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How Do the French have Fun in India: A Study of Representations in Tintin and Asterix

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Anurima Chanda, JNU, New Delhi, India

Abstract

From the times of Ctesias and Megasthenes down through to today, there have been many representations of this exotica in other literatures. Mostly these are serious recounting of travelers aimed at raising the commercial and political interest of their fellow countrymen. In contrast, the writings of Herge or Gosciny and Uderzo are aimed at entertainment. While not discounting the rise of sensibilities of the west with the intervention of postcolonialism, the paper will argue that the othering of India continues in modes of production that are more exclusively western than others. In situations where the west is the producer as well as the consumer of cultural products, these seem to crawl back to stereotypes and projections that demand interference. The paper will try to show how the picaresque interference of the comic heroes serves to turn the nation, that is India, into a mere destination which has little or no sovereignty. In a world of post colonialism, the continued ideological challenges that comics, with their popularity with children poses, cannot be taken for granted. The paper will try to read the comics with the hope of problematising the ideas of comics and fun in relation to depictions of India.

 Keywords: Postcolonial, Stereotype, Tintin, Asterix

The Orient was almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences (Said 20). This ‘invention’ has played a crucial role in the project of European imperialism. It was not simply ‘the other’ against which the West found its own definition. It, in fact, provided them the fodder around which an entire discourse was built, through which certain images of the Orient are repeatedly sold as a system of knowledge with impressive resilience. With the advent of postcolonial studies, there has been a renewed interest in rereading these images as continuing the project of colonialism through cultural hegemony. A majority of these images were distributed and maintained through texts, a reason why Greenblatt has suggested them to be the ‘invisible bullets’ (Ashcroft, et al. 93) in the arsenal of empire. Today, the way we read Robinson Crusoe or perceive the character of Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre, has changed completely. Texts and textuality are no longer seen as an innocent medium through which the Europeans exercised their ‘civilising mission’, but rather as weapons which have played a major role in both conquest and colonization. These texts – be it fiction, histories, anthropologies – have all captured the non-European subject as the ‘other’ of the European man, prominent in his alterity or lack from the latter. Not only did these images provide material to the Europeans, but also polluted the mind of the colonized through formal education or other cultural relations, making them believe in these projections as authoritative pictures of themselves. Evidently, the celebrated norm in all of these images was that of the white European man who had to be followed and emulated, while the image of the ‘other’ became a signifier of what the colonizer’s own past had been like – to quote Marlow from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: ”And this also has been one of the dark places of the earth” (Conrad 6).

Bhabha takes this argument one step further when he looks at these images as stereotypes which reiterate the position of the colonized as a fixed reality “at once the ‘other’ and yet entirely knowable and visible” (Bhabha 41) that needs no proof. The stereotype becomes the primary mode of identification, penetrating human consciousness as a reality, through which one claims knowledge over the other race and culture. Having been consumed unquestioningly over time, stereotypes that have been fed repeatedly create an illusion of reality. One fails to realize that it is merely a false representation of a given reality that has become a fixity without giving space to its evolving differences. The stereotype assumes the role of a fetish, which according to Bhabha has an ambivalent relation with the source that generated it. It is at once an object of desire in its alterity, as it is an object of terror. The image of the subject becomes more important than the problematisation of the way the subject was formed. The colonial power continues to exert its power through the knowledge of the stereotype that it has created instead of questioning the “function of the stereotype as phobia and fetish that, according to Fanon, threatens the closure of the racial/epidermal schema for the colonial subject and opens the royal road to colonial fantasy” (Bhabha 43). Reading against this grain, one can specifically take up the case of comic books which generally exploit stereotypes within their storylines. For the sake of this paper, I will be looking at two of the most popular comic characters of all time, Tintin and Asterix and their adventures in India.

Assouline, who has traced the timeline of Herge: The Man who Created Tintin, mentions an episode from the writer’s life:

George and his parents rarely spoke; they communicated with drawings. Herge remembered it was by this means that he understood what he had common with, and how he was different from, his father. One day both were drawing airplanes; his father gave his the lightness of dragonflies, while George’s versions carried the whole weight of the aeronautics industry. From that Georges deduced the fact that his father was an idealist and that he was a realist… (Assouline 6)

The George here is Georges Remi, who wrote under the nom de plume of Herge, and the creator of The Adventures of Tintin, one of the most influential comic-strip art of the 20th century that changed the face of European comic scene forever. With the usage of high quality illustration where special attention was given to minute details and the introduction of speech bubbles inspired from American novels, Herge (the word which comes from reversing Georges’ name and pronouncing them in French) received almost instantaneous popularity. However, how much of a realist was he, is a question one has much to debate about…Access Full Text of the Article

Book Review: Mapping South Asia through Contemporary Theatre

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Review Article

Mapping South Asia through Contemporary Theatre: Essays on the Theatres of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka

Edited by Ashis Sengupta

image Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Pp. I-xviii, 250.

