Future Cinema

Hannah Week 9 Presentation Summary

Hi all, here is a link to my presentation summary for Wednesday on google drive: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EPJwHXog1c_WUB2CSpKH8q3b2r0r0xf9 . This is actually a reading from earlier in the term (Klein’s Vatican to Vegas), but I think it will still work well with the topic of immersive spaces.

Week 8 Readings – Shabnam

Cinema does not provide the experience of pride or guilt – which games claim to do.
Q – How can possibly emotions of pride and guild produce empathy and social connection? Can these emotions provide catharsis or simply damages the gamer’s ‘affectability’?

Social context and role play: Goffman talks about the appropriateness of social behaviour: for instance even if you don’t want to smile at your neighbour, you nod politely. This doesn’t need to be with a game. You can adopt an alternate personality – which actually may be more representative of your true self.
Q – Can gaming therefore prompt you or encourage you to remove your ‘masks’ and ‘filters’ which are assumed as a result of ‘socialization’ – can this help lower these filters and result in more truthful relationships? Alternatively does it run the risk of mayhem?

Comment – I would like to argue against the notion that ‘only games that can evoke a sense of choice and responsibility resulting in guilt’. Films with a strong social context, which provoke you enough to get you out of your comfort zone can also produce feelings of guilt through their ‘message’: “Me too” OR: “Save the Planet” social responsibility – shots of asphyxiated animals etc. evoke a feeling of guilt in the viewer: I am part of the problem kind of feeling – that such ‘message’ films evoke in the viewer. (in reference to the points made on Page 9)
AI questions:
Q – If technology designs our behaviour as human beings, how can it alter previously known patterns of behaviour for better (or worse)?

Q – How is AI going to offer information to the world in which we learn more about ourselves? – Is AI going to be a mirror to the world?

A robot puppet can learn to walk if it’s hooked up to human legs

An article in the MIT Technology Review caught my eye. Found it extremely intriguing. The human-robot connection feels like parent-child relationship!
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614649/a-robot-puppet-can-learn-to-walk-if-its-hooked-up-to-human-legs/

Questions for Oct. 30- Deepa

October 30th Questions — Alex

Concerning the state of flow and the eight factors which contribute to it – a challenging activity requiring skill, a merging of action and awareness, clear goals, direct + immediate feedback, concentration on the task at hand, a sense of control, a loss of self-consciousness, an altered sense of time – do you think games can achieve this state of flow without adhering to all 8 factors? Any examples of enthralling games which don’t adhere to all aspects of the concept?

Does anyone have any ideas about how VR/ AR tech could be employed to enhance the casual enjoyment of words with friends or similar “downtime filling” games?

Are there any other examples you can remember of games having deeply emotional impacts on you (like Floyd sacrificing himself in Planetfall)?

Are different strategies necessary to develop “identification grounded in observation as well as action and experience” (13) in games which assign the player an unchangeable avatar vs games which afford the player complete control over their avatar?

Questions from Michaela – 30 October

1. In the two readings by Ibister and and by Ginsberg, for me, the main question arises: do we need AI applications and games in order to better understand ourselves as humans or the reality around us and the others but not necessarily ourselves?

2. What is better for our human comprehension, that these machines are built based on the similarity, simulation and mirroring or rather on the difference in order to show us our uniqueness?

3. And if we understand games as simulations of reality in order to understand it better, in order to foster socially based emotions such as jealousy, pride, community, togetherness, guilt, complicity; what does it say about humanity when the 1st person shooter games belong among the most popular ones?

4. Many games (as well as serial formats) prove that the 3-act-structure is only one side of narrative formats, and that ‘experiences’ and ‘games’ give us another kind of ‘hybris’ – and that is through emotional journey and user flow. Why are these new media formats marginalized in comparison to the cinema, which is considered as high art?

