Framing the Videogame Image

Framing the Videogame Image

Framing the Videogame Image A Deleuzian approach to the images and the actions of 3D videogames Geert Bruinsma (0061948) Media & Performance Studies, RMA Faculty of Humanities Utrecht University December 8, 2010 Supervisor: Joost Raessens Second reader: William Uricchio It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see Henry David Thoreau Thinking is the search for siblings … it is the searching thinking that seeks conncetions with the siblings as the one who is related yet different, related in difference, and both the same and different in relation to the common parent whose existence both unites and divides the siblings Gerhard Richter i Abstract This thesis seeks to approach 3D videogames and the action contained within them through the images they bring forth. Taking the videogame as part of a wider visual culture opens up the possibility of employing cinema theory in the investigation of the videogame image. Using a phenomenological reading of Deleuze's taxonomy of the cinema image as an analytical instrument it will be possible to locate the action within the videogame image as only a part of the multifaceted movement-image. In this model, the ability of the videogame image to engage the videogame player in the activity of videogame play is dependent on the moments of perception and of affection. It is by this tripartite nature of the videogame image that the predominance of action in 3D videogames can be assessed. By their nature as computer applications, videogames are capable of flooding its users with instantaneous and omnipresent action. Yet by their nature as image-generating machines, videogames show to be capable of a more nuanced and reflexive way of presenting action. Keywords: videogame, videogame image, visual culture, Merleau-Ponty, phenomenology, action, perception, materiality, embodiment,visual representation, interface-image, Deleuze, movement-image, action- image, affection-image, perception-image ii Foreword The thesis that lies before you is born from a threefold motivation. And while it has taken me a considerable amount of time to bring this project to completion, I am happy to find that this thesis indeed unites all three of my fascinations. The first of which finds it origin in film studies, my first academic interest. The choice to centre my thesis on the visual aspects of videogame is directly inspired by my love for the cinema. This may also account for my efforts to examine the relations between cinema and the videogame. Alongside my interest for cinema, I have, throughout both my bachelor and my masters studies, been drawn to philosophy. My interest in the applicationphilosophy to the study of (new)media was first awakened by Jos de Mul's book Cyberspace Odyssee (2003) and it culminated in a bachelor's thesis on virtual reality and its philosophical implications. This present thesis feels to me as a continuing of this vain of theoretical contemplation. While the study of film may have been my first academic preoccupation, I have been playing videogames from a much earlier age. Starting out on the Atari 2600, I soon moved to play a wide variety of games on the PC. The rise of videogames as a major force in today’s media landscape has been a much commented development over the past decade. More than often such commentaries have been accompanied by a tone of anxiety which in earlier times has also surrounded the cinema. The idea of videogames as being a superficial form of entertainment offering only crude action has since a long time been a thorn in my eye. Combined with my academic motivations, it has been my personal drive to offer a more sophisticated understanding of the videogame. I hope that this thesis, apart from offering a satisfactory product of my personal motivation, can provide a useful, academically worthwhile and insightful investigation of the videogame and its image. Dordrecht, November 2010 iii Acknowledgements This thesis could not have come into being without the help and support of others. First of all I would like to extend my gratitude to my supervisor Joost Raessens for his patience and guidance during the long process of writing this thesis. In addition I want to thank my second reader William Uricchio for his invaluable comments and suggestions on my work in the different stages of its development. Then there is a number of teachers I would like to thank for their inspiring lectures and stimulating conversations: Miguel Sicart and Gordon Calleja from the IT University in Copenhagen and Isabella van Elferen from Utrecht University. While the writing process involved in the realisation of this thesis may have been somewhat of a lonesome process, my study was not and I would like to extend my appreciation to my fellow students Lotte Harmsen, Henry Allen and Thijs Brandsma for their part in the shaping of my ideas. I am furthermore greatly indebted to my parents who have supported me along my study in both mental and material ways; thank you dear Piet en Catherine. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I thank my love Evelien; I would not be where I am without you. iv Table of Contents Abstract ii Foreword iii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents v 0 Introduction 1 0.1 The movement-image 4 0.2 Framing the thesis 6 1 What is a Videogame? 8 1.1 Videogames as visual culture 8 1.2 Defining the videogame 10 1.3 What videogames are we looking at? 13 2 Videogames and Action, Materiality, and Perception 19 2.1 Videogames and cybertextual action 20 2.1.1 Aarseth's cybertext and ergodic action 20 2.1.2 The materiality of cybernetic sign production 21 2.2 Cybernetics and materiality 23 2.2.1 The materiality of the videogame: screen, computer, controller, game and player 23 2.2.2 The player as cyborg: or, how the body matters 26 2.3 Action and perception 28 2.3.1 Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of perception 28 2.3.2 Perception as action, or the primacy of perception in videogame play 30 v 3 Videogames and the Image 34 3.1 From games to videogames: chess and Tomb Raider 34 3.2 Beyond the videogame image: procedural representation 37 3.3 The videogame image: between interface-image and visual representation 40 4 Deleuze's Movement-image 43 4.1 Deleuze and action in videogame play: multiplicity and becoming 43 4.2 The origins and context of the movement-image 45 4.2.1 The Bergsonian movement-image 45 4.2.2 The cinematic image as movement-image 48 4.2.3 Cinema 1 and 2 49 4.3 The movement-image 51 4.3.1 Frame and shot 51 4.3.2 Three avatars of the movement-image 53 5 The Movement-image as Travelling Concept, or How Cinema and Videogame Differ 57 5.1 The material differences of the cinema image and the videogame image 58 5.1.1 The moving camera and homogeneous game space 58 5.1.2 Montage and the friction between interface and representation 60 5.2 The different users: spectator and player 64 5.2.1 Deleuze and the phenomenology of perception and action 64 5.2.2 Deleuze, affect, and the centre of indetermination 68 vi 6 The Videogame Image: Three Cases 71 6.1 The action-image: Doom 3 71 6.2 The affection-image: Fallout 2 76 6.3 The perception-image: Shadow of the Colossus 81 7 Conclusion 86 7.1 Discussion 89 Bibliography 91 Ludography 96 Filmography 96 Illustrations 97 vii 0 Introduction We see the inside of a men's rest room and a man is standing at one of the urinals. He is joined by a second man who stands right beside him. Nothing out of the ordinary. Until the situation takes an awkward turn when the first man curiously starts staring over the partition at the other man's crotch, eventually asking: “can I play with it ... when you're done?” We cut to an upward shot of the man whose crotch was seemingly being admired, showing the astonished look upon the man's face while he stares down ... only to reveal the portable videogame console in his hands. He was staring – without looking away once – at the screen of his Portable PlayStation (PSP) all this time, being so consumed by the images on the screen he has wet his pants while standing in front of the urinal (fig.1). This television commercial for Sony's PSP, promotes the playing of videogames to an important extend as a visual experience. Surely, the man wets his pants because his fingers stay glued to the buttons instead of unzipping his fly to relieve himself, but it is the images on the screen which fix the gaze and capture the attention of both men. Nintendo, with its advertisement for their counterpart to the PSP the DSi XL, is even more explicit in stressing the importance of the screen(s)1: “Play instantly on larger screens,” and “enjoy the challenge on 93% larger screens”. Moreover, Sony's flagship console, the PlayStation 3 (PS3), is marketed as both a videogame console and a Blue ray player – capable of displaying films in a High Definition resolution –, fore fronting the visual capacities of the machine. The promotion of visual spectacle is not only a common trope in the marketing strategies of videogame consoles; television commercials for videogames too are laced with images displaying the visual splendour of the game in question. The advertisement for Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar North, 2008), for instance, shows us the sunrise above Liberty City, the main character Nico engaged in a fire fight, a time-laps of the shadows cast by the city's buildings racing over the crowded pavements, and the spectacular way the sunlight shines in through a skylight (fig.2).

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