Read more
This book modifies the concept of performativity with media theory in order to build a rigorous method for analyzing videogame performances. Beginning with an interdisciplinary exploration of performative motifs in Western art and literary history, the book shows the importance of framing devices in orienting audiences' experience of art. The frame, as a site of paradox, links the book's discussion of theory with close readings of texts, which include artworks, books and videogames. The resulting method is interdisciplinary in scope and will be of use to researchers interested in the performative aspects of gaming, art, digital storytelling and nonlinear narrative.
List of contents
1. Introduction: Videogames as Performances- 2. How to Do Things With Images.- 3. What is Rhyparography?: The Ambiguity of the Framing Device.- 4. 'Fanciful Microscopy': Framing Devices and Uncertainty in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49.- 5. Anterior Motives: From Subjective Shot to Portal's Figure of Reversal.- 6. Performative Multiplicities.- 7. Serial Aesthetics: Gaming's Metamorphic Bodies and Baudelaire's 'Argot Plastique'.- 8. Physical Wit: Games and the 'Tactile Unconscious'.- 9. The Nip and the Byte: Analogue and Digital Performances in Videogames.- 10. Time Invaders: Conceptualizing Performative Game Time.
About the author
Darshana Jayemanne is Lecturer in Art, Media and Games at Abertay University, UK. Previously he was a researcher at The University of Melbourne, Australia. His current work investigates art, media and games and has appeared in venues such as Fibreculture, ToDiGRA Journal and The Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media.
Summary
This book modifies the concept of performativity with media theory in order to build a rigorous method for analyzing videogame performances. Beginning with an interdisciplinary exploration of performative motifs in Western art and literary history, the book shows the importance of framing devices in orienting audiences’ experience of art. The frame, as a site of paradox, links the book’s discussion of theory with close readings of texts, which include artworks, books and videogames. The resulting method is interdisciplinary in scope and will be of use to researchers interested in the performative aspects of gaming, art, digital storytelling and nonlinear narrative.
