The Catholic Church isn't a Bible-centric religion, because they still remember assembling the damned Bible, and selecting which texts to include based on current doctrinal discourse.
Isn't it odd to you that Bible-centered Christianity only began in the last 100-odd years? That suggests that the occlusion of the origins of the text was a prerequisite.
Google is starting to build a history of half-finished and almost-abandoned projects. I'm disappointed by the slow pace of development of projects such as Picasa + Hello, Google Desktop, and Blogger. They seem to get intrigued by an idea, but once competition comes in, they lose their edge (I'm thinking of Flickr, for example - outpacing Picasa quite handily.)
I consider this an open question: I've had a change of attitude, but I don't consider the matter closed. But my papers actually reflect my old position, that videogames (I consider them too different from non-digital games that I consider them a new thing - the "games" in "videogames" are almost like the "fish" in "starfish") are simply a new media art. I think I understand games pretty well and generally always have: what has changed is my understanding of what art is. I now subscribe to a view of art (as a modern practice, as a kind of discourse, an anthropological practice that is part of the cultural life of society) that comes from Gilles Deleuze: that the counterparts to art are philosophy and science, and that art reveals being in a certain way that requires a certain kind of attention.
I know it's a rarified view point, but it starts from denaturalizing the category of "art," which I think is a necessary step to having this kind of discussions.
There is some truth to this, except that videogames do not made directly onto "architecture." They map more directly into "architecture and use planning and construction." There is architecture within videogames themselves, obviously - the architecture of virtual environments.
The way that it doesn't map over is that architecture as art still relies on an artistic mode of attention and perception when it is trying to achieve the effect of art. Videogames as such demand a mode of attention which, I feel, precludes that aesthetic mode. I don't feel the analogy really applies, though it is one that I have thought of myself (and I consider architecture to be a closer cousin of videogame design than cinema is.)
The game part is where you are trying to beat/master a system - where you are competing against either a computer player or another human, trying to solve problems, master skills, understand the state of the system to respond to it. It isn't just interactivity (much art is interactive), it's the cognitive orientation of the player. It is a very active mental state - while art as such has, as a prerequisite, a reflective one.
I'm not saying that one can never be part of the other. And again, this is very important: I do not think of art as a question of the object or even its production per se. Rather, what makes art are the relationships between object, audience, and context.
I have been increasingly influenced by Gilles Deleuze's perspective on art, in which he describes it as a way of dealing with the world that has two counterparts: philosophy and science. The more I study art as such (particularly painting, new media, and poetry) the more I am inclined to agree with him. There are artists who use games and gameliness to produce art - Eddo Stern and Brody Conlon are among them. But that's a far cry from saying that games as such are art.
That definition is, in my opinion, a weak one. Everything someone puts some thought into then becomes art. If that's what you call art, fine - but instead, I think of art as a special kind of production motivated by certain kinds of experience (aesthetic or discursive). What makes something art, in my view now, isn't the way it was created, but the way it is meant to be experienced/consumed. Videogames are very specifically meant to be experienced/consumed as games. There can be aesthetic experiences within those games - as someone else noted, they can "contain" art - but when you are really appreciating that experience, you really have to suspend thinking "as a gamer" to do it.
In an MMO, think of the gap that occurs when someone stops thinking about optimal battle tactics, buffs, timing, etc. to comment "wow, this area is really beautiful - the mood here is so melancholic, etc." Many of us have that experience, but it is so out of sync with the "gameness" that is going on that it is striking.
There is an artfulness is creating good "gameness," too - it can take intuition, intelligence, experience, even talent. But that doesn't make the product art, even if the skills required to make it good are themselves also skills that could be used to create good artistic experiences.
Saying it isn't art is not the same as showing animosity.
If there is one question I have been struggling with for the past year, it has been about the nature of videogames and art, and I am inclined now towards Kojima's position. The main problem is attention: there is a kind of aesthetic mode of attention, a way of looking at things that is open to certain types of signs, feelings and thoughts. The videogame mode of attention is not an aesthetic mode. When you look at a videogame "as art," you have to actually suspend looking at it "as a game." There is nothing wrong with it being a game, but one needs to recognize "gameness" as essentially and perhaps incompatibly different from "artness." "Gameness" is still culturally interesting, important, can be well- or poorly-done, etc.
This is part of my PhD research, so I'm not going to eat up this thread with this issue yet. But it is a more important issue than I originally thought, and my views have changed dramatically.