Week 8 Questions_Sisi Wei

1. “How Games Move Us” talks about the importance of the flow and the emotional impact the games could provide us. I understand that games could drive our emotions to anxiety, curiosity, frustration and such, because we are experiencing and exploring the game world and mostly, we are trying to do certain tasks. But plot-wise, unlike films, how do games possibly make us sad or make us cry, do games have such impact on our emotions that tie us closer to the characters?

2. “How Games Move Us” also talks about how films evoke audience’s emotions, they would like to share their emotions after watching the films, but in my personal experience, when friends are talking about games, they tend to focus on how to achieve certain goals, to earn points, what the techniques they require to win, rather than talking about emotional impact from the game. Is it fair to compare the games with the films in this kind of emotion-evoking way, since they function differently?

3. The Frankenstein AI emphasizes the human experience with AI, AI is able to reflect back emotions to human after receiving human’s responses. I think when AI is trying to be more human, and interact with us, at the same time, the process makes human think more of the differences between the two, I think it creates a boundary, when humans interact with AI, they pay close attention to details of how AI responses, it reminds us that human and AI are difference, hence, the gap between human and AI appears bigger. Would this be an issue to overcome in the future, and encourage AI to be just like a human, if someday we have such techniques?

4. If AI truly understands human emotions, then what makes them different than us, or how do humans still have control of AI?

Week 8 Questions – Matt

1. There’s been a lot of discussion surrounding the danger of games incorporating Skinner Box techniques and design elements into things like mobile games and the like. What does the class think of this?
2. Alongside my first question, several governments have been discussing the possibiliy of legislating that “loot boxes” are a form of gambling. Do we think this is an appropriate safety precaution or is it a step too far?
3. Is it exploitative for games to constantly release extra contant at a premium rate, effectively creating what some scholars have called “a culture of haves and have-nots?” Or is it fair play?
4. What is it about games that attracts so many people to want to work on them in a creative capacity versus other artistic mediums?

Week 8 Questions – Grayson

1. As game cultures are more and more “mainstreamed”, more emphasis (inside and outside of gaming circles) has been placed on the beneficial effects of investment, individuation and relationship-building within game worlds. By encouraging emotional/social connection and development, are games behaving counter to the (maybe less so, lately) narratives of violence and isolation pushed by influential interests in media and politics? Have they always been this way, and simply misunderstood, or is this development part and parcel with the growth/maturation of the communities involved?

2. Dovetailing with our discussion last week around the issue of bias in AI, how does this temper our enthusiasm for learning/growing in and through virtual environments?

3. If games offer users the ability to inhabit a subject position within historical events, either as observer or to “play” the role of an important figure, they undoubtedly expand the possibility for emotional engagement/understanding of complex (and often alien) narratives. On the other hand, they necessarily exercise a degree of artistic license and/or revisionism. Weighing the pros/cons of the practice, does this extend, or rub against, journalistic ethics?

4. Being transparently self-serving, here: is it politically useful to think of experience design, community building and emotionally-engaged practices of digital-worldmaking as opportunities/spaces for the workshopping of “otherwise possibility”? Can the game space model alternative ways of being together in the “real” world, or rather, can the game space create entirely new spaces for the unfolding of social and political life?

October 30 Questions-Julia

1) Reflecting on Katherine Ibister’s piece regarding game design techniques evoking strong emotions for players, do you believe this could be an issue/concern in terms of violent-in-game behaviour? Do you believe playing violent video games can have an impact and/or influence real-world violence behaviour?

2) How do you think video games can be used to regulate emotions?

3) Do you prefer playing video games on your own or prefer social play with others? Does each experience evoke different emotions for you?

4) Frankenstein AI is meant to provoke conversation and exploration around AI, allowing us to build an algorithm powered by emotional data. In the article it is stated, “It is safe to say that most humans don’t understand AI at all. If we want to have any influence on how AI evolves we need an entry point into the conversation that allows us to position ourselves in the narrative about it.”

That being said, what are other ways in which humans can become more aware of AI. Do you think most humans have no interest in AI possibly out of fear? Or do you think many are genuinely interested in knowing more about AI and influencing it?

5) If you could create an experiment similar to the Frankenstein AI, what would it be?