Future Cinema

Question (s) for Tomorrow’s Class

Reading The Digital Baroque, I was most struck by a passage on Page 218 in which Murray cites an quotation from Antonin Artaud that states “The cinema seems to me to have been made to express matters of thought, the interior of consciousness.”

As such, I was wondering if we could discuss how do other art forms and/or technologies engage us on the level of thought? Similarly, how do other art forms and/or technologies activate memory? Is intellectual stimulation and activation of memory key to making a work of art great?

- Theo X

Separating wheat from the chaff

Anthropy’s dream of an egalitarian model of video game production—one where anyone who wants to make video games has access to the tools to do so—promises a glut of games, good and bad, from countless new voices. As she acknowledges, though, most of these games will be “mediocre,” citing YouTube as a similar democratizing resource that made it possible for anyone to make “content” (ugh), even though most of them are “boring, familiar, or unwatchable” (11).

In this model of video gaming scene, is there no role whatsoever for “gatekeepers” of any kind? Who determines the “value” of the games—or identifies and articulates the value different games may have for different players? (This is presuming, of course, that reaching more than a handful of players is the developer’s goal.) Since publishers and developers have too much of a vested interest in making sure certain titles earn back their investment, does an equal-opportunity video game industry as envisioned by Anthropy still require a critical body to ensure worthwhile games find players? Is the existing network of online sites, blogs, and critics sufficient?

Tags: Anna Anthropy, criticism

Critical Play Discussion Questions

1. Flanagan calls play a safe space: an inherent aspect of play is that one must feel comfortable before participating. But is this necessarily the case? Are there instances in which play can occur without comfort being offered to the player?
2. Building off of that question, does play inherently result in fun? Can the activist experiences Flanagan cites necessarily be called “fun” by our standards?
3. Play is inherently a performative act. How does that factor into our perception of games as a kind of “future cinema?”

Kyoko’s Final Project Proposal

I missed the class time, but here is my proposal.

Future Cinema I / Fall 2017

York University FILM 6507

Proposal for the Final Project

Kyoko Yokoma

Title: Tales of Fukushima

My final project is a multi-screen documentary about the aftermath of Fukushima nuclear disaster. It is an experiment to create an emotionally, intellectually and geographically immersive work in digital media. Using the footage I have filmed in Fukushima since 2014, this work combines some elements of the immersive world described by Scott Lucas –big idea, story, experience, and design –in a simple multi-screen cinema setting. [1]

As seen early in Man with a Camera by Dziga Vertov and followed by many others including Labyrinth Pavillion in Expo 67, multiscreen, montage and split-screen cinema formats have been considered experimental, and therefore, non-narrative. If story is a major factor for creating an immersive world as Lucas said, and if that is what a project aims to be, there should be no reason to avoid it. I will implement stories which the form would expand but would not completely deconstruct.

The multiscreen presentation consists of three screens placed in a U shape. Viewers will be mostly occupied by the narrative on the front screen while the other two long screens show landscapes, creating environment and space that would influence viewers but may not get full attention from them. The 5.1 surround sound will enhance the three-dimensional experience. The goal of the project is to make viewers “feel like a ‘jam’” in the world of music, which “happens as they take everything about the space in and as it begins to act on their eyes and minds.” [2]

[2] Ibid., 93.