The French aren't particularly "warm" to anyone - because they have expectations of everyone, including themselves. They do not treat Americans worse than they treat each other.
Your knowledge of French history is also sorely lacking - the Paris Commune was, in my opinion, its greatest moment. And you have no understanding of the sacrifices it made in the 1st World War.
I've traveled extensively throughout Europe and the rest of the world. What I'm talking about is an actual appreciation for and understanding of American culture and the American psyche. The French really outstrip all the rest... but perhaps that's why Americans, secretly, dislike them.
You know what the biggest irony of France-bashing is? More than the historical inaccuracies, it's the fact that of all the European countries, the French as a culture tend to be more fond of Americans than anywhere else. Personally, I think it's the French who understand the best features of the American psyche better than any other Europeans do. (The English certainly don't.) And both the US and France are in some sense post-revolutionary republics.
It's really sad - Americans just don't get that they are slowly alienating what is, in many senses (if not in foreign policy), their closest friends in the world.
I guess it's relative. I'd go for a 6 hour per week cap, or lower. 15 hours a week takes a huge chunk out of time that could be spent outside, or reading, or cooking, or doing any one of a number of things that have longer-term rewards.
I had an intensive MMORPG phase, and too little to show for it.
Freud describes something called "the petty narcissism of small differences," the basis for the hatred of people who are more like you than you would ever care to admit. The gap between the two parties is far smaller than either of them will admit. The Clintons have been enthusiastically pro-war from the get-go; the Republicans have been ballooning the size of government (without providing or improving services) - the civil liberties situation in the US is deteriorating with little opposition.
And the ideological straight-jackets that people work from makes them miss some important information, such as the fact that the absence of a national healthcare program is hurting businesses, as is the collapse of the K-12 educational system.
I don't view the fact the escapist and indulgent fun is more popular than challenging work a convincing argument for preferring comic books to Tolstoy. I don't see why I should consider it a convincing argument for videogames, either.
Besides, the best fantasy is more nuanced than that - even WoW has interesting stuff going on (I mean, you are aware of something of a subtext about race and nationality that may even apply to the Iraq situation in the game, aren't you?)
Yes, the fact that female avatars are designed to appeal to straight male desire is clear, and it does turn women-gamers into second-class citizens in a sort of vicious circle.
On the other hand, I think that the strong, capable woman has become sort of a cliche on its own - that if women are not depicted as the objects of male desire, they have to be some sort of super-being. That's actually sort of a problem: the super-male figure is appealing to adolescent males, because it is part of an adolescent power fantasy that has a lot to do with their situation. Instead of trying to have "strong female characters," which have become as boring and predictable as the bimbos and the beefcakes, how about the other adjective you use - complex - along with, perhaps, neither confident nor dependent - conflicted, nuanced, in an actual problematic situation which she may not be sure how to deal with.
Among my favorite videogame characters were the avatar and NPC in Ico - both of whom were often in danger of being completely overwhelmed by their environment. The effort to just create "strong women" has resulted in too many cliches, and not even profitable ones.
OK, fair enough - I've never gone to MySpace for more than a second. I have read some decent writing in Livejournal, though. There are some unexpected communities of interest there. And there is actually a sort of literary form that consists of making fictional character LJ's (and I imagine people could do the same with MySpace.)
I'm not into the whole MySpace thing because I'm past the age when I need to present myself and my life as a spectacle. It's a developmental stage thing, and I say that without being condescending.
That said, it should be respected as a form of writing and publishing. If a friend or love-interest of yours has published their writing somewhere and asked you to look at it by sending you a link, then it is simply rude and obnoxious to say, "no, I want you to go back, cut and paste it, and send it to me." I, for one, would tell you to take a running leap.
Leisure is real. What you are doing is a leisure activity, there. A real one. With real people. Structured around a fiction implemented as a game, yes. But a real game.
Um, while I'm not going to put myself out as a defender of China's policies, comparing literacy rates in this case means very little. Cuba has an excellent literacy rate compared to Mexico or Bolivia, but (even though I'm not particularly anti-Castro) it doesn't have a great human rights or democracy record.
Compare China's literacy rate now to what it was 60 years ago. Then compare the US literacy rate to what it was 60 years ago.
Remember, "the masses" didn't recieve any real education until it was in the interests of the powerful to have educated labor and markets. Subvert education? Power created education!
