The Aesthetics of Videogames

The Aesthetics of Videogames PDF Author: Jon Robson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351809458
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
This collection of essays is devoted to the philosophical examination of the aesthetics of videogames. Videogames represent one of the most significant developments in the modern popular arts, and it is a topic that is attracting much attention among philosophers of art and aestheticians. As a burgeoning medium of artistic expression, videogames raise entirely new aesthetic concerns, particularly concerning their ontology, interactivity, and aesthetic value. The essays in this volume address a number of pressing theoretical issues related to these areas, including but not limited to: the nature of performance and identity in videogames; their status as an interactive form of art; the ethical problems raised by violence in videogames; and the representation of women in videogames and the gaming community. The Aesthetics of Videogames is an important contribution to analytic aesthetics that deals with an important and growing art form.

The Aesthetics of Videogames

The Aesthetics of Videogames PDF Author: Jon Robson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351809458
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 375

Get Book Here

Book Description
This collection of essays is devoted to the philosophical examination of the aesthetics of videogames. Videogames represent one of the most significant developments in the modern popular arts, and it is a topic that is attracting much attention among philosophers of art and aestheticians. As a burgeoning medium of artistic expression, videogames raise entirely new aesthetic concerns, particularly concerning their ontology, interactivity, and aesthetic value. The essays in this volume address a number of pressing theoretical issues related to these areas, including but not limited to: the nature of performance and identity in videogames; their status as an interactive form of art; the ethical problems raised by violence in videogames; and the representation of women in videogames and the gaming community. The Aesthetics of Videogames is an important contribution to analytic aesthetics that deals with an important and growing art form.

The Composition of Video Games

The Composition of Video Games PDF Author: Johansen Quijano
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476673934
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
Video games are a complex, compelling medium in which established art forms intersect with technology to create an interactive text. Visual arts, architectural design, music, narrative and rules of play all find a place within, and are constrained by, computer systems whose purpose is to create an immersive player experience. In the relatively short life of video game studies, many authors have approached the question of how games function, some focusing on technical aspects of game design, others on rules of play. Taking a holistic view, this study explores how ludology, narratology, visual rhetoric, musical theory and player psychology work (or don't work) together to create a cohesive experience and to provide a unified framework for understanding video games.

The Art of Videogames

The Art of Videogames PDF Author: Grant Tavinor
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 9781444310184
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
The Art of Videogames explores how philosophy of the artstheories developed to address traditional art works can also beapplied to videogames. Presents a unique philosophical approach to the art ofvideogaming, situating videogames in the framework of analyticphilosophy of the arts Explores how philosophical theories developed to addresstraditional art works can also be applied to videogames Written for a broad audience of both philosophers and videogameenthusiasts by a philosopher who is also an avid gamer Discusses the relationship between games and earlier artisticand entertainment media, how videogames allow for interactivefiction, the role of game narrative, and the moral status ofviolent events depicted in videogame worlds Argues that videogames do indeed qualify as a new and excitingform of representational art

Works of Game

Works of Game PDF Author: John Sharp
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262029073
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 157

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Book Description
An exploration of the relationship between games and art that examines the ways that both gamemakers and artists create game-based artworks. Games and art have intersected at least since the early twentieth century, as can be seen in the Surrealists' use of Exquisite Corpse and other games, Duchamp's obsession with Chess, and Fluxus event scores and boxes—to name just a few examples. Over the past fifteen years, the synthesis of art and games has clouded for both artists and gamemakers. Contemporary art has drawn on the tool set of videogames, but has not considered them a cultural form with its own conceptual, formal, and experiential affordances. For their part, game developers and players focus on the innate properties of games and the experiences they provide, giving little attention to what it means to create and evaluate fine art. In Works of Game, John Sharp bridges this gap, offering a formal aesthetics of games that encompasses the commonalities and the differences between games and art. Sharp describes three communities of practice and offers case studies for each. “Game Art,” which includes such artists as Julian Oliver, Cory Arcangel, and JODI (Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans) treats videogames as a form of popular culture from which can be borrowed subject matter, tools, and processes. “Artgames,” created by gamemakers including Jason Rohrer, Brenda Romero, and Jonathan Blow, explore territory usually occupied by poetry, painting, literature, or film. Finally, “Artists' Games”—with artists including Blast Theory, Mary Flanagan, and the collaboration of Nathalie Pozzi and Eric Zimmerman—represents a more synthetic conception of games as an artistic medium. The work of these gamemakers, Sharp suggests, shows that it is possible to create game-based artworks that satisfy the aesthetic and critical values of both the contemporary art and game communities.

Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Narrative Aesthetics in Video Games

Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Narrative Aesthetics in Video Games PDF Author: Deniz Denizel
Publisher: Peter Lang D
ISBN: 9783631838051
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Narrative Aesthetics in Video Gamesis a collection of contemporary research and interpretation that explores the narrative structures in video games and ludonarrative content design in related media. Featuring coverage of a broad range of topics, including narrative theory, game studies, history of video games, and interdisciplinary studies, this book is ideally designed for scholars, researchers, intellectuals, media professionals, game developers, entrepreneurs, and students who wish to enhance their understanding of the relationship and correlation of video games, narrativity, and aesthetics.

