I’d like to briefly share a curious experience found only through the medium of videogames. Anyone who has played an emotionally absorbing game will be aware of it, and should they have paid close enough attention (or allowed themselves to get as shamefully absorbed as I do), they will know that this experience is genuinely unique to gaming despite its apparent similarities to experiences available through other art forms. I’m talking about the emotional / rational dichotomy that occurs when interacting with characters that are supposed to be sentient in the ‘gameworld’ (but of course aren’t in the ‘realworld’). That’s a pretty vague summary, so let me explain with reference to a superb paradigm case.
There’s a videogame that was released exclusively for the Playstation 2 called ‘Shadow of the Colossus’. Even the most hardened sceptic of the notion of videogames as art would struggle to deny the ascription being applied to this beautiful piece of work. SotC worked almost excusively by exploiting the previously mentioned emotional / rational dichotomy of gaming in its requirement that players do little more than slay a number of gigantic beasts, who crucially posessed horrendously realistic AI. These giants would realistically and curiously enquire ; fearfully pull away from fire ; flee; become enraged; and eventually: die, painfully and sombrely. Some were openly aggressive to the player, while others were docile and only defended themselves when attacked.
Of course, as with Magritte’s ‘The Treachery of Images’ (above), none of the images on screen actually exhibited these emotional or behavioural responses – they merely represented them in a way that elicited some level of emotional response in the player. And yet, such was the power of these representations that few managed to avoid a sense of guilt and self-disgust at their in-game actions – and apparently, some weren’t even able to finish the game as a result.
Yet surely nobody was ever tricked into believing that the images on screen were actual; suffering; sentient beings. Every player was aware, at any given point, that their actions were the result of mathematical calculations running on a computational engine implemented by the game’s developers. In reality, they were causing no greater harm through having their represented character plunge a representational sword into a representation of a giant colossus than they would have been by hitting the delete key to remove a misspelt word from an MSWord document. Such was the rational understanding of their actions. But this failed to eliminate the hardwired emotional response to the representations on screen. Indeed, the game would have failed to work entirely should they have been able to eliminate these responses. Thus, despite always being fully aware that they were causing no harm; that they were not interacting with any sentient beings; and that therefore they could not be wronging anyone – players retained an emotional response that would only have been rationally applicable if they had been. And yet it’s precisely this ‘error’ of judgment – this triumph of emotion over reason – that renders the game’s artistic merit.
Though is it a triumph of emotion over reason? In reality: no. As mentioned, the player’s emotional response doesn’t lead them to abandon reason or their rational understanding of what exactly it is that they are doing. In a perverse real-time departmentalisation of the mind, the player simultaneously feels the emotional response elicited by causing acute suffering to a giant terrified beast, and recognises rationally that they are interacting with an unfeeling; unconscious; ‘dead’ computer program. It is this doublethink, these concurrent responses, that render an artistic experience. Through observing one’s own ‘irrational’ emotional responses rationally, the player is alienated from their own interactions; responses and observations. In doing so, the importantly artistic experience becomes an observation of one’s own brutishly (by which I mean arationally) emotional reaction to what’s happening in the game. Thus, one’s rational response becomes just as important as their emotional one.
There are a number of games recently which have played on this quasi-Brechtian notion of half breaking the fourth wall – SotC’s superb predecessor: Ico, in which a young boy attempts to lead an ethereal girl out of a castle in which they are both entombed; Fallout 3, where one plays as a newly emerging survivor into a post-apocalyptic Washington DC; and Bioshock, a fantastic critique of Randian objectivism which includes interactions with ‘little sisters’: little girls infected with a parasite whom the player can choose to ‘harvest’ (to the great benefit of the player, but at the expense of the little sister’s ‘life’) or ‘rescue’ (serving less benefit to the player, but ‘saving’ the little girl in the process)*.
Bioshock’s little sisters serve, perhaps, as an even greater example than SotC in just how bluntly they confront the player with his own emotional ‘absurdity’. Why on earth would anyone opt to ‘rescue’ an artificial representation of a little girl at their own genuine (in terms of in-game benefits) expense? Surely the ‘harvest’ option is the obvious choice given that, in realworld terms, no greater or lesser suffering; or even good or evil; is done either way – and that the ‘harvest’ option affords the player greater genuine realworld benefits (in-game currency that allows for greater gameplay options for the realworld player). So one might expect, and yet I ‘rescued’ every little sister I came across in Bioshock, and I believe most others would tell a similar story. The mere fact that games developers can market these gameplay elements as ‘moral choices’ attests to the fact that this phenomenon does occur, and works.
Through this emotional / rational dichotomy, the player gains a direct insight into the human condition through an alienating observation of their own reactions. It is not a wilful suspension of disbelief that these games ask for – it’s an unavoidable absorption of emotional responses that they render inevitable – leaving behind a rational observer that sees both a videogame as a computer program and a player as a human animal. In doing so, we’re given an insight into the human psyche – our emotional feelings of empathy; pity; love; rage; and even hatred (though I haven’t given examples, many games play on the dichotomy with negative and aggressive emotions as well as sympathetic ones), and just how arational these responses are. This is an experience that no other art form can elicit – if only because no other art form directly involves its observers like videogames do. If you’re STILL not a gamer – you’re missing out on a vast; growing; truly modern art form.