game innovation lab @ucs

http://www.gameinnovationlab.com/

Welcome to the Game Innovation Lab®

We are the premier center for experimental game design research at USC. Founded in 2004, the lab is directed by Professor Tracy Fullerton. The mission of the lab is to pursue experimental design of games in cultural realms including art, science, politics and learning.
The international success of games that have emerged from the lab, including Cloud, flOw, Darfur is Dying, The Cat and the Coup and The Night Journey, have made it a hub for indie and experimental games culture in Los Angeles. Our Playthink Salons attract speakers and participants from across the city and across disciplinary boundaries.
Associated faculty include award winning game designers Richard Lemarchand (Uncharted series) and Peter Brinson (Waco, The Cat and the Coup) as well as pioneering games user researcher Dennis Wixon. Research staff include up and coming game designers Sean Bouchard, Martzi Campos, as well as the talented digital media artists Todd Furmanski and Lucas Peterson. Graduate student researchers in the lab have gone on to stellar careers at Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Zynga and more.
The lab has a strong history of collaboration with cross-disciplinary experts in many fields, including education and technology. Our commitment to an iterative, participatory process brings users, stakeholders and designers into constant dialogue.
Current projects, such as the FutureBound suite of games Walden, a game, and the ChronoCards History games are supported by Microsoft Research, The Gates Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Gilbert Foundation, and The Department of Education.
While there are many areas of game design that the members of the lab community are pursuing, the top-level initiatives of the lab focus on the following areas of investigation:
Experimental game design
Games and learning
Games user research, analysis and metrics
Game aesthetics
Narrative play
Emergent world design
Communities of play
Convergence and cross-media play

Tags: experimental games, Fullbright games, games, tracy fullerton

shared do for questions – oct 18

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uEPysT9MNYHQNdX3j9nlQpzix9JKmKeqbGUlJuXIh_c/edit?usp=sharing

Anna Antropy talks about how playing a game that recreates the dynamics or systems can help people explore and understand how those relationships work. She uses Tetris and “Gang Rape” as examples. I wonder how this works in gaming for social change. Game rules and the dynamics could be used to understand someone else’s situation. Does the game need to take place in that specific situation to work (such as Gang Rape or Cart Life from the Isbister book) or does the dynamic (like in Tetris) have the same affect even with something more abstract?

our guest next week: Justin Stephenson (and Gord Downie ;)

http://junoawards.ca/nomination/video-of-the-year-justin-stephenson/

Justin Stephenson is an award-winning filmmaker and moving image designer.

Working with Gord Downie and Jeff Lemire, Justin directed the animation, edited, and supervised the design on the new animated film, The Secret Path. It tells the true story of Chanie Wenjack, a twelve-year-old boy who escaped from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School near Kenora, Ontario. While attempting to walk 600 kilometres home to Ogaki Post, Chanie died on October 22, 1966.

Last year, Justin released The Complete Works based on the work of renowned avant-garde author and poet, bpNichol. The film toured internationally at film and literature festivals, and won two Golden Sheaf awards at the 2016 Yorkton Film Festival: Best Arts and Culture Doc, and The Founders Award for best film depicting a historical Canadian figure.

Justin studied photographic arts at Ryerson University and continued with a graduate degree in communications and cultural studies at York University, researching the relationship between avant-garde writing and digital recombinatory art – the remixing of different media materials.

Justin’s work focuses on materialities – the physical qualities of subjects and media. For example, the ink, paper and letterforms used in his title work for David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, in which the narrative is staged on letter writing.

Developing concepts through process, Justin takes a hands-on approach with all aspects of production from the direction, design, editing, and animation through to post production.

Aside from filmmaking and film title work, Justin also directs and designs sequences for television, commercials, interactive media, and live performance. He created the video design and projections for Fujuwara Dance Inventions’ production of Christian Bök’s Eunoia, and the animation design for the 2015 remounting of Robert Lepage’s Erwartung and Bluebeard’s Castle with The Canadian Opera Company.

Games and our experiences

In taking about the start of games and game culture, Anna Anthropy writes how early game creators made games that “looked like their own experiences: physics simulations, space-adventures drawn from the science fiction they enjoyed.” (5-6) While a game is dictated by the rules of its world, a game is nevertheless a system that can be manipulated by the user. Each of these systems coalesces into an experience for a user that mixes both the forced experience of the game with the users own experiences.

My questions are, do you think about how your own experiences are either reflected in or by the game? How does the game’s structure/story/etc. illuminate elements of your own life experiences? And finally, with the multitude of game and system options, how do you think your experiences factor into the choices you make when picking a game to play?

—marko

November conference on “phonoculture” in Toronto…

Hey all! The Tuning Speculation conference (at 155 Walnut St.) is happening from Nov. 17-19, 2017. Check out the programme and come on down!

http://www.theocculture.net/tuning-speculation-v-schedule/