 

 

 

Reviewed by

Himadri Lahiri

University of Burdwan, West Bengal.

Theatre as a performing art is potentially an effective medium for bringing together sections of people across cultures and nations, particularly if it has the proper message to convey. It is more applicable to a geo-political area like South Asia with a history of shared moments and experiences. South Asian countries, which are politically volatile, have experienced turbulent periods of intra-national identity politics and violent inter-national hostilities. The ‘shadow lines’ that exist between warring communities and nations are the result of intensely felt, and violently executed, politics of ‘difference’ although the fact remains that many of them share the same origin and similar history. Artificially created national, political and religious prejudices which stem from hegemonic forces operating within nations block efforts of people-to-people cultural contact. It is in this context that the publication of Mapping South Asia through Contemporary Theatre: Essays on the Theatres of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka edited by Ashis Sengupta may be considered to be a welcome gesture towards understanding the region from cultural points of view. The book provides a well-researched picture of the contemporary South Asian theatre in the five countries of the region mentioned in its subtitle. It is, as Aparna Dharwadker points out in her Foreword to the book, “is the first study to confront the problem of fragmentary approaches, and to think ambitiously and systematically ‘beyond the nation’” (x). South Asia, recognised as “a key geopolitical area,” provides the contributors of the book this “beyond the nation” space for an intensive study of its theatre movements. The approach in this volume is, as Dharwadker points out, “an inclusively ‘regional’ [i.e. South Asian] rather than exclusively ‘national’ approach” (ix). Keep Reading

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Book Review: One Year for Mourning

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A Compelling Saga, Poignant yet not Maudlin

A Novel by Ketaki Datta

Download PDF Version

Ketaki_Datta Hardcover: 188 pages

Publisher: Partridge Publishing

ISBN-10: 148283345X

ISBN-13: 978-1482833454

Reviewed by

Arnab Bhattacharya

Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata

The mother-daughter relationship is certainly one of the most intriguing of human relationships. Carl Gustav Jung has written extensively on the mother archetype, and also on the mother-complex in the daughter. According to Jung, the ways in which this mother-complex can operate in a daughter can be classified into four major categories namely, i) hypertrophy of the maternal element, ii) overdevelopment of Eros, iii) identity with the mother, and iv) resistance to the mother. But, as life always overleaps the theoretician’s best endeavour and the scientist’s sharpest acumen, the categories mentioned above are neither exhaustive nor definitive. To a woman, her mother is very often more than an individual; very often she stands for her home, her lost childhood, a part of her life all of which become part of a memory that she can no longer live. Keep Reading

Editorial

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The issue on Digital Humanities was planned in order to approach an interdisciplinary field that has emerged with the intervention of digital technology in appreciation and dissemination of literature and arts. Every new medium brings with itself new array of possibilities, which sometimes prove to be quite ‘revolutionary’ after its infancy is over. Digital Humanities or whatever it will be named in future, seems to be still in its infancy and we are not fully aware of the possibilities and potentialities. The world of information technology—though manipulated largely by the big corporate hands, is changing at an unprecedented rate and it is too early to say what direction it will take. But the impact on the individuals and the academic institutions has already been felt in a big way—so big that the questions of modernity and modernization are taken up seriously. The impact of ICT on literature and arts is greater because of the ways production, appreciation and dissemination of literature and arts undergoing massive changes. Added to this, is the new concern with the preservation and retrieval of ‘born-digital’ data. The articles in the collection try to explore the new horizons from various positions.

Digital Art: technoMetamorphosis by Rob Harle

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About the Artist

Rob Harle is an artist, writer and researcher. His academic work involves research into the philosophy of Transhumanism, Artificial Intelligence and the nature of Embodiment. Artwork, Biography and selected writings are available from his web sites:www.robharle.com

Artist’s Statement Concerning These Artworks:

I see my artwork as a kind of documentation of the technoMetamorphosis, this word describes the terrifying and exhilarating process of the irrevocable changes technology is bringing about for all humans.

