Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art - what are the political implications of seeing videogames

in this way?

Nick Robinson

200258146 4271 Words

Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art The work of art still has something in common with enchantment: it posits its own, self-enclosed area, which is withdrawn from the context of profane existence, and in which special laws apply. Just as in the ceremony the magician first of all marked out the limits of the area where the sacred powers were to come into play, so every work of art describes its own circumference which closes it off from actuality. (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1998 p.18) Every philosophical enterprise turns back towards its temporal conditions in order to treat their compossibility at a conceptual level. (Badiou, 2005 p.70) This essay will consider the relationship between art and politics and seek to evaluate the capacity for videogames to uphold a cultural and political influence. Concluding with a comparison between Deleuze and Habermass appropriation of social anthropology this essay will posit that videogames have evolved to posit a cultural third place which relies on artistry in the vein of tribal lifeworld associations or nomadic assemblages. Implementing Bogosts Unit Operations in relation to Deleuzes reading of Nietzsche to analyse the moral appropriation of reason in fledgling videogames for genealogical consideration under the Badiouan notion of a thinking. This essay will then discuss Habermass linguistic philosophy in relation to psychoanalysis and systemic persuasiveness and will posit that videogames are political on a subconscious level regardless of any political rhetoric explicit in the videogame aesthetic. This essay will consider throughout the critical arguments on politics and aesthetics, and insofar as a videogame as art creates its own time and space and singular aura, we can consider the root of antithetical argument to be Adorno whom only accounted for the validity of art to portray a monad of human existence which through reproduction, and dissemination, modern culture invalidates. Taking Benjamins observations that 2

Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. (Benjamin in Cazeaux, 2000 p. 324) The capacity for an authentic monadic human expression that is only in The whole sphere of authenticity [that] is outside the technical (Benjamin in Cazeaux, 2000 p. 324) can serve as the basis of a dialectical reappropriation of expressionism and fascism in the artistry of videogames. This essay will argue that expressionism and fascism are reappropriated in the context of a videogame, a dialectical analysis would posit that in this faculty therein lies a logical potential to redress a debate which has otherwise been concluded. The overlap between the real and the virtual in the videogame is reminiscent of Lacanian psychoanalysis as videogame reality is virtual, we can draw comparison inasmuch as to be invited into a virtual world forces a new conceptual mirror stage The mirror stage is a drama whose internal thrust is precipitated from insufficiency to anticipation and which manufactures for the subject, caught up in the lure of spatial identification, the succession of phantasies that extends from a fragmented body-image to a form of its totality (Lacan, 1977) We can ascertain as much from Lacan as to assume that there is a mirror stage and there is a moment that decisively tips the whole of human knowledge into mediatisation through the desire of the other thus videogames are on a fundamental level persuasive, regardless of intent1. Given the systemic rational and linguistic logic in the construction of videogames in the form of

For a more comprehensive outline of this concept see When Seams Fall Apart Video Game Space and the Player
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Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art programming languages and rational instructions this essay will now consider the notion of transcoding as discussed by Bogost before departing from Lacan. Manovich is correct to observe that the material world must be compressed to be represented in software. But rather than thinking of this phenomenon as a mechanical overthrow of human culture (Kittler), or as a mere influencer of human culture (Manovich), I would suggest that these technologies serve as structures that frame our experiences of the material world, while offering representations that cause us to think critically about those experiences. (Bogost, 2008 p.40)

The point that is brought to bear in this extract is that of the reductionist process of instrumentalising external nature for representation in information systems, as the shear multitude of external reality denotes a situation whereby only the most practical in this respect the most convincing - of human information can be stored, given the finite amount of virtual space. For the sake of this essay I will posit that the

algorithms created for the purpose of reflective real world data storage presuppose the same function as Lacans imago, algorithms in this context will be considered as a systematic procedure of calculation, a virtual ego so to speak. The process of data compression in this respect, that of sound and imagery serves to reify the real world validity of the imaginary, virtual, world of software structures insofar as what is virtual is as convincing as to merit human consideration. Taking in this respect the Deleuzian who does the earth think it is?(1988) in regards a virtual world, there is an oscillation between the individual and the machine in which there is an ever elusive truth, and it is in this respect that the logical structures of software design have begun to remap themselves back onto the material world they were invented to represent. (Bogost, 2008 p.40) 4

Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art Though providing a psychoanalytical validity claim for the persuasiveness of videogames, thus furthering the political knowledge claim, this does not provide for us a tangible method with which to discuss videogames as art. The argument does, however, expose a method of understanding the event that decisively tips the whole of human knowledge into mediatisation which presupposes a potential real-world affect of videogames in the wider context of information systems to reapply themselves in a manner of desire-production (Deleuze) or remapping (Bogost) or being (Badiou). I will thus depart from Lacan as anti-philosophical and unable to provide a framework for further analysis and return to post structural deconstruction, Bogost and Badiouan philosophy. To facilitate the discussion of videogames as art this essay will isolate functions of videogame procedural rhetoric which bear similar utility in a multiplicity of interactive contexts; namely functions with a propensity towards reason and proceduality and those with a propensity towards rhetoric and narrative. After a philosophical analysis of the conceptual power of videogames, mostly in the vein of Deleuze and his interpretation of Nietzsche, I will then consider the forms of communication a videogame may appropriate. In regards to procedural rhetoric I will take as an example Zork (1980) which here functions as a stand in for any text based videogame of that era. The game functions on the presuppositions of argument statements open (and preprescribed) to the user, the accumulation of which expose an ideology of the narrative, and importantly, voids the progression of the user when the logical causality of 5

Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art arguments conflicts with those of the ideology of the narrative (i.e. Game over). The nature of logical causality in regards such interactive literature requires the contextualisation of narrative by the individual in the form of ideology, the lack of imagery and the lack of a definitive text evade attempts at literal deconstruction, and is thus persuasive and rhetorical in nature. The nature of interaction is logical and procedural; the exposure of interaction is that of the narrative and rhetoric, an ideology is communicated around the given truths of logical causality (untruths end the game), of the persuasion of myth through reasoning. It is in this respect that the videogame disseminates a possibility space that confines the user to the ideological terms which may, or may not, be overtly political of the game. The logical manifestation of narrative is opposed to the iconography of more procedurally weighted videogames such as Donkey Kong (1981) and Tetris (1984), games which pitch reason against time, in the case of Donkey Kong originally for money. Donkey Kongs narrative is buried in the interpretation of imagery, in iconography. The premise of Donkey Kong is that of archetypal damsel in distress, a recurring myth within human history, which dresses the proceduality of the game in a rhetorical context. Donkey Kong and the everyman character a concept reliant on slave morality - subsumes the myth of damsel in distress and thus appropriates a moral obligation (task) upon the user, the myth of the game places the player in a position of Slave morality. We can appropriate Freuds Oedipus complex in regards to resentiment and the notion of Donkey Kong as a being to be overcome, it is in this regard also that the game assumes a Master morality. 6

Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art The notion of persuasiveness in videogames can thus be construed as a coupling of rationality and artistry (ideology, narrative, iconography etc...) Bogost has named this a unit operation or a semiotic construction of real or imaginary systems through visual rhetoric (or literature etc...) this idea borrows from Badiouan philosophy, which I will return to later. Procedural rhetoric thus can be employed as a means to deconstruct a game into its function as a persuasive myth, an ideology which can facilitate a potential will to power, thus politicising videogames. The procedural rhetoric of a videogame functions as a mechanism of eternal recurrence, which in a departure from Deleuze, can be considered in the linguistic fashion as a manifestation of Freuds Oedipus complex. The becoming-reactive force of a videogame lies in its monolithic selfinformed power eternal recurrence - that puts the user into a position of resentiment as the user is forced to accept the terms of the game in order to interact with it. Thus the game player is functioning for the higher purpose of the system of the game and not for the higher purpose of the self, this can be considered nihilistic, but as noted by Deleuze nihilism facilitates becoming-reactive and is thus an active force in that the truth of interaction (oscillation) informs a desire production. (Deleuze, 1962) The Videogame as a unit operation is a non-linear framing device for the content, the videogame proper; akin to installation art it tries to formulate its own context for existence, its own truth in the painting, its own truth in the speech act. The game requires user interaction in this regard to fabricate a hermeneutic of visual continuity through cognitive behavioural conditioning disseminating the possibility space -, the persuasive power relies on the users capacity to discern patterns and appropriate 7

Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art them according to the terms of the game. In this respect Bogost employs Kosters notion of fun as the feedback the brain gives us when we are absorbing patterns for learning purposes to posit that this mechanism of action can be employed for an expanded purpose for games (Bogost, 2008 p.118). In this regard games can be described as a fascist desire production, in Deleuzes terms, but insofar as videogames can fulfil a simulated experience in a safe place they are a valuable cultural mechanism. Bogost discusses Benjamins unfinished Arcades project in regards his cross-platform discussion of unit operations, it is on this note that Bogost follows on his discussion of the bricoleur as technically curious with a capacity to appropriate quantitative research in a personal and qualitative way.(Bogost, 2008 p.113) It is on this point that I will draw upon correspondence between Adorno and Benjamin in regards Bogosts romantic notion of the glorification or at least demystification of the usual in films ability to uncover the mechanics behind specific everyday actions. In an inversion of the parasitical dependence of ritual on which Benjamin posited the aura of the artwork, we can envisage the unit-operational aura of the rituals of human activity in procedural reorganisation. By this Bogost is alluding in capacity at least - to the notion that as Horkheimer puts it, a mass ego exists only in earthquakes and catastrophes, while otherwise objective surplus value prevails precisely through individual subjects and against them. (Adorno, 1935) Videogames are the perfect dissemination point for a facet of cinema which has been cast aside in favour of a commodified mythic-archaic category of the Golden Age. In regards a mass ego in a safe place 8

Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art I will now briefly consider the balkanised avant-garde Amiga demoscene movement which encapsulates in its entirety the essence of unit operations before discussing expression and Habermasian lifeworld communication networks, within the framework of videogames and artistry, before returning to Adorno and Benjamin and concluding the essay. I call upon the demoscene inasmuch as the pool of talent which emerged around this postmodern society served as a basis for a sizeable proportion of the fledgling videogames industry2 James Schmalz, for example, specifically sought out sceners when he founded his company, Digital Extremes, which has since sold over eleven million copies of its Unreal computer games. (Sobol in Gehman & Reinke, 2005 pp .225) If there was ever a reaffirmation of the artistic status of videogames then it would come in the genealogical appropriation of the dissemination of the demoscene culture3 in the videogame canon. Consistent with unit operations inasmuch as the scener employs a lower level object technology which, originally, assumed control of the entire system of hardware (platform) for the purpose of cinematic expression in a similar vein to Expressionism though based squarely on rational instructions. In chapter 6 of Bogosts Unit Operations he discusses real-world applications of his theory by discussing chance encounters; this bears similarity to the distribution of demos in the public domain on freely swapped discs, which then gave way to the internet as a

The chapter Demoscene and Digital Culture by John Sobol outlines in an enthusiastic manner many of the recurring ideologies of the movement which reflect on many levels Deleuze & Guattaris nomadic and tribal sensibilities 3 http://www.demoscene.tv/ is littered with contemporary examples
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Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art means of propagation. It is in this respect we can consider a scener to be a bricoleur and in such respect not dissimilar to Bogosts interpretation of Benjamin and his Arcades project (Bogost, 2008 p.113). The manifestation of a network around which such bricoleurs subscribed themselves brings to bear similarities to Deleuzes becoming and rhizome networks. This essay will now consider the game ELIZA (Weizenbaum, 1966) which was designed to emulate a psychotherapist on the basis of systemic logic, which drew upon a database of conjunctions, statements and words of value in order to converse with the user under the guise of a psychotherapist.4 I call upon this program for two reasons, to open a path to linguistic philosophy and thus rationalise user interaction, and as a mechanism to discuss the reproducibility of game engines a function Bogost calls proceduality. ELIZA is not in the strictest sense a unit operation but it merits enough attention for Bogost to briefly define it Eliza might respond to a statement such as Perhaps I could learn to get along with my mother into Tell me more about your family. Proceduality is a name for the computers special efficiency for formalizing the configuration and behaviour of various representative elements. (Bogost 2008, p.13) As mentioned in regards to the demoscene a pool of talent was called upon in the formulation of the fledgling videogames industry, considering the artistic value of expression which they construed, the dissemination of such talent into the production of games such as Unreal- it is hard to argue against suggests that the principles
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An online version with its source is available at: http://www.manifestation.com/neurotoys/eliza.php3

