Continuation of module (week 2)

As we continue to gain slightly more depth into the module, we were xposed to a lot more resources. These included:

• Paintstation
• Pac-manhatton
• Uncle Roy

and a few more others

Rebecca Cannon

To gain a bit more backgroung reseach on the extracted text given to me, I decided to find out a litte bit more about the author of this extraordinary chapter:

"Rebecca Cannon is an Australian media producer, interested in the production, documentation and analysis of contemporary art. Whilst engaged full time in the development of the arts website Artabase.net, she also blogs on Selectparks about artistic uses of computer games. Rebecca has spoken at international art and technology conferences including Siggraph about the aesthetic and political significance of artworks made using computer games, and her writing on this subject has been published by MIT and Intellect books."
- quote taken from: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/authors.php?author=755

'Meltdown' - Rebecca Cannon

After reading Rebecca Cannon's extract of this book, there were a few things that she had written that caught my attention, in particular this quotation:

 "Can one ever tire of killing and dying? Of witnessing life's cy

clical truths played out in joystick - hand held controlling device. Can one tire of embodying the conflicting roles of progenitor" 

(Nintendo Wii Gameplay)

And the reason why this opening quotation instantly caught my attention was because it raised the question of 'WHAT IF?' What if games were a reality, and the

re was no turning back from an inevitable death towards these characters involved? Because in real life there is not 'restart' or 'continue' button. WHAT IF your life was completely in control by somebody else's two thumbs and a PS3 control pad? WHAT IF real life was just a game, and killing and dying were taken very lightly in the ey

es of those in control, regardless of how many p

eople died or killed others?  - BUT IT SEEMS THAT THIS COULD EASILY BE A REFLECTION OF WHATS GOING ON IN TODAYS SOCIETY!!!

But this sparked a few initial ideas and straight away, I was pondering how we could make games a lot more realistic than what they already are (excluding all the killing and dying). We already have the arcade games and the Nintendo Wii which enable users to feel a lot more involved with regards to their gameplay, but this initial idea is going to focus on much more extreme involvement for the user so that they will have a real gaming experience, rather than just a time to 'play games'

 

Introduction to the module (weeks 1)

For the Experimental Gaming module, in week on we had a brief introduction to the module, which included:

• what was expected for us as students
• guidance on note taking
• Relationship between Games and Art
• Computer game interface inputs

Also during the workshop we had an explanation of what materials (hardware and software) were available to us and also had an exploration of alternatives for keyboard interface with scripting examples

We were also handed a resource, which was a photocopied extract from a book entitled 'Video Games and Art' edited by Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell. The extract was entitled 'Meltdown' written by Rebecca Cannon, which is chapter 2 of this book