My artwork now consists solely of digital images – some are created entirely with the computer, others a manipulation of my original photographs and sculptures using various computer programs and techniques. These explore my concerns about our cyborg, transhuman and posthuman future. Human beings are balancing on the edge of a truly new abyss. Through genetic, chemical and computer engineering we have to

decide what we will become. The old myths perpetuated by bureaucratic-authoritarian religious organizations, Newtonian style reductionist, non-holistic scientific investigation, and messianic, capitalist economic policy represent unsustainable practices and ideologies, which if continued, will bring about the extinction of humanity. I try to create a dynamic tension in my images between being human and the technology we create. The essence of my work is perfectly described by Dollens, “his images have a narrative quality that interlocks the technical and metaphysical creating a space of oscillating dialogue giving them depth and mystery”. I hope my new work will evoke in others an increased awareness of the ramifications of our fledgling technoMetamorphosis.”

The following brief descriptions are not complete just to help access the meaning of the works:

After_The_Singularity

1 – After The Singularity: The Singularity is that proposed point when technology, especially computers, take over from humans and manage themselves. Actual image inspired by the film Powaqqatsi.

 

Cyborg_Dreaming

2 – Cyborg Dreaming: The cyborg, a part machine, part android creature is shown thinking about science, digital matrices and the solar system.

 

Silicone_Messiah

3 – Silicone Messiah: The Messiah has come again, based on the Christian myth, only this time from within the digital environment or all-integrating quantum field. The skull is evidence of the impending demise of humanity as we know it.

 

Game_Over_#2

4 – Game Over #2: This android/alien/cyborg figure is indicating that the old authoritarian bureaucratic religions are finished, the centuries old game of lies is over.

 

U_Run_and_U_Run

5 – U Run and U Run: These android/robotic figures are running in a centrifuge like machine getting nowhere, like the Pink Floyd song which partly inspired it.

 

We_Are_Worried_About_Your_Future

6 –We Are Worried About Your future:These two androids, sitting like concerned old mums, are warning of the impending destruction of humanity through unsustainable industrial and energy practices.

 

 

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Book Review: Digital Literary Studies: Corpus Approaches to Poetry, Prose, and Drama, Eds. David L. Hoover, Jonathan Culpeper, and Kieran O’Halloran

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New York: Routledge, 2014.

ISBN: 978-0-415-35230-7

202 pgs. 6,228.00 INR

Review by P. Prayer Elmo Raj, Pachaiappa’s College, Chennai

index

Digital Literary Studies brings to focus the issues, methods and approaches to the recent advent of an area of studies, ‘digital literary studies.’ The book focuses on an in-depth analysis of non-digital literary texts with an objective to be studied from a digitized perspective. It attempts a study on the literariness and style of work employing natural language compilations fabricating particular tasks, including the three major literary genres, poetry, prose and drama, to bring in compelling present issues. The methods used in the book such as “multivariate analysis,” “text-markup/ annotation,” and application of “huge corpora” brings in fresh focus to the texts with innovative schemes. Textual analysis makes use of the digital nature of the texts to examine them from the point of view of media. Various computational methods significantly influence the avenues of digital literary study to mark the worth of corpus linguistics. The book has a glossary of corpus linguistics terms employed in digital humanities to make aware the complex theoretical propositions. Corpus, here, is explained as “structured collection of digital texts.” For analytical purposes the essays create a corpus within their spectrum of research. For instance, Culpeper on his studies on Romeo and Juliet collects the speeches of the characters in relation and comparison to each other to form a corpus. Central to the study of corpus linguistics is the role played by linguistics, the manner of interpreting style and aesthetics of a text. The intermingling of corpus linguistics and stylistics is a call for the stylisticians to note the broader vision of stylistics and its importance in digital literary studies. This also meant to underline the encompassing nature of corpus linguistics that deploys varied methods bringing in qualitative, quantitative and computational methods.