What I find fascinating is the fantasy that capitalism does or could exist outside of the framework of regulation, government and power. The modern nation-state was practically invented by capitalism. It is capitalists who like extensive regulations, because they provide the framework for doing business, they create a relatively stable environment and control competition, they limit the mobility and options of the labor pool.
Anarcho-capitalists and libertarians still don't realize that the very classes they think they are representing - the middle-classes and the entrepreneurial classes - are the very classes that always create and then manipulate governmental bodies for their own self-interest. It was not the recipients of the benefits of the welfare state that created that state.
And capitalism is often weakest where the state is weakest; and where the state is weak, it is often all the most arbitrary and dangerous to capitalism. Read Hernando de Soto's "The Mystery of Capital" (which is really about more than just this). A stable regulatory framework creates the possibility for the generation of capital from personal holdings. Do you know what the number one source of funding for new businesses is? It is home equity loans. Do you know how difficult it would be to create the conditions to generate home equity without an extensive government infrastructure?
We do live in a "class" based system, and to some extent, I have no problems with this. I don't want all events being like all others: I want my wedding to be a special event that requires thougtfulness and aesthetic care. I see your indifference to personal appearance as a resort to pure utility.
Conformity is another matter. Someone who creates a different identity with their appearence or uses it thoughtfully is in a different category than someone who just doesn't give a damn. I'd rather work with someone with the mohawk and noserings who is at least aware that he's being seen than someone who, as David Sedaris put it, shows up looking like he's here to mow the lawn.
I am far more comfortable judging people by how they dress than by most other factors. Clothes are semiotic: they are chosen consciously by people who exist in a society where the codes and signs of dress are relatively available to them. Attire is not a secondary feature over which one has little control.
They are also aesthetic. Beauty matters. It is not necessarily about judging people's character, but it can be about judging their consideration for others. You can't help, in the short term at least, most aspects of your physical appearance. However, just like you can keep your work area relatively clean, you can control your attire. I will judge you by the fact that you don't care what I have to see every day, or at the very least that you are so aesthetically illiterate that you are unaware of it.
Slashdot Mirror
The Catholic Church isn't a Bible-centric religion, because they still remember assembling the damned Bible, and selecting which texts to include based on current doctrinal discourse.
Isn't it odd to you that Bible-centered Christianity only began in the last 100-odd years? That suggests that the occlusion of the origins of the text was a prerequisite.
Wozniak was the technical brains, and Jobs ripped him off badly and cruelly: when Woz found out about it, he was said to have cried.
Of the various tech-billionaire celebrities, I think only Larry Ellison is lower than Steve Jobs.
Google is starting to build a history of half-finished and almost-abandoned projects. I'm disappointed by the slow pace of development of projects such as Picasa + Hello, Google Desktop, and Blogger. They seem to get intrigued by an idea, but once competition comes in, they lose their edge (I'm thinking of Flickr, for example - outpacing Picasa quite handily.)
I consider this an open question: I've had a change of attitude, but I don't consider the matter closed. But my papers actually reflect my old position, that videogames (I consider them too different from non-digital games that I consider them a new thing - the "games" in "videogames" are almost like the "fish" in "starfish") are simply a new media art. I think I understand games pretty well and generally always have: what has changed is my understanding of what art is. I now subscribe to a view of art (as a modern practice, as a kind of discourse, an anthropological practice that is part of the cultural life of society) that comes from Gilles Deleuze: that the counterparts to art are philosophy and science, and that art reveals being in a certain way that requires a certain kind of attention.
I know it's a rarified view point, but it starts from denaturalizing the category of "art," which I think is a necessary step to having this kind of discussions.
There is some truth to this, except that videogames do not made directly onto "architecture." They map more directly into "architecture and use planning and construction." There is architecture within videogames themselves, obviously - the architecture of virtual environments.
The way that it doesn't map over is that architecture as art still relies on an artistic mode of attention and perception when it is trying to achieve the effect of art. Videogames as such demand a mode of attention which, I feel, precludes that aesthetic mode. I don't feel the analogy really applies, though it is one that I have thought of myself (and I consider architecture to be a closer cousin of videogame design than cinema is.)
It's almost certainly "bijutsu," which maps pretty closely to what we call "fine art."
The game part is where you are trying to beat/master a system - where you are competing against either a computer player or another human, trying to solve problems, master skills, understand the state of the system to respond to it. It isn't just interactivity (much art is interactive), it's the cognitive orientation of the player. It is a very active mental state - while art as such has, as a prerequisite, a reflective one.
