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.
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:
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.
2 – Cyborg Dreaming: The cyborg, a part machine, part android creature is shown thinking about science, digital matrices and the solar system.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
Abingdon: Routledge, 2014
Reviewed by Rohit K Dasgupta. University of Southampton
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
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
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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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.
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.
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.
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
Eeshan Ali , Indian School of Mines, Jharkhand, India
Arijit Karati, Indian School of Mines, Jharkhand, India
Abstract
Every form has its own structure. Technically, though there is a difference between computer games and literature, but structurally both reflect same modes of the presentation which is carried out by certain codes. The present paper looks into the structural analysis of computer games with technical aspect as well as literature aspect with special reference to Far Cry 3, a first person action adventure computer game which received several awards and critically acclaimed for its graphics, story line, features etc. Besides this paper relocate Vladimir Propp’s theory of narrative function in Far Cry 3 and decode how the computer game with the help of certain binary opposition and codes have become one of the fundamental tools of getting entertained in the popular imagination.
[Keywords: Vladimir Propp’s theory, Computer Game, Structural analysis of adventure game, Far Cry 3]
In the twenty first century, technology has gripped every aspect of the society with the increment of the influence of technology, people started seeking the pleasure and even consolation from the digital world. Earlier, when the technology was in developing phase people gratified from folk tale, short stories, fiction and moreover from literature. But now people get his ultimate satisfaction from the digital world. This digital world comprises all sorts of genre which have been carried out by the people till now. It has started pampering the mind of the people. Computer game is one of those thousand technologies on which todays’ teen get much pleasure than reading a book or fiction. It has become a kind of addiction to the young generation. But a close and critical observation of the recent computer game also offers a way out to the narrative structure which is there in any literary work.
Before we go deep into the article, there are some points which are quite necessary to clear. There are various genres in literature, like poetry, fiction, short story, drama etc. The computer game also bears the same quality of having various types, for example action game, strategy game, adventure game, racing game etc. Like any literary text where literariness is necessary, the computer game also bears some kind of reflection of the literariness, which bears the plot and a specific storyline. Moreover, like any literary text the computer game can analyze from any theoretical point of view. Let’s analyze how the narratives have been given a digital frame with special reference to Far Cry 3.
Storyline
Far Cry 3 is a game about the exploration, exploitation and experimentation. It is an advanced action-adventure first person game, which is set on the Rook Island between the Indian and Pacific Ocean. This game has earned the fame for its storyline and its presentation throughout the world. It was honored with the several awards, including British Academy Video games Award and National Academy of Video game Trade Reviewers Award in 2013. According to Jeffrey Yohalem, the writer of the game the plot is about “what shooting means and what it does to humanity” (Far Cry 3, 2014). The protagonist of the game is Jason Brody, who, along with his elder and younger brothers Grant and Riley and some of his friends, come to Bangkok on vacation to celebrate Riley’s getting license. They come down to the Rook Island, during their skydiving. Rook Island is captured and controlled by the pirates under the control of Vass, one of the most notorious antagonists in the game world. Vass imprisons all of them and tortures them brutally. Jason and Grant are kept in the same cell when the others are taken for the ransom. Grant, the elder brother of Jason, makes a plan to escape and finally they manage to free themselves, but unfortunately Grant is killed by Vass and somehow Jason successfully escapes from that place and takes shelter in the jungle. Shortly thereafter, Jason meets a member of the Rakyat tribe named Dennis, who wanted to help him as he finds Jason has the ability to obey the “path of the warrior”. Rakyat tribe also wanted to take over Vass as they are also exploited and tortured by that psychopathetic villain. Citra, the leader of the Rakyat tribe and the sister of Vass, is agreed to help Jason in rescuing his friends, but in a condition, i.e., if he can manage Silver Dragon, a knife which the Rakyat tribe revered. Buck Huges buys Keith, one of the friends of Jason as a human slave but he promises to give him back to Jason if he is able to manage the Silver Dragon. The Silver Dragon is managed but Buck refuses to give Keith back, so the fight takes place and Jason kills Buck. Jason manages to rescue Lize, Keith and Oliver to Dr. Earnhardt, who helps them a lot in that island. They have been given a boat to escape from that island, but Jason refused to leave as he wants to free his younger brother Riley from Vass. Keith tries to convince him that Riley has been shot dead by Vass and he witnessed it. Still Jason wants to take revenge on that and wants to kill Vass.