Jonathan Culpeper’s “Keywords and Characterisation: An Analysis of Six Characters in Romeo and Juliet” aims to study how a key area in stylistics, characterisation becomes beneficent of keyword analysis, an empirical method and an elucidation of what keywords and how keyword analysis could help in corpus linguistics. Culpeper examines the dialogue, the voice of the characters for keywords facilitating the individual subject positions by using tagging system. Lexical and grammatical patterns surface as the analysis of speeches of various characters in Romeo and Juliet progress. For instance, Romeo’s keywords beauty and love and Juliet’s key words if and yet offers deeper insights on the mechanics of word functions and stylistics. However, the study does not deal with the interconnection between keywords across corpus and the limitations of keywords within multiword units from a semantic point of view. Proceeding on this chapter is Culpeper’s “Developing Keyness and Characterization: Annotation” that appropriates the grammatical and semantic annotation to the words of the data and investigates the annotation for keyness to seek the habitation of meaning in texts. In order the computer to recognize the grammatical and semantic traits annotation is fundamental. The chapter also deals with the question which aspect of the text is important or should we attribute fundamental significance to text. The grammatical and semantic analysis of the speeches of Romeo brings in closed words to highlight patterns that are annotated to achieve desired results. Culpeper concludes by stating “we can trust the text” (61) because the analysis both grammatical and semantic brings in possibilities that move beyond the generalizations of style and characterization.

David L. Hoover’s “The Moonstone and The Coquette: Narrative and Epistolary style,” deals with the deviations in style within a single fiction. John F. Burros reveals how Jane Austen’s characters can be differentiated distinctly one from the other in the manner which they use words in a particular dialogue. The author investigates two novels written with compound style with the help of multivariate authorship attribution method to establish how an author alters between styles. While Wilkie Collins through his narrative style exemplifies the distinct voices, Hanna Webster with her epistolary style was not successful in granting distinct voices her characters. The failure and success in creating distinct voices of their characters belongs to the cultural and social arguments put forth by the novelists rather than their literary technical quality. The next chapter, “A Conversation Among Himselves: Change and the Styles of Henry James,” employs authorship attribution technique to locate the uniqueness of Henry James’ style from that of the others but internally exhibits three distinctly different styles in his earlier and later writings. In order to drive home his thesis Hoover compiles 19th century novels into a corpus employing multivariate authorship attribution and statistical methods. Rather than delving into any methods of form critical methods he employs word frequencing techniques to enhance the style variants in James’s work which is uniformly progressive.

“Corpus-Assisted Literary Evaluation” by Kieran O’ Halloran advocates subjective literary evaluations can be substantiated through evidences. Roger Fowler’s evaluation of Fleur Adcock’s poem “Street Song” is forceful and brings in disconcerting effects on a reader into the work even before any in depth study of the poem begins with. The author maintains that through empirical corpus evidence literary evaluation can be substantiated through schema theory and corpus analysis from the reader’s perspective. His essay “Performance Styllistics: Deleuze and Guattari, Poetry, and (Corpus) Linguistics,” O’ Halloran utilizes propositions from Deleuze and Guattari to engage in alternative interpretations like performance sytlistics where a poem is viewed as an invitation for the audience to be creative and partake in the interpretive journey allowing the poem to be inclined and evocative spurring knowledge to employ the resources available in World Wide Web to form fresh subjective perspectives on the poem to innovatively “fill in” personas and settings of the poem. Web based stylistic analysis forms the basis of such interpretative performance to activate a creative interpretation of the poem calling for a computational participation of the reader.

The book, though takes its cue from stylistics, does not succumb to the traditional stylistic methods like using select instances or textual excerpts to interpret the whole corpus of an author. It opens up spectrum of possibilities for digital literary studies and research with its lineage to corpus linguistics and stylistics. The subject matter discussed in the essays are analysed with theoretical academic rigour coherently and innovatively. The essays encompass three major literary genres highlighting the significance of corpus linguistic analysis from a computational point of view taking it beyond the traditional methods. These essays lay foundation for the upcoming researchers in digital literary studies offering a platform to build on and propose fresh avenues. The book attempts for particularity in its approach by relating the study to poetry, fiction and drama. However the esoteric nature of the digital literary approach is kept intact to analyse the work of art chosen by the authors in detail. The authors bring together extensive amount of creativity in putting together disciplines with their ability to catalogue and define the new area of literary studies. The book, however, fails to draw the challenges and issues pertaining to digital literary studies in particular and corpus linguistics as a whole. The conciliation and renegotiation of corpus linguistics with traditional texts traverses only through a nascent vision weakening to reconfigure and recreate a fresh perspective to literary studies. Though not a compendious study on corpus linguistics, these essays are groundbreaking in the manner in which they tread through the developing digitized literary research. These essays are not for beginners of digital literary studies but for those who aspire to undertake fresh researches in a rapidly transforming and developing field.