I'm not saying that one can never be part of the other. And again, this is very important: I do not think of art as a question of the object or even its production per se. Rather, what makes art are the relationships between object, audience, and context.
I have been increasingly influenced by Gilles Deleuze's perspective on art, in which he describes it as a way of dealing with the world that has two counterparts: philosophy and science. The more I study art as such (particularly painting, new media, and poetry) the more I am inclined to agree with him. There are artists who use games and gameliness to produce art - Eddo Stern and Brody Conlon are among them. But that's a far cry from saying that games as such are art.
That definition is, in my opinion, a weak one. Everything someone puts some thought into then becomes art. If that's what you call art, fine - but instead, I think of art as a special kind of production motivated by certain kinds of experience (aesthetic or discursive). What makes something art, in my view now, isn't the way it was created, but the way it is meant to be experienced/consumed. Videogames are very specifically meant to be experienced/consumed as games. There can be aesthetic experiences within those games - as someone else noted, they can "contain" art - but when you are really appreciating that experience, you really have to suspend thinking "as a gamer" to do it.
In an MMO, think of the gap that occurs when someone stops thinking about optimal battle tactics, buffs, timing, etc. to comment "wow, this area is really beautiful - the mood here is so melancholic, etc." Many of us have that experience, but it is so out of sync with the "gameness" that is going on that it is striking.
There is an artfulness is creating good "gameness," too - it can take intuition, intelligence, experience, even talent. But that doesn't make the product art, even if the skills required to make it good are themselves also skills that could be used to create good artistic experiences.
Saying it isn't art is not the same as showing animosity.
If there is one question I have been struggling with for the past year, it has been about the nature of videogames and art, and I am inclined now towards Kojima's position. The main problem is attention: there is a kind of aesthetic mode of attention, a way of looking at things that is open to certain types of signs, feelings and thoughts. The videogame mode of attention is not an aesthetic mode. When you look at a videogame "as art," you have to actually suspend looking at it "as a game." There is nothing wrong with it being a game, but one needs to recognize "gameness" as essentially and perhaps incompatibly different from "artness." "Gameness" is still culturally interesting, important, can be well- or poorly-done, etc.
This is part of my PhD research, so I'm not going to eat up this thread with this issue yet. But it is a more important issue than I originally thought, and my views have changed dramatically.
But aren't they re-releasing older music on discs using the same scheme? Picking up your classic oldie may not protect you.
The French aren't particularly "warm" to anyone - because they have expectations of everyone, including themselves. They do not treat Americans worse than they treat each other.
Your knowledge of French history is also sorely lacking - the Paris Commune was, in my opinion, its greatest moment. And you have no understanding of the sacrifices it made in the 1st World War.
I've traveled extensively throughout Europe and the rest of the world. What I'm talking about is an actual appreciation for and understanding of American culture and the American psyche. The French really outstrip all the rest... but perhaps that's why Americans, secretly, dislike them.
You know what the biggest irony of France-bashing is? More than the historical inaccuracies, it's the fact that of all the European countries, the French as a culture tend to be more fond of Americans than anywhere else. Personally, I think it's the French who understand the best features of the American psyche better than any other Europeans do. (The English certainly don't.) And both the US and France are in some sense post-revolutionary republics.
It's really sad - Americans just don't get that they are slowly alienating what is, in many senses (if not in foreign policy), their closest friends in the world.
I guess it's relative. I'd go for a 6 hour per week cap, or lower. 15 hours a week takes a huge chunk out of time that could be spent outside, or reading, or cooking, or doing any one of a number of things that have longer-term rewards.
I had an intensive MMORPG phase, and too little to show for it.
A breathtakingly honest and accurate analysis.
Freud describes something called "the petty narcissism of small differences," the basis for the hatred of people who are more like you than you would ever care to admit. The gap between the two parties is far smaller than either of them will admit. The Clintons have been enthusiastically pro-war from the get-go; the Republicans have been ballooning the size of government (without providing or improving services) - the civil liberties situation in the US is deteriorating with little opposition.
And the ideological straight-jackets that people work from makes them miss some important information, such as the fact that the absence of a national healthcare program is hurting businesses, as is the collapse of the K-12 educational system.
How do you type with boxing gloves on your hands?
I don't view the fact the escapist and indulgent fun is more popular than challenging work a convincing argument for preferring comic books to Tolstoy. I don't see why I should consider it a convincing argument for videogames, either.
Besides, the best fantasy is more nuanced than that - even WoW has interesting stuff going on (I mean, you are aware of something of a subtext about race and nationality that may even apply to the Iraq situation in the game, aren't you?)