The Aesthetics of Violence

The Aesthetics of Violence PDF Author: Robert Appelbaum
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 178660504X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
Violence at an aesthetic remove from the spectator or reader has been a key element of narrative and visual arts since Greek antiquity. Here Robert Appelbaum explores the nature of mimesis, aggression, the effects of antagonism and victimization and the political uses of art throughout history. He examines how violence in art is formed, contextualised and used by its audiences and readers. Bringing traditional German aesthetic and social theory to bear on the modern problem of violence in art, Appelbaum engages theorists including Kant, Schiller, Hegel, Adorno and Gadamer. The book takes the reader from Homer and Shakespeare to slasher films and performance art, showing how violence becomes at once a language, a motive, and an idea in the experience of art. It addresses the controversies head on, taking a nuanced view of the subject, understanding that art can damage as well as redeem. But it concludes by showing that violence (in the real world) is a necessary condition of art (in the world of mimetic play).

Games

Games PDF Author: C. Thi Nguyen
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190052082
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
Games are a unique art form. They do not just tell stories, nor are they simply conceptual art. They are the art form that works in the medium of agency. Game designers tell us who to be in games and what to care about; they designate the player's in-game abilities and motivations. In other words, designers create alternate agencies, and players submerge themselves in those agencies. Games let us explore alternate forms of agency. The fact that we play games demonstrates something remarkable about the nature of our own agency: we are capable of incredible fluidity with our own motivations and rationality. This volume presents a new theory of games which insists on games' unique value in human life. C. Thi Nguyen argues that games are an integral part of how we become mature, free people. Bridging aesthetics and practical reasoning, he gives an account of the special motivational structure involved in playing games. We can pursue goals, not for their own value, but for the sake of the struggle. Playing games involves a motivational inversion from normal life, and the fact that we can engage in this motivational inversion lets us use games to experience forms of agency we might never have developed on our own. Games, then, are a special medium for communication. They are the technology that allows us to write down and transmit forms of agency. Thus, the body of games forms a "library of agency" which we can use to help develop our freedom and autonomy. Nguyen also presents a new theory of the aesthetics of games. Games sculpt our practical activities, allowing us to experience the beauty of our own actions and reasoning. They are unlike traditional artworks in that they are designed to sculpt activities - and to promote their players' aesthetic appreciation of their own activity.

The Aesthetic of Play

The Aesthetic of Play PDF Author: Brian Upton
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262542633
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
A game designer considers the experience of play, why games have rules, and the relationship of play and narrative. The impulse toward play is very ancient, not only pre-cultural but pre-human; zoologists have identified play behaviors in turtles and in chimpanzees. Games have existed since antiquity; 5,000-year-old board games have been recovered from Egyptian tombs. And yet we still lack a critical language for thinking about play. Game designers are better at answering small questions ("Why is this battle boring?") than big ones ("What does this game mean?"). In this book, the game designer Brian Upton analyzes the experience of play--how playful activities unfold from moment to moment and how the rules we adopt constrain that unfolding. Drawing on games that range from Monopoly to Dungeons & Dragons to Guitar Hero, Upton develops a framework for understanding play, introducing a set of critical tools that can help us analyze games and game designs and identify ways in which they succeed or fail.

The Illustrated History of 151 Video Games

The Illustrated History of 151 Video Games PDF Author: Simon Parkin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780754823902
Category : Video games
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
More than any other entertainment medium, videogames offer the chance for us to participate in a worldbeyond the ordinary. Whether you are playing as asupersonic hedgehog, an athletic archeologist, or amoustachioed Italian plumber, video games allow theirplayers to inhabit spaces where the usual parameters ofexistence do not apply. The medium's history ischronicled through the individual stories of 151 of themost iconic video games. Beginning in the early 1970s, the book charts five decades of the pixel revolution. Thestory of each game is accompanied by trivia andquotations, and illustrated with photographs, screenshotsand artwork. This celebratory reference, and up-to-datehistory, will enthral any video games aficionado. - Chronicles the history of gaming through an analysis of151 of the world's most-iconic and best-loved games - Expert analysis of the story of each game, accompaniedby fascinating trivia, memorable quotes, and informationon the year of publication and where the game can beplayed today - Includes titles across all platforms, including arcade, console, PC, online and handheld games - Charts five decades of video game evolution, fromComputer Space to Fez - Compulsively illustrated with over 1000 actionscreenshots, game artworks and photographs

Aesthetics and Video Games

Aesthetics and Video Games PDF Author: Christopher Bartel
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350104841
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Aesthetics and Video Games introduces current issues and ideas in philosophical aesthetics that help us to better understand why video games are different from cinema, animation and other types of fiction. Addressing two foundational issues, the notion of the aesthetic and the value of play, it asks what the aesthetic is and investigates how value arises from different forms of play. Introducing the history and theory surrounding these questions, this book: - Offers an account of the value of games that places gameplay and interactivity at its core - Acknowledges the importance of both ethical and feminist criticisms of games - Offers a novel account of how video games can be valued as competitions, narratives, and toys - Suggests ways in which a theory of the aesthetics of games must move beyond traditional approaches in aesthetics. Drawing from work in philosophy, media studies, psychology, and gender studies, it not only demonstrates how theories from these areas can helpfully come into conversation with each other, it explores new paradigms, models, and concepts that aid our knowledge of video games in today's culture.