our understanding of ludic ecology as that which virtual environments offer players in anticipation of their use: a sort of inside-out niche. Adapted to a study of diegetic and nondiegetic sound, this adjacency of ecology to video games is applied to an understanding of silence as negative affordance; that is to say, as a nondeterminative opportunity for the player to express themself aurally as well as kinetically against a soundtrack’s absence. Whether included by a video game’s creative director as dramatic segues “inside of” the traditional, top-down soundtrack or as part of the industry’s shift away from film-esque sound design toward one that has begun to approach the ambience of naturalist theater, the role of silence in digital entertainment is argued to be strictly a dramatic one that allows body- and environment-related noise to be appreciated in vacuo. On the basis of these assertions, I claim that the player’s magnified ability to puncture the auditory equilibrium of a storyworld with a shout or offensive lunge at monsters, a form of manual intervention symptomatic of cultural products in general, is newly emboldening. As the musical fullness of the soundtrack age is replaced by a diegetic soundscape equal in sonic lushness, the autonomous game player is thrown into all the greater phenomenal relief.
Stitched together over five years of journaling, Obiter Dicta is a lyrical compendium representin... more Stitched together over five years of journaling, Obiter Dicta is a lyrical compendium representing the transcription of twelve notebooks, since painstakingly reimagined for publication. This unschooled exercise in aesthetic thought, interlaced with quotations from hundreds of diverse authors, interrogates a wide array of subject matter through notes, commentary, observations, and musings. Obiter Dicta is an experiment in intellectual dot-connecting that challenges much long-standing wisdom about everything from illuminated manuscripts to photography to the evolution of European music. A Zibaldone for the 21st century.
Samuel Beckett’s once spurned existential tragicomedy Waiting for Godot has received its critical... more Samuel Beckett’s once spurned existential tragicomedy Waiting for Godot has received its critical due some order of magnitude over. However, the play’s more mundane articles continue to elude the attention of commentators and I suspect this variety of neglect peculiar to Beckett alone. In this Short Note I argue the playwright's dominating use of parable dissuades investigation, permitting readers to dismiss events and dialogues out of hand.
Given that the fundamental element of Minecraft (Mojang Studios, 2011) is appreciably large, what... more Given that the fundamental element of Minecraft (Mojang Studios, 2011) is appreciably large, what its players discover is a sandbox-style game in which the ubiquitous block, Minecraft's atom, stands for an unparalleled degree of immediacy. Alongside the seemingly counteractive effort of modding communities to overhaul a videogame with higher-resolution textures and examples drawn from a range of other media, this article reinterprets Minecraft's functionally retrograde look as symptomatic of nostalgia for a mechanically direct conception of reality and what Henri Lefebvre (1974/1991) theorized as any space's continuous "production." Compared with the endless regression of nature-and, consequently, its decreasing comprehensibility-implicit in a materialist worldview, the geo-and biological stratigraphy of a Minecraft environment may be thought ontically homogeneous, insofar as a house and mountain will vary principally in their number of 16 px 3 blocks. These issues are motivated toward a consideration of the artificial shortcomings of digital games generally, or their "fictional incompleteness," and the paradoxes that arise from the suggestion of visual depth. After introducing what I describe as the translation from life, or "itemization," of those objects, settings, and events that form the content of digital games, a final discussion of the miniature allows me to revisit Minecraft's appeal at the phenomenological level. In turn, the clean manageability of ludic artifacts is understood as a desire for control in increasingly opaque daily life.
Drawing upon twentieth-century literary fiction and cinema as well as the philosophy of Dan Zahav... more Drawing upon twentieth-century literary fiction and cinema as well as the philosophy of Dan Zahavi and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, this article first identifies the doppelgänger trope in videogames as a battle against the self. It does so through close readings of Joseph Conrad’s short story “The Secret Sharer” and an analysis of Part of You, Celeste’s villain; this culminates in the psychoanalytic observation that the protagonist, Madeline, is “learning to ask herself questions.” Between the will to control and controlling an object that presents fictionally as an anthropomorphic subject, this unstable, chiasmic identification with an avatar is drawn out through a consideration of self-recognition, othering and ontological ambiguity. Such tension is implicit in roleplaying: the ebb and flow of engagement which suggests game-players both are and aren’t their avatars. Cases in which masculine, diegetic centrality is upset by the avatar are also considered at length. From this perspective, the identification players have toward player-characters is shown to be dependent upon the quality and context of their (interpretive) control. Not unlike standing before a full-length mirror, a human player, controlling and roleplaying as an anthropomorphic self, is ultimately described as themself a kind of ghostly doppelgänger haunting the avatar.