Yes, the fact that female avatars are designed to appeal to straight male desire is clear, and it does turn women-gamers into second-class citizens in a sort of vicious circle.
On the other hand, I think that the strong, capable woman has become sort of a cliche on its own - that if women are not depicted as the objects of male desire, they have to be some sort of super-being. That's actually sort of a problem: the super-male figure is appealing to adolescent males, because it is part of an adolescent power fantasy that has a lot to do with their situation. Instead of trying to have "strong female characters," which have become as boring and predictable as the bimbos and the beefcakes, how about the other adjective you use - complex - along with, perhaps, neither confident nor dependent - conflicted, nuanced, in an actual problematic situation which she may not be sure how to deal with.
Among my favorite videogame characters were the avatar and NPC in Ico - both of whom were often in danger of being completely overwhelmed by their environment. The effort to just create "strong women" has resulted in too many cliches, and not even profitable ones.
OK, fair enough - I've never gone to MySpace for more than a second. I have read some decent writing in Livejournal, though. There are some unexpected communities of interest there. And there is actually a sort of literary form that consists of making fictional character LJ's (and I imagine people could do the same with MySpace.)
I see you've been to Maryland.
I'm not into the whole MySpace thing because I'm past the age when I need to present myself and my life as a spectacle. It's a developmental stage thing, and I say that without being condescending.
That said, it should be respected as a form of writing and publishing. If a friend or love-interest of yours has published their writing somewhere and asked you to look at it by sending you a link, then it is simply rude and obnoxious to say, "no, I want you to go back, cut and paste it, and send it to me." I, for one, would tell you to take a running leap.
Leisure is real. What you are doing is a leisure activity, there. A real one. With real people. Structured around a fiction implemented as a game, yes. But a real game.
Um, while I'm not going to put myself out as a defender of China's policies, comparing literacy rates in this case means very little. Cuba has an excellent literacy rate compared to Mexico or Bolivia, but (even though I'm not particularly anti-Castro) it doesn't have a great human rights or democracy record.
Compare China's literacy rate now to what it was 60 years ago. Then compare the US literacy rate to what it was 60 years ago.
Remember, "the masses" didn't recieve any real education until it was in the interests of the powerful to have educated labor and markets. Subvert education? Power created education!
What I find fascinating is the fantasy that capitalism does or could exist outside of the framework of regulation, government and power. The modern nation-state was practically invented by capitalism. It is capitalists who like extensive regulations, because they provide the framework for doing business, they create a relatively stable environment and control competition, they limit the mobility and options of the labor pool.
Anarcho-capitalists and libertarians still don't realize that the very classes they think they are representing - the middle-classes and the entrepreneurial classes - are the very classes that always create and then manipulate governmental bodies for their own self-interest. It was not the recipients of the benefits of the welfare state that created that state.
And capitalism is often weakest where the state is weakest; and where the state is weak, it is often all the most arbitrary and dangerous to capitalism. Read Hernando de Soto's "The Mystery of Capital" (which is really about more than just this). A stable regulatory framework creates the possibility for the generation of capital from personal holdings. Do you know what the number one source of funding for new businesses is? It is home equity loans. Do you know how difficult it would be to create the conditions to generate home equity without an extensive government infrastructure?
Actually, it does. Just not the easily or obviously.
Geeks do get laid.
We do live in a "class" based system, and to some extent, I have no problems with this. I don't want all events being like all others: I want my wedding to be a special event that requires thougtfulness and aesthetic care. I see your indifference to personal appearance as a resort to pure utility.
Conformity is another matter. Someone who creates a different identity with their appearence or uses it thoughtfully is in a different category than someone who just doesn't give a damn. I'd rather work with someone with the mohawk and noserings who is at least aware that he's being seen than someone who, as David Sedaris put it, shows up looking like he's here to mow the lawn.
I am far more comfortable judging people by how they dress than by most other factors. Clothes are semiotic: they are chosen consciously by people who exist in a society where the codes and signs of dress are relatively available to them. Attire is not a secondary feature over which one has little control.
They are also aesthetic. Beauty matters. It is not necessarily about judging people's character, but it can be about judging their consideration for others. You can't help, in the short term at least, most aspects of your physical appearance. However, just like you can keep your work area relatively clean, you can control your attire. I will judge you by the fact that you don't care what I have to see every day, or at the very least that you are so aesthetically illiterate that you are unaware of it.