*A superb review / examination of this latter game can be found in my friend Simon T. Kaye’s blog here: http://simontkaye.com/2007/09/21/belatedly-bioshocked/
How Videogames Reveal the Animal Within
18/07/2009 in 1. Game Related, a. Game commentary | Tags: Aesthetics, Art, bioshock, Brecht, computer games, Dichotomy, Dogmeat, Emotion, Fallout 3, Gaming, Human condition, Ico, Little Sister, Magritte, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, reason, Shadow of the Colossus, The Treachery of Images, Videogames, XBox 360 | Leave a comment
I’d like to briefly share a curious experience found only through the medium of videogames. Anyone who has played an emotionally absorbing game will be aware of it, and should they have paid close enough attention (or allowed themselves to get as shamefully absorbed as I do), they will know that this experience is genuinely unique to gaming despite its apparent similarities to experiences available through other art forms. I’m talking about the emotional / rational dichotomy that occurs when interacting with characters that are supposed to be sentient in the ‘gameworld’ (but of course aren’t in the ‘realworld’). That’s a pretty vague summary, so let me explain with reference to a superb paradigm case.
There’s a videogame that was released exclusively for the Playstation 2 called ‘Shadow of the Colossus’. Even the most hardened sceptic of the notion of videogames as art would struggle to deny the ascription being applied to this beautiful piece of work. SotC worked almost excusively by exploiting the previously mentioned emotional / rational dichotomy of gaming in its requirement that players do little more than slay a number of gigantic beasts, who crucially posessed horrendously realistic AI. These giants would realistically and curiously enquire ; fearfully pull away from fire ; flee; become enraged; and eventually: die, painfully and sombrely. Some were openly aggressive to the player, while others were docile and only defended themselves when attacked.
Of course, as with Magritte’s ‘The Treachery of Images’ (above), none of the images on screen actually exhibited these emotional or behavioural responses – they merely represented them in a way that elicited some level of emotional response in the player. And yet, such was the power of these representations that few managed to avoid a sense of guilt and self-disgust at their in-game actions – and apparently, some weren’t even able to finish the game as a result.
Yet surely nobody was ever tricked into believing that the images on screen were actual; suffering; sentient beings. Every player was aware, at any given point, that their actions were the result of mathematical calculations running on a computational engine implemented by the game’s developers. In reality, they were causing no greater harm through having their represented character plunge a representational sword into a representation of a giant colossus than they would have been by hitting the delete key to remove a misspelt word from an MSWord document. Such was the rational understanding of their actions. But this failed to eliminate the hardwired emotional response to the representations on screen. Indeed, the game would have failed to work entirely should they have been able to eliminate these responses. Thus, despite always being fully aware that they were causing no harm; that they were not interacting with any sentient beings; and that therefore they could not be wronging anyone – players retained an emotional response that would only have been rationally applicable if they had been. And yet it’s precisely this ‘error’ of judgment – this triumph of emotion over reason – that renders the game’s artistic merit.
Though is it a triumph of emotion over reason? In reality: no. As mentioned, the player’s emotional response doesn’t lead them to abandon reason or their rational understanding of what exactly it is that they are doing. In a perverse real-time departmentalisation of the mind, the player simultaneously feels the emotional response elicited by causing acute suffering to a giant terrified beast, and recognises rationally that they are interacting with an unfeeling; unconscious; ‘dead’ computer program. It is this doublethink, these concurrent responses, that render an artistic experience. Through observing one’s own ‘irrational’ emotional responses rationally, the player is alienated from their own interactions; responses and observations. In doing so, the importantly artistic experience becomes an observation of one’s own brutishly (by which I mean arationally) emotional reaction to what’s happening in the game. Thus, one’s rational response becomes just as important as their emotional one.
There are a number of games recently which have played on this quasi-Brechtian notion of half breaking the fourth wall – SotC’s superb predecessor: Ico, in which a young boy attempts to lead an ethereal girl out of a castle in which they are both entombed; Fallout 3, where one plays as a newly emerging survivor into a post-apocalyptic Washington DC; and Bioshock, a fantastic critique of Randian objectivism which includes interactions with ‘little sisters’: little girls infected with a parasite whom the player can choose to ‘harvest’ (to the great benefit of the player, but at the expense of the little sister’s ‘life’) or ‘rescue’ (serving less benefit to the player, but ‘saving’ the little girl in the process)*.
Bioshock’s little sisters serve, perhaps, as an even greater example than SotC in just how bluntly they confront the player with his own emotional ‘absurdity’. Why on earth would anyone opt to ‘rescue’ an artificial representation of a little girl at their own genuine (in terms of in-game benefits) expense? Surely the ‘harvest’ option is the obvious choice given that, in realworld terms, no greater or lesser suffering; or even good or evil; is done either way – and that the ‘harvest’ option affords the player greater genuine realworld benefits (in-game currency that allows for greater gameplay options for the realworld player). So one might expect, and yet I ‘rescued’ every little sister I came across in Bioshock, and I believe most others would tell a similar story. The mere fact that games developers can market these gameplay elements as ‘moral choices’ attests to the fact that this phenomenon does occur, and works.
Through this emotional / rational dichotomy, the player gains a direct insight into the human condition through an alienating observation of their own reactions. It is not a wilful suspension of disbelief that these games ask for – it’s an unavoidable absorption of emotional responses that they render inevitable – leaving behind a rational observer that sees both a videogame as a computer program and a player as a human animal. In doing so, we’re given an insight into the human psyche – our emotional feelings of empathy; pity; love; rage; and even hatred (though I haven’t given examples, many games play on the dichotomy with negative and aggressive emotions as well as sympathetic ones), and just how arational these responses are. This is an experience that no other art form can elicit – if only because no other art form directly involves its observers like videogames do. If you’re STILL not a gamer – you’re missing out on a vast; growing; truly modern art form.
*A superb review / examination of this latter game can be found in my friend Simon T. Kaye’s blog here: http://simontkaye.com/2007/09/21/belatedly-bioshocked/