In this examination of spatiotemporality’s representation in two- and three-dimensional videogame... more In this examination of spatiotemporality’s representation in two- and three-dimensional videogames, diegetic time and how a game’s overriding metaphors may be reflected in both gameplay and a storyworld’s virtual environment are considered at length through the idealist philosophy of George Berkeley, with an important adaptation of what Ludwig Wittgenstein referred to as ‘information-time’ experienced by conscious players operating in ‘memory-time.’ After considering a number of examples from Outer Wilds and the Legend of Zelda franchise, the question as to whether videogames are ontically presentist is resolved by way of a synthesis between the expression of time in spatial terms and every videogame’s minimum of interactivity, a distinction I adapt from Henri Bergson and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The continual creation of a digital world, while materially a fact of hardware limitations, is shown to lend itself metaphorically to an eidetic reading, bound to our intuitive association of time and space with inhabitation.
This article works out a logic for trash in videogames through its consideration of the ludic art... more This article works out a logic for trash in videogames through its consideration of the ludic artifact. Defining videogame trash as that which graphically outlives the execution of its ludic function, the essay distinguishes trash from objects that signify as real-world refuse, like Mario Kartʼs banana peels, and the merely decorative. It also addresses the correlation between technical capability and a graphic verisimilitude that generates trashscapes. Examining videogames from Super Mario Bros. to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, this articleʼs philosophical, technical, and art-historical approach departs from narratology and garbage studies to offer a prolegomenon for further inquiry.
Through critical appropriation of J. J. Gibson’s theory of ecological affordance, this speculativ... more Through critical appropriation of J. J. Gibson’s theory of ecological affordance, this speculative article broadens our understanding of ludic ecology as that which virtual environments offer players in anticipation of their use: a sort of inside-out niche. Adapted to a study of diegetic and nondiegetic sound, this adjacency of ecology to video games is applied to an understanding of silence as negative affordance; that is to say, as a nondeterminative opportunity for the player to express themself aurally as well as kinetically against a soundtrack’s absence. Whether included by a video game’s creative director as dramatic segues “inside of” the traditional, top-down soundtrack or as part of the industry’s shift away from film-esque sound design toward one that has begun to approach the ambience of naturalist theater, the role of silence in digital entertainment is argued to be strictly a dramatic one that allows body- and environment-related noise to be appreciated in vacuo. On the basis of these assertions, I claim that the player’s magnified ability to puncture the auditory equilibrium of a storyworld with a shout or offensive lunge at monsters, a form of manual intervention symptomatic of cultural products in general, is newly emboldening. As the musical fullness of the soundtrack age is replaced by a diegetic soundscape equal in sonic lushness, the autonomous game player is thrown into all the greater phenomenal relief.
Stitched together over five years of journaling, Obiter Dicta is a lyrical compendium representin... more Stitched together over five years of journaling, Obiter Dicta is a lyrical compendium representing the transcription of twelve notebooks, since painstakingly reimagined for publication. This unschooled exercise in aesthetic thought, interlaced with quotations from hundreds of diverse authors, interrogates a wide array of subject matter through notes, commentary, observations, and musings. Obiter Dicta is an experiment in intellectual dot-connecting that challenges much long-standing wisdom about everything from illuminated manuscripts to photography to the evolution of European music. A Zibaldone for the 21st century.
Samuel Beckett’s once spurned existential tragicomedy Waiting for Godot has received its critical... more Samuel Beckett’s once spurned existential tragicomedy Waiting for Godot has received its critical due some order of magnitude over. However, the play’s more mundane articles continue to elude the attention of commentators and I suspect this variety of neglect peculiar to Beckett alone. In this Short Note I argue the playwright's dominating use of parable dissuades investigation, permitting readers to dismiss events and dialogues out of hand.
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