Prayer Elmo Raj is Assistant Professor, Department of English, Pachaiyappa’s College, Chennai.

Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities (ISSN 0975-2935), Vol. VII, No. 1, 2015.
Ed. Tirtha Prasad Mukhopadhyay &Tarun Tapas Mukherjee
URL of the Issue: http://rupkatha.com/v7n1.php
URL of the review: http://rupkatha.com/V7/n1/16_Digital_Literary_Studies.pdf
Kolkata, India. Copyrighted material. www.rupkatha.com

Book Review: The Digital Media Handbook (2nd Edition) by Andrew Dewdney and Peter Ride

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Abingdon: Routledge, 2014

Reviewed by Rohit K Dasgupta. University of Southampton

9780415699914

 

The second edition of Dewdney and Ride’s Handbook is a very welcome read. Digital Media covers a broad range of topics relating to the convergence of everyday life practices within a networked environment. As the authors have rightly noted over the time as this discipline has evolved so has perceptions about new media systems- the internet as a dawn of creative freedom now replaced by seeing it as a system of exploitation of control (p.2).

This book is a useful guide that charts the complicated nature of the subject taking the reader across several points of interests and relationships between media and the wider public sphere. Ride and Dewdney start with an impressive introduction where they identify the various ways in which professionals and scholars have been debating digital media and chart these debates.

The book is made up of five parts- Networks, convergent media, Creative industries, Digital Media and finally rounding it up with a section on Media histories and theories. The first two sections open up the discussion on networked computing and the concept of a networked society. The authors following the footstep of Henry Jenkins argues that convergence of previously separate cultural media forms and practices are now coming together and creating a new working environment. It is no longer possible to think about the cultural industries separately from the audience but need to be read through the same prism. This section also introduces some useful terms such as hybridity, medium specificity before moving on to the case studies.

Pedagogically speaking the strength of this book is the way in which the authors deftly bring together their case studies and the theories. It is indeed very useful having the case studies come right after the theoretical grounding that is provided at the start of each section. I was slightly surprised to have the fifth section on Digital media theories where the authors introduce concepts such as postmodernity, Marxism and so on. Whilst this is an important section and provides a strong theoretical scaffolding it felt quite different from the rest of the book both in terms of its tone as well as its structure (unlike the other sections it does not have any case studies). It would have been much more worthwhile if this section preceded the rest of the book instead of ending with it.

To conclude, this is a timely book and scholars and practitioners will welcome its new edition. The authors have written the book in a very approachable language and aimed at a range of readers from undergraduate students to artists and graduate students. As a handbook it is a comprehensive review of the field and offers some interesting ideas for further research.

Rohit K Dasgupta teaches in the University of Southampton.

Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities (ISSN 0975-2935), Vol. VII, No. 1, 2015. Ed. Tirtha Prasad Mukhopadhyay &Tarun Tapas Mukherjee. URL of the Issue: http://rupkatha.com/v7n1.php. URL of the review: http://rupkatha.com/V7/n1/15_Review_Digital_Media_Handbook.pdf

Calculation in Art: The Inconspicuous Heuristics of Computation

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Judson Wright, Pump Orgin, New York, USA

Abstract

How might computers, as tools for automatic execution of formal boolean logic, as opposed to their popular use as rote presentation appliances for presenting various pre-packaged media, be integrated into art? Though the latter use may only yield discussion relevant to a subset of media theory, and we have no argument in or with that forum, the former represents a fundamental inquiry regarding cognition, perception, biology, mathematics, and anthropology, which applies to a far broader issue that bleeds across to far more disciplines of study. The direct approach, algorithmically generating modal events, is hardly sufficient. It is the well-known, but hardly ever analyzed basis of the Turing test. As an example, computers taking input from distinct biosensors tend to create what can be called “cat-walking-on-the-piano” music. This is not to say that an individual cannot come to develop an appreciation for such an aesthetic, but merely that our species seem to be equipped with a general organic art-ness detecting sense.

keywords: cognition, Constructivism, development, modeling, perception

This depicts our triadic relationship with computers. The computer has no sense of its own holism, its mechanical parts, or its own behavior. As a middle, fairly optional, part of a three-step process, the computer can only aspire to indirectly encourage the rudiments of meaning within cooperating human minds.
This depicts our triadic relationship with computers. The computer has no sense of its own holism, its mechanical parts, or its own behavior. As a middle, fairly optional, part of a three-step process, the computer can only aspire to indirectly encourage the rudiments of meaning within cooperating human minds.

