Brakhage, Anthropy & Jagoda – So many things!
Hi all!
I’m late on last week’s questions, but on time for this week!
First, Brakhage:
What a screening last week…! Such a combination of interesting, arresting, tedious, trying, upsetting, beautiful, thought-provoking and more. The silence; the sitting in a blackbox rather than able to move around in a gallery; and the strobing quality of colours… I went home in something of a daze, unsure what I was feeling. The subway felt particularly strange following the screening. As did talking to my partner. I felt removed and in another world. Initially (and throughout the screening) I thought immersion was totally impossible – a kind of Brechtian distanciation that made me continually aware of the screen, the room we were in, the people around me, my body and all the thoughts running through me. And then after the screening, given that dazed-type feeling I experienced, I wondered if maybe I was wrong. Maybe there was something wholly immersive about that experience?
Anthropy:
So, the questions people asked are awesome. I feel like lots of ground has already been covered. I’m going to try avoiding repetition and share a couple questions that are still lingering/standing out to me as of today.
1. I found really interesting and exciting the way Anthropy homed in on the rules/constraints parts of games. As compared with Ibister who focused much more on affect, Anthropy (when looking at what games do) focused more on the constraints and resulting interaction. What are the parallels and differences between Anthropy and Ibister in terms of how they frame discussions and impact of making and playing games?
2. In Chapter 7, Anthropy offers a breakdown on how to build a game. A methodology for crafting. Did anyone have thoughts on this? I’m very interested in the “dramaturgy” of interactive art making, and curious about different models of/for craft. I found this interesting and useful, but curious about other people’s thoughts/input?
Jagoda:
1. Does anyone else wish we had another week on this book? I am not entirely finished yet, and am not enjoying zooming through this read. There is so much here! Anyone else feel that way too???? I feel this question and the ones that follow are very cursory and underformed. Ack!
2. I love this question offered by Jagoda early in the book: “How can we compare social objects in a world where most such objects, whether nations, ideas, technologies and economies, seem deeply interconnected?” — How do you respond to this? And then, as a counterpoint, in what ways have networks and our networked times made more visible the ways that nations, ideas, technologies and economies have long been deeply interconnected (i.e. it is not the networked age itself that has caused this interconnection — at least very least at the level of the State, though arguably not only at the level of State(s) — but rather the digital networking we now access has enabled this interconnection to be more visible)? And a further counterpoint, in what ways, despite the interconnection now possible, in what ways are nations, ideas, technologies and economies still disconnected?
3. Jagoda writes: “Limits are, after all, not merely markers of inadequacy but parameters that enable innovation and experimentation. A creative form’s constraints also mark the social limits and historical horizons of the human world from which it issues.” I wanted to note this passage, in part, because of the earlier point I was bringing up about the Anthropy reading, and the ways she discusses games/game design as (human and interface) interactions with/between rules and constraints. I’m not entirely sure what my question is here, but I’m curious about this. As a maker, I tend to agree wholeheartedly about what constraints offer. That they are necessarily places of innovation and experimentation. I’m curious what other threads and connections are here?
4. “… while networks (whether they take the form of metaphors, figures, visualizations, or infrastructures) can help apprehend various types of complexity, they are nonetheless grounded in the scientific, political, social, and aesthetic preferences of our time.” What is your take on the position that while networks seem, at this time, to be the encompassing and universal form that “explain(s) everything”… that rather, this view is rooted in our current time? And, then in contrast, is the tree really the lasting metaphor connecting all times? Yes, rhizomes, Deleuze and Guattari, yes. But even then, aren’t we still talking trees?
5. Let’s take up the questions Jagoda puts to us:
- “If so many things and relationships are figured as networks, what is not a network?”
- “If so much can be treated as interconnected, does anything escape connectivity?”
- “…what comes after networks?”
- “…if a network points toward particular logics and qualities of relation in our time, what others might we envision in the future?”
SO MUCH! My brain!!!!!!!