Ethical Interactivity: an Aesthetics of Intervention in Videogames

Ethical Interactivity: An Aesthetics of Intervention in Videogames By Michael Ryan Skolnik A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia 2014 Student Declaration I, Michael Ryan Skolnik, declare that the examinable outcome: Contains no material which has been accepted for the award to the candidate of any other degree or diploma, except where due reference is made in the text of the examinable outcome. To the best of my knowledge contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text of the examinable outcome; and Where the work is based on joint research or publications, discloses the relative contributions of the respective workers or authors. Signed: February 19, 2014 i Abstract This thesis isolates and describes a set of conditions in which ethical activity can fully develop through interventionist video game design and play, which the author terms “ethical interactivity.” While it is increasingly argued that videogames have the power to effect positive social change because of the affordances of the videogame medium (Bogost 2007; Flanagan 2009; McGonigal 2011), concepts for how this process of social change works and justifications for particular designs for interventionist works are comparably sparse (Frasca 2001b; Frasca 2007). This thesis focuses on aesthetics, both as a branch of philosophy dealing with beauty and artfulness, and as the set of creative/design decisions that are a part of the process of creating a specific cultural artefact, or art work. It adopts an instrumentalist approach to interventionist aesthetics, which is to say that it axiomatically takes aesthetic value to be “the capacity to produce an aesthetic experience of some magnitude” (Beardsley 1969, p. 318). In the case of interventionist art works, the work is aesthetically valuable in so far as it has the capacity to “’play’ with the audience’s fundamental beliefs, and to provoke a potential crisis in those beliefs, without producing immediate rejection” (Kershaw 1992, p.28). This thesis also advocates for certain creative/design decisions which it argues are more conducive to ethical interactivity, which it refers to as “an aesthetics of intervention” for videogames. Methodologically, this thesis conducts deep readings of relevant interdisciplinary areas of scholarship: game studies, performance theory, Alain Badiou’s Event ethics, theories of deliberative democracy and public sphere theory from a constructivist perspective. It also examines case sstuides of interventionist game design and play. It covers these topics in order to propose a coherent aesthetics for videogame intervention in the sense of an aggregate of desirable creative and design decisions; detailing a persistent ethical process by which participatory gameplay can lead to shifts in the fundamental belief structures of the participants and spread throughout societies at large through participatory democratic deliberation. To that end, it examines the nature and structure of participation and engagement in games, arguing against an immersive framework for understanding the videogame medium (Murray 1997; Grau 2003) in favour of a performative framework based on different framings for the range of actions that a player undertakes in relation to his/her multiple roles as social actor, player, and player-character (Goffman 1974; Fine 1983; Mackay 2001; Skolnik 2008b; Sicart 2011). This anti-immersive framework is linked to 20th Century anti- immersive interventionist theatre aesthetics (Meyerhold 1967; Artaud 1974; Brecht 1974; Boal ii 2002; Feltham 2006) in order to propose adapting these aesthetics to the videogame medium in order to make politically efficacious interventions using videogames. iii Acknowledgments I would like to start by thanking my supervisors, past and present, whose guidance on this project has been invaluable. To Prof. Darren Tofts, Dr. Belinda Barnet, and Christian McCrea; your input, feedback, encouragement, and guidance it the early stages of this project were instrumental to its shape and success. To Dr. Troy Innocent, your feedback in developing the thesis and an external performance piece were valuable to the work and to my artistic development. Thank you. To Dr. Steven Conway, our lengthy discussions of the theoretical portions of the thesis have refined my ideas greatly, and your editorial comments on my writing have helped it equally much. Most of all, your support in the trying parts of the project have helped carry me through, and I am inexpressibly grateful for that. I would also like to thank David Bluman-Soued for generously offering his time to proof-read early drafts and offer a well-needed layman’s perspective on them. Anyone who reads this thesis with the impression that it does not get bogged down in jargon and excess technicality has him to thank in large part for that. The PhD experience has been about more than just research, and consequently I would like to thank Christian McCrea and Dr. Raya Darcy for the opportunities to teach with you, and allowing me to develop my instructional skills and pedagogical convictions in the crucible of the classroom. The departmental and post-graduate student communities at Swinburne University of Technology’s Hawthorn Campus have been a joy to work with, and are replete with inspirational scholars doing exceptionally good work. They are also as welcoming, supportive, and friendly a group of colleagues as one could hope for, and among others, I would like to thank: Laura Crawford, for her unrelenting support and for her friendship. iv Emily van der Nagel, for swapping teaching advice and all those head-clearing chats over coffee throughout. Jane Felstead and Dr. Emma Beddows, for giving me hope for finishing this thing by example. To the rest of my close friends, locally, back home, or elsewhere, there are too many of you to name and too many things to thank you for over the years, but thanks especially for being patient with me and happy to see me when I popped my head out from the thesis rabbit-hole. Now that it’s over, I am looking forward to reconnecting with you all again. Finally, to my family, who are and who mean the world to me, thank you for your support , your faith in my abilities, and for taking it well when I decided to run off halfway around the world for 4+ years. I’ve missed you all, and I look forward to seeing you all again soon. v List of Figures Fig. 3.1: SCI Model of Immersion - p. 122 Fig. 3.2: Schema of Flow - p. 122 Fig. 3.3: Calleja’s Model of Player Involvement - p. 123 Fig. 3.4: Necessary RPG Features in the Game Frame - p. 132 Fig. 3.5: A schema of Fine's Frame Analysis of RPGs and possible frame shifts in it - p. 136 Fig. 3.6: Constative Address in Everquest II - p. 140 Fig. 4.1: Assassin’s Creed II Code-Breaking Segment, Screenshot 1/3 - p. 152 Fig. 4.2: Assassin’s Creed II Code-Breaking Segment, Screenshot 2/3 - p. 153 Fig. 4.3: Assassin’s Creed II Code-Breaking Segment, Screenshot 3/3 - p. 153 Fig. 4.4: Magic Circle – Culture Feedback Loop - p. 154 Fig. 4.5: Diegetic Reward in Foldit - p. 157 Fig .4.6: Foldit players credited as co-authors of scientific papers - p. 158 Fig. 4.7: Continuum of work and reward in games - p. 160 Fig. 5.1: Introductory splash screen of September 12th (Frasca 2003) - p. 170 Fig. 5.2: Initial September 12th game state (Frasca 2003) - p. 171 Fig. 5.3: dead-in-iraq screenshot 1/6 - p. 177 Fig. 5.4: dead-in-iraq screenshot 2/6 - p. 178 Fig. 5.5: dead-in-iraq screenshot 3/6 - p. 179 Fig. 5.6: dead-in-iraq screenshot 4/6 - p. 180 Fig. 5.7: dead-in-iraq screenshot 5/6 - p. 181 Fig. 5.8: dead-in-iraq screenshot 6/6 - p. 182 vi Table of Contents Student Declaration ........................................................................................................................ i Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ vi Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................... vii Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 1 Research Questions .................................................................................................................. 1 Epistemological Position ........................................................................................................... 1 Theoretical Perspectives ........................................................................................................... 2 Methods and Methodological Justification .............................................................................. 4 A note on how “Aesthetics” is used as a term .......................................................................... 4 Context: The aesthetic and political problem of spectacular interactivity ............................... 5 Ethical interactivity and intervention in interactive media .....................................................

Load more