The Future of Gaming (November 2011)
Turkish Skylife & Switch Journal for New Media
Excerpt by Jenene Castle
Full article here
Emergent gaming trends increasingly connect virtual in-game space with “ordinary†or geophysical life space. The inclusion of real world interaction within game play is imminent. For example, the developers of World of Warcraft (WoW) are currently investigating ways to synchronize WoW’s auction house with real world currency. Game worlds seem to be more inclined to partner with components in life space as opposed to the reverse. That being said, the unfortunate reality of gamification has started to take shape in both realms. There is, however, an alternative to this deluded perspective. Game designer and professor Ian Bogost notes: “Serious games have given their advocates a way to frame the use of games in governmental and industrial contexts by making the claim that games can tackle consequential topics and provide profound results.†These can range from simple games to more complex systems. For instance, Third Faction presented “DPS†(Demand Player Sovereignty), a project promoting social activism, at ISEA 2011 in Istanbul. This is one way artists have begun merging real world politics with gamespace in a non-trivial way. The future of gaming is morphing. Artists and educators are acting as a catalyst for this change. The result will be a merging of both the virtual and the geophysical world. Instead of integrating games into reality, as with gamification, reality will be integrated into games.
Digital Media and Moving Image (March 2010)
Jenene Castle
Digital Media has influenced and continues to influence the content and style of what we call contemporary moving image in numerous ways. Prior to the advances in technology, that many of us take for granted, the making of moving images was more restricted. The accessibility of technology and the exponentially arising venues available to display moving images are reshaping not only the number of works, but also the content of the pieces. The Internet has revolutionized the way video is packaged, produced, and consumed. Avenues such as You Tube and Vimeo, among others, make it possible for just about anyone with a video camera, video phone, or other capturing device to share their videos with a specific target audience at little or no cost. This opens the door for a constant stream of new subject matter that simply does not exist within film, broadcast television, or other such mediums. The diversity of people from all around the world in combination with the technological advances in moving image makes for a vast sea of content ranging anywhere from amateur videos like how-to make banana bread to new sports like turkey bowling. The immediacy of the Internet has also made it possible for anyone to record an event and have it viewable online in as little as a couple of hours. Artists, such as the organization Improv Everywhere, have been able to latch on to these media venues, in addition to hosting their own websites, to broadcast their works to a broa der range of people within their target audience. For example, Improv Everywhere posted a video titled “The Camera Flash Experiment†on You Tube in May of 2008 that has already received over 289,484 views. There are also smaller databases designed especially for artists to display their work such as VideoArt.net. Any artist can upload their work and get feedback from other artists about it. An example of this, from VideoArt.net, is the video “Cell†made by artist Maria Gabriela Ocanto that works in a non-linear way to give physical form to abstract ideas. As mentioned before, the advances in technology in combination with the diversity of people using moving images as a medium or as way to communicate with others and the ability for low cost almost immediate broadcast creates the opportunity for limitless works and substance.