Posts Tagged ‘heterotopia’

Where does the video game end and the real life begin? With the arrival of simulators, augmented reality and social networking games, frontiers becomes harder to define. And so is the magic circle that separates the fantasy world from the outside world. But is there really a real, outside world that would be exempt of any fantasies? And could video games be completely isolated from their cultural context? Is the concept of magic circle not outdated? In his essay Spatial Typologies of Games, Alex Wade suggests instead to locate video games using the three spaces of Henri Lefebvre: perceived space (how we interpret space), conceived space (space of science and rationality) and lived space (the space where we live). He adds another dimension, digital space. Video games are multidimensional in his model, and need to be situated on the four axes.

by Gabriele Ferri, PhD student in Semiotics at the University of Bologna, Italy

This is the introduction of an annex discussion to the Semiotics of Video Games exhibition. It was lead by Gabriele Ferri on facebook in September 2010. Please visit the discussion page to see the reactions, and don’t hesitate to post yours.

References:

• “Computer Games, between Text and Practice“, edited by Dario Compagno and Patrick Coppock
• “Gamer Theory” by McKenzie Wark, read few quotations from his book.
• “Persuasive Games” by Ian Bogost, read few quotations from his book
• “Video Game Spaces” by Michael Nitsche, read few quotations from his book.

An article summarising the Heterotopia of Walt Disney World presentation that I gave in October 2009 is now published in the February edition of the Philosophy Now magazine. The article is part of a series of papers about ‘continental tales’ and the concept of narrative in Continental philosophy.

The slides of the lecture I gave few weeks ago can now be consulted here. I used the example of Walt Disney World to illustrate the concepts of Utopia, Heterotopia, Postmodernisn and Consumerism. It would have taken me two hours to explain all the relations between them and the theme park. My presentation was limited to half of that time and only a subset of the slides were used for the Philosophy for All lecture. Don’t hesitate to leave your feedback. I hope that the slides are still understandable even without any comments.