146.
It’s a strange Eden that is promised here — an atopia of indifference, absorbing the gamer even as the gamer struggles to power-up the self by targeting it. Perhaps Eden only appears to become conscious and commit suicide. Perhaps it’s a ruse to draw the gamer into risking the self. There is, of course, a backstory behind the backstory — its signs slip-sliding away from any closure. Eden is the product of ‘Project K’. Mizoguchi says the K stands for the artist Wassily Kandinsky, from whom he borrowed the synthetic synasthesia that is the defining characteristic of Rez. Kandinsky: “Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings.” Sound, luminance, color, movement and vibration all pulse together. Mizoguchi updates Kandinsky for topological times. The digital controller of the Playstation replaces mechanical one of the piano as the machine for drawing the self out of the body so that it might find itself in its struggle with something technical.
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when i observed an individual playing Rez the other day, i was blown away by how stimulating the syncopated audio/video was – it’s direct correlation to the gamers actions was really interesting to observe, and very hypnotic. as wacky as the notion of an individual reaching orgasm via a vibrator associated with a gamers every battle move is…..i can really see how it would make Rez go from one of the most stimulating things to watch and hear, to a full body exploration of the senses. kudos to this game designer for really going the extra mile in watching out for the consumers every need. and, in all seriousness, for exploring a new, very comedic route in involving the gamer in the experience, tightening the gap between the very real world of human eroticism and the parallel realities of video-game-land. one can only wonder how the vibrator would react if someone beat the game?
This is the other side to Rez being about targeting. It’s also about very blurry, boundary-less experiences as well.
it seems a little distracting to me… although i can’t tell you the number of times i have sat on couches in boredom as my male friends played video games, so this may add a new element to that scenario… a little ilinx with your agon…
That could almost be the slogan for the Trance Vibrator: “A little ilinx with your agon!” — only nobody would understand it…
Ah, so I see that you did find the Trance Vibrator. I hadn’t gotten to this page yet when I wrote my previous comment, sorry!
John: I like the idea of exploring Rez as music creation, and thanks for your ref re the Trance Vibrator.
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I think you have two chapters here. Let me say that Battle is a great chapter heading: But Battle is command and conquer battle epic scale: 1000 tanks destroyed in two hours, physical numbers games with logistics or miltiary industrial complexes or elephants Romans or Soviets on the Eastern Front – I dunno what I’m saying – I’m tired
Battle is not Fighting.
So you have to deal with Hand to Hand and Killing as a different Genre…I think this is a bigger (and more worthy) subject than “targeting” versus “firing” which is an intersting (and clearly personally but rather obscure) distinction. Obviously “targeting” depersonalises the killing and that’s a whole area to explore…and Res-Eden-etc is worth exploring more – but to pull out the stops – this is a chapter where there is MUCH work to be done. IMHO. Whatever the reference to the CAVE again on 150 is contexturally bizarre unless you are taking us back there on purpose.
Lost the plot a bit here, Sorry found myself reading but thinking what I wanted to say. I guess thats the problem with the “future of the book” I realise now I’ve stopped reading, your words, and written MY WORDS DOWN without assimilating your thesis properly. I really wanted to get the the BATTLE chapter. It was like: “Here is interesting stuff” And, since there are two chapters to go I have started to play a game where I want to get to the end (level) in THIS READING COMMENTING GAME tonight. Umm. I think I’ll stop writing waffle now. (There is something of value in that post though)
Like Roland Barthes said: the death of the author… which is the birth of reader — as writer, as meaning maker in her/his own right.
For big thoughts, i suggest moving over to the forum.
Ok so this is for the assignment in your Game Culture class. After reading this chapter I can only say that for me, when I think of game, I automatically think of battle. Perhaps this is because the word ‘game’ (for me) is attatched to ‘competition’. That is why I chose this chapter to comment on. Speaking as a person who is not really involved in video/computer games, I am still interested in how you compare the gamer to self and the game to world. The fact that there is a comparison of the game to ‘reality’ makes me think of how the game designer brings in vivid colors to exaggerate the gamespace world and stimulate the experience to the point where the gamer may choose living the ‘game life’ instead of ‘real life’. The idea of Rez, experience of battle, defeat or win, and then move up to the next level. Even though the game is simply targeting and moving up a level, I feel there is great similarity in our ‘culture’ today. We are always being timed and it is usually the time that makes us run out. We live, we have moments of victory and we die. The storyline is there, just like our ‘reality’. This sense of allegory is very relevant within this game even if it is a target game. Just as success is the top ambition through virtue, target is the goal. It feels all the same in the end.
Alexandria writes: “We are always being timed and it is usually the time that makes us run out. We live, we have moments of victory and we die” The movie Run Lola Run perhaps best exemplifies this feeling of ‘running against the clock’.
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