Space Modders: Learning from the Game Commune By Alex Kypriotakis-Weijers TU Delft Faculty of Architecture, Urbanism & the Built Environment Explore Lab Studio Research paper Supervising Tutor: Stavros Kousoulas This page is intentionally blank 2 Whole Earth Catalog / Steward Brand et al. 3 Space Modders: Learning from the Game Commune By Alex Kypriotakis-Weijers TU Delft Faculty of Architecture, Urbanism & the Built Environment Explore Lab Studio Research paper Supervising Tutor: Stavros Kousoulas Winter 2020 Abstract This essay attempts to investigate the workings and potentialities of videogames as a medium for participatory design and practices of commoning in architecture. The analysis begins with exploring videogames as non-normative experiences and the effects of those experiences on the players which lead to the emergence of the game commune; a force that is affecting they way games are being made. These phenomena are becoming more than individual and collective interactions as they are capable to generate highly innovative and unique virtualities in digital spaces. If architecture, as it is itself a mean of generating virtualities, adopts the commoning practices similar to those of the game commune, it could lead to a more inclusive and open- source building tradition. Keywords: video games, architecture, Simondon, commons, play, identity, tools Introduction Let me begin paradoxically stating the problem of this research by talking about problems. In architectural practice we tend to treat design questions/problems as a set of existing conditions of a specific moment in time that when altered, result to a desired condition in the form of a building. The information about the site, its environment and the wishes of the stakeholders goes through the process of being investigated by the architect through multiple layers of nature, engineering, society, law, finance and so on. The result is the arrangement of this information in the form of drawings, models, plan of execution and other documentation that we consider as an “solution” to the design question. The issue with this process is that it provides a design solution by and for several individuals that existed under specific conditions, on a specific time with specific beliefs and desires. Even with the most noble of intentions to make a design future-proof in terms of environmental and social sustainability, it is still a solution to answer a specific question at that time and give speculative answers for questions of the future. Furthermore, it is a solution that remains closed inside an environment that was generated by selecting pieces of information under a certain perspective, thus forming a separate, unique reality of its own. In a sense, information is formation according to a specific input. The architect therefore follows a specific narrative assembled by the information that according to their perspective deemed relevant for their design. Additionally, the narrative of how they have arrived at their design solution is by itself irrelevant to the actual result. If the 4 architect used big data, dancing or a game as a tool of analysis it is a trivial fact to the architectural objects themselves: they are still objects designed through the process of some data. This cycle derives from the fact that architects are searching for THE solution or THE method that can be applied everywhere, anytime to anyone or to a specific somewhere, moment or someone. But what about the problem or the design question itself? That seems to be the stage that is subjected to subjectivity the most. Who gets to decide and have the most say in that? The actors? Science? Nature? Politics? Ethics? The architect? Every possible scenario deriving from all these influencers will result to something tailored to the one with the most influence but is that enough to constitute THE problem? If that was the case, then it would be totally justifiable to be talking about THE method that lead to THE solution. Problems are complex and their definition will always differ dramatically from different sides therefore it is futile to seek solutions based on performance or desirability alone. So, what would be a good way to address spatial problems that is as inclusive, efficient and fluid as possible? Algorithms base their solutions within the boundaries of their parameters and cybernetic connections therefore fail to include what is out of the reach of their perceptual instruments. It is less time consuming, but this is no better solution than the ones eventually made by architects and technicians. If we want to get out of that closed cybernetic network loop, we need to establish a new relation between actors and machines. Gilbert Simondon mentions the production of alienation not on basis of ownership of the means of production by the industrialists or the workers but based on power between men(sic) and machine(Simondon, 2017). 19th century craftsmen had power over the tools (things that make and measure to a lesser extent) and the instruments (things that only measure) as means of production but with the advent of factories, workers were left only with tools and were alienated from the power of measuring and adjusting their tools in order to create. They became practically a component of the factory machine themselves. This is still the case even in our current times. As an example, fake news might be instrumental in pushing dubious political agendas, but they wouldn’t be anywhere if it wasn’t for that sense of spreading individual influence through a machine. People are allured by social media not because they provide instant gratification per se, but because they give the illusion of power over a machine that has in turn power over others. An illusion because the machine is still in control over what becomes trending and what not, causing more trouble than solving any through its algorithms. Adding a note on the close-system flaw of machines: The algorithms that were set up to prevent the spread of fake news on YouTube ended up linking videos on facts about 9/11 with the fire in Notre Dame in Paris just because the similarity of the smoke and the two bell towers visually resembled the events of the Twin Towers in New York, thus framing the news story in the eyes of the public as a potential terrorist act (Paul, 2019). The machine didn’t have the ability to foresee the social implications of making such an assumption and voided the purpose it was specifically designed for. While it is a machine that possesses tools and instruments, as means of reading information and acting on it, it fails to quantify the unforeseeable psychological and qualitative parameters that it is supposed to be monitoring. Another point of focus on alienation in relation to power is consumerism, loosely connected to the Marxist approach. Take almost any product available for purchase: there is an extremely small percentage of individuals who are active in the production of that product in comparison 5 with the rest of the population who is on the receiving end. Let’s take a pair of sport trademark shoes as a first example; an object designed by a few specialists that have measured the correct traction and pressure necessary to provide a comfortable running experience on the feet of the user but has to comply with the managerial decisions that have profit as their objective; this is the first stage of alienation between designer and the industrialist. It is then manufactured by skilled workers who have no say in the design process, if no say at all in anything, and only execute the design thus falling under the second stage of alienation. The third stage is about the consumers who buy the product who have no idea how the product is made, where the materials are coming from, actual cost, the knowledge behind shoe design and so on. It becomes an object devoid of technicity for the one who is using it thus reducing it to something expendable, temporal and insignificant while it is a product of technical expertise. Since now the consumer cares only about its use and not about its process, it is usually the case if not always that they do not think of repairing, improving or refurbishing that pair, but would rather discard it; a product to be consumed. The same example goes for packed grocery products from overseas to smartphones and buildings. We have very limited knowledge about the technics of our buildings and cities even though we spend the entirety of our lives within them. This complete disconnection between humans and technicity is not only solely an issue of estrangement of an individual with their humanity as defined by Marx, but an issue of estrangement with the ecologies they occupy and have a direct or indirect effect on. This estrangement with the working and production of technical objects shows that there is a lack of knowledge and practice therefore human thought must establish an egalitarian relation, without privilege, between technics and man. This task must still be accomplished, because these phenomena of technical dominance […] maintain an inadequate relation between human reality and technical reality (Simondon, 2017, p. 104). However, there is a certain media and group of individuals involved around it that seem to have bridged this gap between human and technical reality in a paradoxically and unreal (pun intended) way: Videogames, their makers and players. Videogames, as products of creation and interaction, are an example of how technical and human reality have a balanced relation with each other. As products of creation, videogames are platforms of expression that consist of core mechanics, storytelling/narratives and elements of interactivity (Rollings & Adams, 2003, p. 9). The way that the elements of interactivity and core mechanics are being designed by game developers most of the time are done in such a way so that there is not a relationship of dominance of the game over the player or the player over the game1.