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Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art they embodied, to some extent, have underwritten creative elements of the videogame industry. The nature of the Unreal engine is procedural and systemic in its nature, and as Bogost notes they often garner more press and anticipation than the games themselves. (Bogost, 2008 p.59) The function of proceduality is cross platform and arguably pertains a metanarrative, and can manifest itself in many different contexts but will always retain its persuasive function. I will now consider the notion of proceduality in Eliza in appropriating Habermass linguistic philosophy in an attempt to rationalise the persuasive, thus political, capacity of videogames. I will draw upon Habermass theory of communicative action and the notion of Technology and Science as Ideology. The fallacy of Eliza lies in the masquerade of the psychotherapist, the conversation thus is an illusion, and reflects Adornos pessimism towards modern society inasmuch as the illusion is as convincing as to elicit response. Collecting strings of user input the program references the value of keywords in anticipation of user responses, although linear in its reason, the program is convincing enough as to facilitate purposive activity and strategic action; it serves to instrumentalise the context of user responses and appropriate them to facilitate an instrumentally appropriate response. It is, for all intents and purposes, a feedback loop; the information required of the user is a prerequisite for the continuation of the program rationale. The flaw in the praxis of this argument is in the open ended nature of ELIZA, it does not have a rationalizing function and thus it is reasonable to expect that, on the presupposition of the valid status of the psychotherapist, the user will rationalise the 11

Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art logical structure of the program insofar as they will recognize patterns of speech inasmuch as the speaker can illocutionarily influence the hearer and vice versa, because speech-act-typical commitments are connected with cognitively testable validity-claims. (Habermas [his italics] in Outhewaite, 1996 p.125) We can call here upon latently strategic action and dramatological action. The presupposition of a knowledge claim the validity of the psychotherapist - posits systemically distorted communication whereby the user deceives himself that he is engaged in consensual action. Whereby the instrumental nature of the game is posited for us, linguistic interaction with the videogame is either dramatological or systemically distorted. (Habermas in Outhewaite, 1996 p.163) We can appropriate Habermas inasmuch as if the users presupposition of the purpose of conversation is that of purposive action there is a fundamental colonisation of the lifeworld - here there are distinct parallels to Lacan and Deleuzian fascist desire production - the reflexivity of systemic and symbolic interaction juxtaposes the progress of communicative rationalities5. (Habermas in Outhewaite, 1996 p.54) We can thus linguistically arm philosophical analysis of videogames, and following Lacans psychoanalysis and Habermass philosophy, posit that taking the unconscious as a linguistic construction, videogames are persuasive on a massive scale. The dissemination of such proceduality as noted earlier in the dissemination of the