Introduction

Both practices, the use of computers and the experience of art, are generally exploitations of perceptual gestalt rules. Yet gestalt can be applied much more deeply, through metaphor, to conceptualization. These gestalt rules, which allow our species to both perceive and enjoy the use of our bloated pre-frontal cortices, are products of Evolution. But can we say that the current results are optimizations of our design? With evolutionary competition as a model, beginning with number theory and the Turing machine (Ash, 1965; Shannon & Weaver, 1940; Turing, 1936), and culminating in the weighting of options that is fundamental to neural networking schemes (Adbi, Valentin, & Edelman, 1999; Sporns, 2011), the computer is implemented as a means of optimization. Optimization is somewhat synonymous with a common approach to computation. However, deep in the background of this underlying theoretical approach, remains the implication that Evolution itself is a means of optimizing individual species. It is not (Bjorklund & Pellegrini, 2001). It is a means of optimizing systems (relative to the current state of other systems)—not instances.

To this end, we will be discussing computer programs which tease apart aesthetic sensory experiences, of what is described as an objet d’art (i.e. embodied by recognizable media)—from cognitive effects, of which art-ness (in a much wider variety of forms) is a byproduct. As this certainly bears further explanation. Suffice it to say, these works are not intended to be conclusive of a hypotheses, but initial indicators answering what exactly is to be investigated. The former paradigm might be likened to aiming at an elusive target, while the later is more akin to turning on the lights before entering an unfamiliar room. However, there is a more fundamental obstacle.

This division of labor [between scientific fields] is … popular: Natural scientists deal with the nonhuman world and the “physical” side of human life, while social scientists are the custodians of human minds, human behavior, and, indeed, the entire human mental, moral, political, social, and cultural world. Thus, both social scientists and natural scientists have been enlisted in what has become a common enterprise: the resurrection of a barely disguised and archaic physical/mental, matter/spirit, nature/human dualism, in place of integrated scientific monism. (Tooby and Cosmides, 1992, p. 49)

Sarah Shettleworth (1998) makes an important point about cognition in nonhuman animals, that whatever their available behavioral and motor features, these mental abilities only tend to be idiosyncratic strategies the organism uses given its own embodied resources, rather than any reflection of the degree of that organism’s comprehension of the environment. There is no ideal vantage point from which to observe the universe. It must be taken as a premise on faith, that a world beyond the mind exists, roughly in the way humans describe it to themselves as conceptual metaphor (Feldman, 2008; Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). So too we humans must appreciate the effects of being human on our interpretations of our art and our computers.

This is no simple matter. We highlight a subtle distinction between physical properties (and the possible organization thereof), and the inconsistent detection of such physical dynamics by human sensory systems, as rendered within the Cartesian theater of the detector’s mind (as it is discussed in Dennett, 1991). That humans so easily confuse these two entities, that they are so often only considered as a single phenomenon, is ultimately essential to the utility of the computer, and coincidentally as well as art (this subtle distinction for art was recognized in Dewey, 1935).

Actually, this coincidence may be rather trivial. We are designed to overlook this slight discrepancy, and, in turn, design artifacts to accommodate this idiosyncrasy (as discussed in Deacon, 1997; see also Greve 2013). We do not experience the word objectively, rather the protocol/medium between mind and body is affect (to site various domains Clancey, 2005; Cobb, 2005; Grafton & Cross, 2008; Hohenberger, 2011; Lakoff & Núñez, 2000; LeDoux, 2002), subject to—or perhaps shared in the common adherence with—gestalt and grouping (regarding nonhuman animal linguistics, see Cheney, 1984; Seyfarth, 1984). Our species developed its complex processes of perception and conceptualization in response to evolutionary pressures (Herrero, 2005). One conspicuous byproduct of these features is art. Moreover, inventions of mechanical prosthetic devices, from the wheel to the computer, are ultimately embodied artifacts of those very same cognitive processes. We invent machines to satisfy our species-specific needs in this respect, and not to answer to an unknowable, ultimate objective perspective. It would be perhaps more accurate to say that the construction and employment of any technology (including paint brushes and the piano) is art, an expression of this creative impulse.