Jason hands over the Silver Dragon to Citra. Citra helps Jason to kill Vass after getting that Silver Dragon. Sam Becker, a CIA agent who is working undercover in Hoyt’s island, helps Jason to find Riley. There Jason, with the help of Sam, wins the trust of Hoyt and later through a poker game Jason kills Hoyt and successfully rescues Riley with the loss of Sam, who is killed during the game by Hoyt. Jason and Riley escape from the island to Dr. Eanhardt after seizing a helicopter from Hoyt. On the other hand, Citra kidnaps all the friends of Jason and kills Dr. Earnhardt. Citra gives two choices to Jason, one is to complete his path of the warrior by killing all his friends and allowing her to be his partner, or to abandon it and return to the life he is craving for. The choice of the player affects the mode and tone of the game. If the player chose to play as a warrior and kills the friends to be the king of the Rakyat tribe, then Jason after having sex with Citra, is killed by her with an assurance that the child which she will carry will be the new king of the tribe in the future. And if the player goes for the second option that is to deny to kill the friends and to take over the throne, then Dennis with the fury tries to kill Jason but by mistake he kills Citra. While Dennis regrets at his deed, Jason and his friends escape from that place and at last they manage to escape from the Island….Access Full Text of the Article
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Soham Ganguly, Independent Scholar, Kolkata
Abstract
This paper critically examines The Unfinished Swan, a videogame released for the Play Station 3 platform by Giant Sparrow Entertainment, as an existentialist narrative. With this aim in mind, the various devices used in the game for the purpose of narration and virtually representing the imaginary world in which the story takes place, i.e, within the fairytale world of an unfinished painting, are studied. Their cumulative effect is considered through the lenses of existentialism as laid down by Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. Whether a virtual representation of an existential quest for meaning is possible is at first examined, after which, the focus is shifted to how far this is realized in the game.
Right from its outset, in terms of its title as well as its back-story, The Unfinished Swan harps incessantly on the fundamental problem that carries the narrative of the game forward, that in it, there is something dominant that remains unfinished, namely the world of the painting that the protagonist enters, and the player plays in. As part of its back-story, we find that the protagonist, Monroe is left with one of many paintings that his mother created, all of them left unfinished. The one left to Monroe is that of a swan, unfinished as well. The game begins with Monroe following the footprints of the aforementioned swan through a magical door in the wall.
The property of the painting of the swan being unfinished gives the protagonist the reason to proceed to do so. We may define this as a fundamental lack at the heart of Monroe’s being and hence, fuelling his eternal striving towards the goal of solving the enigma latent in the narrative-
We must further understand that the intentions aim at appearances which are never to be given at one time. It is an impossibility on principle for the terms of an infinite series to exist all at the same time before consciousness, along with the real absence of all these terms except for the one which is the foundation of objectivity. If present these impressions even in infinite number-would dissolve in the subjective; it is their absence which gives them objective being. Thus the being of the object is pure non-being. It is defined as a lack. It is that which escapes, that which by definition will never be given, that which offers itself only in fleeting and successive profiles (Sartre, 1966, p.28).
Indeed a phenomenological study of The Unfinished Swan demands that the portrait be unfinished in order to provide the protagonist the reason to set out into the world of the painting. The game is replete with existential symbols, apart from being, in the ludological sense, full of possibilities and paths of action.
The goal of the boy is to follow the trail of the swan. The swan embodies a primary existential symbol in the course of the game. Having its origin as a creation of the boy’s mother, the swan stands for the past, and in the life that the boy lived prior to setting out in the game’s central quest of the swan hunt, it formed his present, and as he seeks to find the swan it becomes his future possibilities all put together.
A fresh, white slate of a world is given to the player, which forms the “ground of experience” (Sartre, 1966, p.73), and the matter of Dasein or “being in the world,” as conceptually laid down by Martin Heidegger and examined by Sartre, immediately comes into play (Heidegger, 1962).
To start with, hence, we need take a look at Being, and how it stands in this context- “’Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.’ Being includes both Being-in-itself and Being-for-itself, but the latter is the nihilation of the former. As contrasted with Existence, Being is all-embracing and objective rather than individual and subjective” (Sartre, 1966, p. 592).