Following the table on page 54 starting from the Systems of purposive rational Technical rules and then tracing diagonally each step downwards you will return to Growth of productive forces; extension of power of technical control the rhetorical nature of Eliza evades this purposive end and thus reloops the discourse at punishment eg: response[109]="I'm not sure I understand you fully." (technical rules)
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Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art Quake engine into a variety of contexts is widespread, and its function is on a fundamental level communicative. Appropriating Habermass discourse ethics we can thus politicise a game and legitimate a political knowledge claim there is, borrowing military and clinical term, a standard operating procedure with an inherently invasive rationality. We can talk of a rhetorical unit as the expressive idea around which a videogame builds an operating procedure. Taking such a concept we can draw back to an elementary discussion on Expressionism and Fascism, in a context so far removed from its origins in the first half of the 20th century so as to be relevant again, to begin to contemplate the political implications of videogames. I will posit here that, in dissecting Bogosts theories for political appropriations, there is a striking similarity to Badious notion of a thinking, a process he believes is fundamental to both psychoanalysis and politics (Badiou, 2005, pp.52-69) I will now consider network play which is grounded in the theoretical, repeatable, rules of the videogame. We can posit that a videogame has an absolute coercive and persuasive potential, but it is necessary to consider the wider context of the singular act of interactive game play. As a singular act that cannot be repeated, the relationship between the videogame player and the game can be considered clinical in nature as the truth of being in videogame play lies in the non-dialectical or inseparable unity of a theory and a practice. (Badiou, 2005 pp. 60) In this respect the videogame and the user are both Fascist and Expressive simultaneously, the videogame as the Event forces a reticulation of being and thus posits a new truth in a multiplicity of contexts. 13

Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art Taking the function of a videogame to facilitate communication in networks such as the internet this essay will now, on the presupposition of the philosophical approaches outlined in relation to videogames as art, discuss in relation to Bogosts appropriation of Deleuze, and Habermass lifeworld theories, the socio-political impact of videogames. As mentioned earlier in the case of the avant-garde demoscene, the Badiouan Event which Bogost described as chance encounters, which relied on physical mechanisms of distribution, gave way to the systemic immaterial network of the internet; thus creating an infinite capacity for chance encounters and facilitating postmodern networks such as Deleuzes Rhizome. I will call upon both Habermas and Deleuzes anthropological visions of human culture in this modern context and discuss the notion of artistry in its inherent relation to culture. Taking Deleuze & Guattaris conflation of Marx and Freud in Anti-Oedipus the videogame posits an organ, a primitive artistic marking - belonging, in which the Body without Organs assigns itself to an intersubjective metaphysical universal history. Videogames are a conduit to un-code the overcoding of tribal meaning indicative of western society and can be observed as a form of tribal clan (Deleuze & Guattari, 1982), the deterritorialisation of the videogame facilitates a reconciliation with nature insofar as the simulated external nature is but a semiotic axiom for subjective expression. The videogame, in its rhizomatic communicative network function, posits its own aura, its own ritual, and its own parasitical dependence, the videogame is the audience for the actor, and in networks the actor posits his own truth. The grandiose potential of such an idea, as Bogost notes, is a hard sell, since the theory itself is rarely grounded in 14

Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art immediately comprehensible human experience. (Bogost, 2008 p.140) However, the organ of the videogame carries its nomadic potential in its axiomatic marking on the BwO. (Deleuze & Guattari, 1982, 1988) I will here posit that, in the linguistic fashion, Habermas holds a more appropriate argument on the notion of videogames in the form of his concept of the lifeworld. Habermas discusses system differentiation which we can posit in this sense as the lifeworld and the gameworld ...in tribal societies, system differentiation is linked to existing structures of interaction through the exchange of spouses and the formation of prestige; for this reason it does not yet make itself noticeable by intervening in the structures of the lifeworld.... In a differentiated social system the lifeworld seems to shrink to a subsystem (Habermas in Outhewaite, 1996 p.279) Taking Badious thinking we can call upon the clinical undifferentiated relationship between the player and the game in its singularity, and if we consider that network play requires prior acquisition of the operational procedure of the game, the online gameworld is a Deleuzian organ, a rhetorical unit a thinking. We can assume that the players of the game are rallied round the singularity of the event which is the clinical relationship between videogame and player which in online play is the communicative process of discerning that which is not homogeneous with the state of things. (Badiou, 2008 p.62) Ergo, there is a tribal communicative process of instrumentalising the gameworld which in its finite reasoning (thus finite instrumentalising) facilitates the truth of the speech act. The videogame singularity is not bound by the Freudian anxieties of instrumentalising external nature, thus communication within the online game is