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The Ontology of Digital Life: Art and Healing in Second Life

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Rob Harle, Independent Artist and Writer, Australia

Abstract

This paper is an introduction to the virtual 3D computer simulation world known as Second Life. It discusses specifically two important aspects of interaction and participation in this world – Art and the Therapeutic Benefits of spending time in SL. The brief introduction is enough to orientate and get started those not familiar with SL. Suggestions for further research and SL project developments are discussed throughout.


Keywords: Second Life, virtual reality, avatar, digital art, computer simulation, linden, Freedom Project, social interaction.

 

I walked through an enchanting garden, cobble stone path beneath my feet, the strange birds chirping and flying through the flowering plants led me towards a building of stone and light. Bindu Gallery bid me, Enter.

I stood in amazement as sculptures revolved and pulsated, I noticed a 3D spherical mandala near the stairs, I approached, stepped inside and sat on a red velvet cushion. I was looking out through the iridescent, geometric light patterns of the mandala. An indescribable mystical experience followed as the mandala energy flowed through me.

No, I had not died! No, I was not under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs! I had logged on to Second Life and visited a friend’s Virtual Gallery Exhibition.

 

Bindu Gallery is the virtual personal gallery of Second Life artist Sheba Blitz. Her original hand painted mandalas are uploaded from real life, manipulated in Second Life then displayed in this gallery.
Bindu Gallery is the virtual personal gallery of Second Life artist Sheba Blitz. Her original hand painted mandalas are uploaded from real life, manipulated in Second Life then displayed in this gallery.

Second Life (SL) [1] is a virtual (digital) 3D computer based world – it is not a game, not a social media app, but a digital version of real life (RL). Like the fragrance of coffee brewing it is a difficult thing to describe, immersion and participation is the best way to understand SL. As with most things the press and television media have also distorted and misrepresented SL, with claims of ruined lives, sexual abduction, huge costs, death and so on. Untrue!

Any individual adult, anywhere in the world may join the SL community for free, create their own avatar – the entity which allows you to live, work and play in SL – then create art, build astonishing architecture, create bizarre fashion or fly on a magic carpet. Flying or teleportation is the standard way to move around the various regions (sims) of SL. If you wish to buy your own land you must become a premium member which costs approximately $70 USD per year, this returns a stipend paid to you of 300 Linden dollars a week. If you do not like flying you may use some of your Lindens to buy a car to drive around in, or perhaps catch a train!

Why Lindens? Philip Linden (Rosedale) was the creator and brainchild of SL. He attended the Burning Man event in the desert of Nevada, USA many years ago, this enormously influenced the already nascent digital, virtual version of SL. Linden Labs own SL, but the actual community is created by the residents with very few rules or regulations. So the basic currency of trading is called a Linden. SL is not the only virtual 3D community some others are; Blue Mars; InWorldz; OS Grid (presently with problems); Twinity; and Onverse.

Screen shot of part of an art exhibition at the virtual SL version of Burning Man Festival.
Screen shot of part of an art exhibition at the virtual SL version of Burning Man Festival.

This is probably enough basic information to orientate those not familiar with SL. As with most digital software and applications, things evolve and become more sophisticated and ‘mostly’ user friendly. Remember Unix/Dos command line communication via AARNet prior to the WWW? Perhaps not, but for those who do, how could we ever have imagined such a sophisticated and virtually real ‘thing’ as SL would develop?

This paper is mainly concerned with a general discussion of two important areas of SL – Art, and the possible Therapeutic benefits of spending time in SL. For those interested in a highly detailed investigation of all aspects of SL, one of the best studies I have found is Coming Of Age In Second Life. This book is a scholarly, anthropologically based study which dispels most “urban” myths and sensationalised nonsense concerning SL.[2]

Before looking at art and healing in detail, I should refute the notion that some techno-luddites hold; they argue that a virtual world such as SL is simply specks of light (pixels) on a computer monitor – nothing more, not “real” reality! This ignorance apart from ignoring the very real psychological impact, for good or ill, of interaction with others in a virtual world is that at a deep ontological level it can be argued that all “realities”, including humans, are simply complex conglomerates of light specks (photons). Detailed discussion of this concept/theory, which includes, but goes beyond quantum mechanics, is clearly beyond the scope of this paper. However, there is ample evidence to support this ontology, just one example is my paper published in Ylem Journal, 2007. [3]…Access Full Text of the Article

[1] Read about the Second Life community and download the required Viewer which installs on your computer from www.secondlife.com

[2] Boellstorff, T. Coming Of Age In Second Life. 2008 Princeton University Press. NJ. Also my review of this book: http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=4435&cn=396

[3] The Dichotomy of Reality YLEM Journal. Harle, R.F. (Guest Editor) vol.27 Nos. 10 & 12 Sept/Dec 2007. Journal of YLEM Society, Artists Using Science & Technology. San Francisco, CA.

