Jesper Juul's Games Telling Stories

In this essay, Juul tries to discover whther or not games are narratives. Although in games, humans tend to think in narrative terms it does not necessarily have to mean that it is a narrative. To prove this point Juul simplifies a plot of a common game. One is being attacked, one attacks and the ideal outcome is the defeat of the enemy. However, in the game 'Space Invaders' there is no resolution. One cannot beat the enemy as only more and more keep attacking. Another similarity between narratives and games are that they both exist in a linear structure. Juul explains that there is a conception that a narrative exists if it can be summarized. And if this is possible then it is also possible for movies to be translated to games just as games can be translated to movies. However, if once translated has lost meaning and cannot be translated back to the same movie, then it is not a narrative.
Another problem that games as narratives present is in time. There is difficulty in finding a common distance between reading/viewing time whereas a movie is able to have some sense of comparable time. The relation between player and story are also different in a novel and a game. In certain games there is no main character and there is little "story." (ie Tetris) Although games can have narratives they are not the same as those of movies and stories.

Do RPGs act more like a novel or a movie since there is a more complex story line?

The Virtual Condition

In the introduction to "The Virtual Condition," it begins by explaining how technology has revolutionized modern times. It affects the way people communicate and how they see the world. Instead viewing and communicating on a one to one basis, people do so through technology. In the following pages, Critical Art Ensemble has composed several single paragraphs that explain a part of time. Underneath it is almost the same paragraph, however, with the key terms changed into technological terms. Words such as: atoms, mental, and gospel are replaced by pixel, virtual, and database. What this does is show how technology has changed the very core of how the world works.

By changing the key terms in the paragraph, is CAE implying that technology is replacing or changing the way we see the world?

Christiane Paul's Digital: Themes from Digital Art

In this essay, Christiane Paul goes over different types of digital art. She begins by focusing on the idea of artificial intelligence. Norbert Wiener believes that there are three concepts that exist in any system or organism: communication, control, and feedback. "A volve", "Galapagos", and "Tierra" are pieces of work that all follow the same kind of idea of using computers that pick random patters to create evolved species, while the work, "Emergence", focuses more on social behavior. Artificial Intelligence has been created to help man, however, with this comes the dilemma of the existence of intelligence in a machine. The Turing test was created in order to find out if something had intelligence by having a human communicate with the machine. If the human cannot tell if it is a machine, then it is said to have passed the Turing test and therefore has intelligence. Other themes in digital art include the idea of teleprescence and telerobotics. When they are applied one can perform tasks over the internet or long distances. One example of this is the telegarden where anyone with an internet connection can see a small ecosystem grow. But with this idea of digital art and teleprescence comes the question of body and identity. How can one define the self in a virtual space? Examples of this are cyborgs, or extended humans. Other more common examples are chatrooms and the use of avatars. People are able to create their own persona that is apart from their physical body.

Q: Can one really determine intelligence by the use of the Turing test or is there something more in determining intelligence?

Walter Benjamin's The Works of fArt in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

In this essay, Walter Bejamin begins with describing some of the first techniques of reproduction. Stamping involved engraving to reproduce while lithography was made by tracing and became the way to make the first pieces of graphic art. Photography, however, quickly became much more popular than both of the previous techniques. Photography removed the hands on aspect of lithography and stamping and focused more on the use of the eye. With photography there is the idea of authenticity and the original. When something is reproduced, it is not the same as the original because of their different physical and chemical structure. In stage acting, the audience becomes the camera while in film the entire body is removed.

Benjamin also says that nowadays photography and artwork are created for the fitness for exhibiting pieces instead of its original use: cult and religious purposes. However, art is often create for art's sake and not necessarily for exhibition purposes. What do you think about this idea?

The Death of the Author

In Roland Barthes, Death of the Author, Bartes proposes that a "text's unity" is reliant upon the reader and not the author. The author may put words together, but Bartes believes that it's the reader who puts meaning to the work. The author does not have any power over what the reader takes from his work.The author's only power is to "mix writings," but they are never really his own. "A text is not a line of words releasing a single 'theological' meaning (the 'message' of the Author God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash." (73) From this he means that language by itself is only words. It is the reader that gives them meaning, and the author just puts them in a specific order. Without someone to read and interpret the work, it would only be words on a page.

I agree with Bartes statement to some extent. A work can have multiple meanings, and a reader takes what he will from it. However, an author is also a reader of his own work and his intention still exists, so I wonder does the author really "die?"

Surrealism Without the Unconscious

Jameson begins this reading with saying that every period of time has a type of genre describes that time. In this modern age he believes that Capitalism best describes it. With Capitalism there is the "extinction of the sacred and spiritual." Culture is materialistic. Film and Video seem to best fit this post mordern era. He explains that there are two kinds of art, television and experimental video or video art. He says that breaks serve as a time to contemplate or remember what has happened, however, in television he says that commercial breaks only serve as a break to get food or use the bathroom.

I don't really know what he's talking about. Hopefully, after it is further explain I'll be able to ask some questions because as of this moment I really don't know what's going on.

Claus Cluver: On Representation in Concrete and SEmiotic Poetry

Claus Cluver begins by giving James Heffernan's definition of ekphrasis as "the verbal represntation of grahic representation." (36) Hefferman excludes all non-representational paintings, sculptures, and architecture from this definition. However, Cluver defines ekphrasis as "the verbal representation of a real or fictitious text composed in a non-verbal sign system". This definition includes all those excluded from Hefferman's definition as well as "non-verbal and non-visual texts." Cluver then goes on to give different examples of ekphrasis poetry. Near the end of the essay Cluver says that many of these poems can be interpreted in many ways. Because of this, a title limits the readers interpretation but at the same time guides the readers.

In ekphrasis poetry it seems that the words and the visual image it produces are equally important. What do people notice first, the image as a whole or the words? How can this affect interpretation of the piece?