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Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art dramatological though perhaps still bound by facets of strategic action but in a simulated sense.6 How can the relation between technical progress and the social life-world, which today is still clothed in a primitive, traditional, and unchosen form, be reflected upon and brought under the control of rational discussion? (Habermas in Outhewaite, 1996 p.42) The thoughtful pessimism of Adorno towards Benjamins Arcades is arguably undone by videogames, inasmuch as the rallying of others to a thinking polarises and dissolves this consciousness dialectically between societies and singularities, and [does] not (to) galvanise it as an imagistic correlate of the commodity character. It should be a clear and sufficient warning that in a dreaming collective no differences remain between classes. (Adorno, 1935) Adorno & Horkheimers implementation of Freud in the Dialectic of Enlightenment renewed itself explicitly in the form of the Sphinxs riddle, which led them to posit that reconciliation with nature was the absolute human condition necessary for the otherwise impossible notion of unfettered instinctual expression. In Videogames we have found immortality, and in the instrumentalisation of the videogame a departure from reason to facilitate a communicative dramatological expression, a mechanism to revert the monadic status of art in favour of the nomadic and the rhizome. Videogames are a dialectic of the mass-ego that exists only in earthquakes and thus posits a medium for pure expression which is in of itself both fascist and polarised. Videogames as such are the one and the multiple, in their deconstruction they posit

See What is universal pragmatics? P.131 for a table which outlines this process

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Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art their own faith, their own logic, and in a network an ecstasy of pure intersubjectivity. It is in this respect that the repercussions of videogame logic and rhetoric can have existential and societal impacts, and thus can be considered art and can have observable political repercussions.

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Evaluate the claim that videogames should be seen as art Bibliography Adorno, T & Horkheimer, M (1947) the Dialectic of Enlightenment London: Verso 1997 Adorno, T (1935) Letters to Walter Benjamin in Aesthetics and Politics London: Verso 2007 Badiou, A (2005) Infinite thought: truth and the return to philosophy London: Continuum 2005 Benjamin, W The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction in Cazeaux, C (Ed) The Continental Aesthetics Reader Routledge: 2000 Bogost, I (2008) Unit Operations, an Approach to Videogame Criticism London: MIT Press Deleuze, G (1962) Nietzsche and Philosophy Trans. Tomlinson, H London: Continuum, 2006 (1988) A Thousand Plateaus Trans. Massumi, B. University of Minnesota: Continuum publishing, 2004. Anti-Oedipus (1982) Trans Hurely, R. University of Minnesota, Continuum publishing, 2004. Habermas, J Technology and Science as Ideology in W. Outhwaite (ed.), The Habermas Reader, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1996. Pp. 53-65 What is Universal Pragmatics? In W. Outhwaite (ed.), The Habermas Reader, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1996. pp. 118-131 Social action, Purposive Activity in W. Outhwaite (ed.), The Habermas Reader, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1996. pp. 160-179 The Uncoupling of System and Lifeworld in W. Outhwaite (ed.), The Habermas Reader, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1996. pp. 278- 282 Technical Progress and the Social Lifeworld in W. Outhwaite (ed.), The Habermas Reader, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1996. pp. 42-43 Infocom (1980) Zork 1 [PC] Cambridge, Massachusetts: Infocom Lacan, J The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed by Psychoanalytical Experience In crits: A Selection Trans. Sheridan, R. New York: W.W. Norton & company, 1977 pp.1-7 Luks, G Realism in the Balance in Aesthetics and Politics London: Verso 2007 Nintendo (1981) Donkey Kong [Arcade] Kyoto: Nintendo Co, Ltd. Pajitnov, A (1984) Tetris [Various] Various Publishers Sobol, J (2005) Demoscene and Digital Culture in Gehman, C & Reinke, S The sharpest point: animation at the end of cinema YYZ Books, Taylor, L (2003) When Seams Fall Apart, Video Game Space and the Player. Game Studies [online] 3 (2) Available from: http://www.gamestudies.org/0302/taylor/ [Accessed 27/12/2009] Weizenbaum, J (1966) ELIZA [Various] Various Publishers 18