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History First-hand: Memory, the Player and the Video Game Narrative in the Assassin’s Creed Games

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Lakshmi Menon, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Abstract

This paper will look at the convergence of the interactive free flow of video games and the questioning and revisioning of historical continuity using the example of the Assassin’s Creed series by Ubisoft. With a story that exists simultaneously in the modern day and the 15th century, the games allow the player to take control of characters and alter, or make possible, events recognisable as historical fact. It plays with both history and memory and history as memory, as the life of the primary player character is being relived through the genetic memories of one of his descendants. Being highly narrative-bound, the Assassin’s Creed games use, via the medium of the screen, the rift between history and memory as a central element of narrative, theme, and game design, which this paper will explore. Furthermore, using theories of convergence this paper will examine how video games provide a new, interactive mode of storytelling that is rapidly becoming representative of our age.

 

There was a time when video games were merely considered to be base forms of indoor entertainment, with early games like Pong or Pacman which had simple objectives and no discernible plot or structure. With time, however, games have evolved from these simplistic origins to complex narratives, containing driven, well constructed characters, complex plot (or plots), and involving a greater involvement from the players than mere accurate button-pushing. Games today, with advancements in graphic design and capability of the platforms on which they can be played, are almost akin to interactive films– in which the player not only consumes the movie-like storyline, but becomes an active participant in the narrative and its outcomes.

This interactivity is, as pop culture theorist Henry Jenkins would put it, a marker of the media convergence that is so significant to our age. Ours is an era in which there is an increasing participation of the consumer of a popular cultural text with the text itself- whether as the voting audience of a reality television show, or the creators of fan-art and fiction. Video games therefore become one of the most significant examples of this participatory culture. Technologies have advanced to make this convergence even more possible, and along with that, have intensified how far reaching the effects of convergence can be. Older regimes of knowledge are called into question, and the dimensions of time and space can be compressed into a completely different format. Games in recent times have developed complex narratives that create alternative realities and histories: they find new methods of storytelling through a synthesis of textual and cinematic media, bound only by the rules that bind gameplay. We have come a long way from games in which the only objective was ‘don’t die’.

In this paper, I will look at the convergence of the interactive free flow of video games and the questioning and revisioning of historical continuity using the example of the Assassin’s Creed series by Ubisoft: open-world, action adventure stealth historical fiction games, consisting of nine main games and a number of supporting materials on multiple platforms. I will focus particularly on the games that follow the adventures of Ezio Auditore da Firenze, and Edward Kenway – in Renaissance Italy and the Caribbean respectively. The games in the Assassin’s Creed series exist in two time frames, and a basic understanding of the story is necessary in order to theorise fully its implications with regards to my arguments on history and memory. The games revolve around the rivalry between two ancient secret societies: the Assassins and the Knights Templar.

The real-world chronological setting of the first three games in the series feature Desmond Miles, who is forced into the Animus, a device that allows him to experience his ancestral memories. Desmond explores the memories of a number of Assassins; including, in Assassin’s Creed II, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, an Assassin in Italy during the late 15th and early 16th centuries of the Italian Renaissance. Assassin’s Creed IV puts the player in control of an employee of a company developing games based on the now deceased Desmond’s genetic memory, with the pirate Edward Kenway being the first of his ancestors to be used for this purpose. Throughout the games, there is a constant switching of the gameplay between the characters in the present, trying to solve Abstergo’s mysteries, and the ancestral Assassin who is – in effect – playing out incidents that form part of the history that we know and recognise, only with differences that are important to the plot structure of the games.

While the premise of Assassins and Templars is fictitious, the events that Ezio and Edward participate in are true, as are many of the characters they interact with, such as Leonardo da Vinci in Ezio’s case and Blackbeard in Edward’s. The mythology of the games suggest that it has been the actions of the two rival factions that have affected many of the events in history; for instance, Rodrigo Borgia is a member of the Templars, and is part of the conspiracy to bring down the Medici family in Florence, and it is suggested that the first Templar was the Biblical betrayer Cain….Access Full Text of the Article

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