The white world which greets Monroe upon first starting the game, or even at the beginning of each chapter or level, may be likened to a state of pure being, because it is, and no more may be said about it. Though there might be scruples of it not entirely being Being because it can stand by its chromatic, visual properties as being not-black on not any other colour, one may reason that since it is a visual approximation of the principle of Being-in-Itself, this is pretty much the nearest the game designers could get to it….Access Full Text of the Article
Sucharita Sarkar, D.T.S.S College of Commerce, Mumbai
Abstract
Studies in digital humanities are often embedded in the theory of posthumanism. N. Katherine Hayles described the posthuman as “an amalgam, a collection of heterogeneous components, a material-informational entity whose boundaries undergo continuous construction and reconstruction” (Hayles, 1999, p. 3). Enmeshed in scientific advancements in communication technology and bio-technology, this posthuman body or cyborg is always in a state of perpetual becoming, with or without its own agency. Donna Harraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” (1991) celebrated the un-gendering potential of human-machine couplings. Internet theorists like Sherry Turkle (1997) have also expressed optimism about the self-changing capacity of digital communication.
In this context, the paper interrogates, through a posthumanist lens, the digital narratives constructed through text and images on RealSelf.com, which is an online social media forum for those seeking (and finding) the correct cosmetic surgical treatment for human-enhancement or metamorphosis. The paper will attempt to read the website, especially selected transformation-stories from the “Reviews” section, where those who are undergoing/will undergo/have undergone cosmetic surgical procedures post their experiential narratives and photographs before, during and after the procedure in a blog-timeline format, often eliciting comments by supporting readers. These diverse narratives on the site may be unpacked to see how posthumans are playing with the boundaries of their bodies to reconstruct their selves, and whether these transformation-stories break away from earlier gender stereotypes, or whether they replicate them: old wine in a new, virtual, surgically-enhanced bottle?
Keywords: Cosmetic surgery, cyborg, digital, human-enhancement, narratives, posthuman, social media.
Introduction: Becoming Posthuman
“Not all of us can say, with any degree of certainty, that we have always been human, or that we are only that.” (Braidotti,2013, The Posthuman, “Introduction”, p.1).
“As you gaze at the flickering signifiers scrolling down the computer screens,…you have already become posthuman …. thehuman is giving way to a different construction called the posthuman” (Hayles, 1999, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics, p. 2).
Posthumanism is not a deferred state or a science-fictional concept. The ubiquitous presence of the internet in our lives makes us live through posthumanism. If I confess that I am in a committed relationship with my laptop, or that my mobile phone is a prosthetic extension of my arm, I am articulating my posthuman becoming. N. Katherine Hayles described the posthuman as “an amalgam, a collection of heterogeneous components, a material-informational entity whose boundaries undergo continuous construction and reconstruction” (Hayles, 1999, p.3). As we enmesh our offline and online existences in more and more imbricated ways, we can witness our own continuing self-construction and reconstruction.
Posthuman theories and praxis are embedded not only in cyber-technology but also in recent developments in biotechnology. The scientific advances in biotechnology has enabled humans to reconstruct the biological human body into bionic bodies with artificial insertions and additions. Biotechnology also engages with other practices like neo-eugenics, artificial reproductive techniques and surrogacy. By fracturing long-entrenched binaries like nature/culture, biotechnology ventures into terrains that have evoked mixed responses, especially from critical posthumanists. Francis Fukuyama, for instance, controversially advocated state control of biotechnology, although one defining feature of these new participatory and/or embodied posthuman technologies is democratization of access (Fukuyama, 2002, p.181).
In this paper, I will attempt a posthumanist interrogation of RealSelf.com, which is an online social media website for those seeking (and finding) the correct cosmetic surgical treatment for human-enhancement. Located at the intersection of cyber-technology and biotechnology, the website archives multiple transformatory self-narratives that are communicated and shared. The paper aims to read the website as text and to focus on randomly selected transformation-stories published in the “Reviews” section, where those who are undergoing/will undergo/have undergone cosmetic surgical procedures post their experiential narratives and photographs before, during and after the procedure in a blog-timeline format, often eliciting comments from empathetic and presumably similarly-intentioned readers. Many of these narratives intersect and reify each other’s, and the paper will attempt to unpack these diverse narratives to see how posthumans are playing with the boundaries of their offline bodies and online subjectivities to reconstruct their selves. Grounded on posthuman and feminist theories of Donna Harraway, RosiBraidotti, N. Katherine Hayles and others, the paper will interrogate these digital narratives to find out whether they resist or reify earlier gender stereotypes, and also explore the issues of agency and anxiety that are performed through these transformation-stories….Access Full Text of the Article