Ludology.org

Last night I browsed again through Bolter's and Grusin's...

... Remediation. Definitively, the concept of remediation is extremely useful for understanding current communications and cannibalisms through different media. However, I don't think that remediation itself can fully explain the so-called "new media". The key for understanding the computer is that it does not only represent, like traditional media, but also simulates. Simulation is not about representing signs, but about modeling system's behaviors. Simulation has been quite rare in traditional media (with the exception of what Eco calls "open works" along with what Aarseth calls "ergodic literature"). Actually, the only media where simulation has thrived in our culture are toys and games. Certainly, computer games "remediate" toys and games by simulating them. This process is not new: ping pong remediates tennis outside the tennis court. But the remediation of games ("re-simulation"?) is a different process of Bolter's and Grusin's remediation, because the latter just reproduces the characteristics and conventions of a certain medium, while the first one reproduces the behavior of a dynamic system.

In other words, the concept of "remediation" is useful to understand the current blind tentatives of trying to explain new media through old media. The tendency has been to "explain" the computer as an extension of "theater" (Laurel), "storytelling" (Murray) and recently of "film" (Manovich). I would not be surprised to see anytime soon "computers as radio"; "computers as music" or "computers as photography" (come on, kids, we will soon run out of metaphors to fully explain digital media ;). The problem with all these approaches is that, while those media are well-known, they do lack the essence of the computer experience (what some call "interactivity" but I would rather use Aarseth's more accurate "ergodicism"). Unlike traditional media, the computer does not only represent but also simulates (yeah, you are right, this is my current mantra).

If there has to be an approach to understand videogames and other digital artifacts, it would have to be through the study of games and toys, because they are the only mainstream cultural form that is also ergodic. To analyse videogames as games may soon obvious, even stupid, but anybody had yet taken this path. The good thing about this approach is that it would not be a metaphor: Microsoft Word, Mario Brothers and a traditional Teddy Bear share a unique quality: they do not just represent, they simulate. I am literal when I claim that the digital medium is an extension of Teddy Bears and toy cars. Comments, anybody?

John Cayley won the Poetry ELO award

Congratulations, John!

A couple of days ago

Two disparate events happened in Montevideo, Uruguay. Firstly, dozens of police officers were sent to protect José Nino Gavazzo from a pacific demonstration that was being held outside his home. Nino Gavazzo is a well-known Uruguayan militar who was responsible from torture, murder, rape and even kidnapping of newborns during the 1973-1985 dictatorship. In a different neighborhood of the same city, within hours of difference, three children died carbonized when their house got fire. The firemen did not arrive on time, because of lack of infrastructure. In a democratic country, everybody (including monsters such as Gavazzo) has the right to be helped by public officers. The problem in Uruguay is that they seem to be too many to help the guilty ones and too little to help the innocent ones.

What I have just made is a short narrative that lets the reader know about specific actions and pieces of information about a certain situation. However, narrative cannot fully explain which are the social and behavioral rules that can produce such a situation. This is the basic difference between narrative and simulation. While simulation is also a construct that has its own limitations, it allow participants to “play” with the rules, not with the specific actions. A social simulation would not be about Gavazzo nor those three children, but about the mechanisms that allow these characters to exist. I am not claiming that simulation should replace narrative: they simply offer alternative points of view. However, there is a major ideological difference among them: narrative is static, its about facts that already happen and are unchangeable. Simulation is dynamic: it is about what could happen; it is a representational form that includes change as a possibility. Simulation may be a better tool for creating art that helps exploration, the creation of hypothesis and the consciousness that systems, such as our societies, are not static. Simulation shouts that change is possible.

Another conference:

NYU HOSTS ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTERS & THE HUMANITIES CONFERENCE "Digital Media and Humanities Research" June 13-16
http://www.nyu.edu/its/humanities/ach_allc2001/detailed_program.html

I have been playing Trópico...

... for a while now and I have to admit that I am little disappointed. I was originally excited at the idea of having a dictatorship simulator because I thought that, even if it was a parody, it would go a little further into the new trend of videogames (The Sims, Babyz) that deal with people instead of monsters and dwarfs. However, even if it sounds obvious now, I was looking at the game as somebody who endured a fascist Latin American dictatorship and not as target audience. The game can get away with things like jailing rebel leaders or “disappearing” them because it deals with Latin Americans and not with Bosnia or the Holocaust.

Whoever gets a little surprised by my remark, may say, as I heard after my DAC talk, “_Don’t take it personal. It’s just a parody”. However, parodies are not some magic genre that can get away without an ideological baggage. And why is it that the designers chose to create a “parody” game where you can disappear Latin Americans and not lynch civil rights activists in Alabama? The answer: the American public -along with many Western countries who follow Hollywood too closely- has no clue about what happenned and happens south of the border.

I don’t see a problem with simulations that deal with Human Rights atrocities. I would actually like to see more of those as long as they provide room for a critical analysis of them. The problem is that simulations are not designed to use the medium to trigger critical discussions about those subjects. As Sherry Turkle argues in Life on the Screen, players usually take for granted or accept simulation’s bias because there is not an alternative approach.

Simulations, by definition, offer a trimmed-down version of reality. Social and political life is very complex, so simulations will always be limited and in some ways, a caricature of the original system. But any author who is concerned about reality should make his bias explicit and say “hey, this is my view of how a banana republic works. Here are the tools for you to show that you agree or disagree” (if you want to find out how I envision those tools, take a look at my Thesis).

Just a quick little detail to conclude this first impression. In Trópico, if your island gets too contaminated, the US will cut their support in 20% but Russia only by 10%. While this rule is printed in the manual, an unaware player gets a nice message that Russians are dirty without any reasons that back this claim up. Oh, the pleasures of invisible simulation…

Back to life after a crazy week

I graduated on Saturday and I got some pictures to prove it! My love for costumes is probably inherited from my dad (he's an actor) and I was thrilled at the idea of wearing a cap and gown.

For those on you interested in good animation...

Check out this great version of a classic fairy tale, by Donna Leishman (who I met at the DAC 2001 conference.)

Just back from DAC 2001 in Providence, RI

Again, it was great to meet friends and colleagues. The conference was great, in spite of the fact that all the presentations were scattered all over the Brown U’s campus. I gave a talk on videogames, in the “play” panel, along with Markku Eskelinen and Jesper Juul. Interestingly, the three of us were baptized as the “ludologists”, some kind of new sect on videogame theory.

I finally met Michael Mateas, with whom we got a wonderful discussion on videogames and narrative at an Indian restaurant (along with Francisco “Pancho” Ricardo, Elin Sjursen and Stephanie Strickland).

Ok. This is my first posting

I just discovered blogs, after a short visit to Jill Walker's one. As any kid, I immediately said "I want one!". So, let's see if this is just a fade or if I will keep it for good. Time will tell.

For those out these who are interested in ideology and videogames

There is a new Sim game from the creators of Railroad Tycoon. Tropico allows you to become a dictator and control a banana republic. Having myself lived through a South American dictatorship, the prospect of “play your own dictator” may be a bit too real to play with. However, I think that it’s a great thing that videogames jump into situations that are closer to real life than the average fantasy or sci-fi game. I have not tried the game yet (no demo version available), but it looks like an interesting object for analyzing ideology and simulation.