3rd Vienna Games ConferenceFuture and Reality of Games (F.R.O.G.) 2009: On the edge of gaming.Vienna, City Hall, 26.9.2009

Keynote: “Games, reflexivity, andgovernance”

Benjamin Jörissen,

http://joerissen.namePresentation script, not citeable! May be freely used under the followinglicense: This presentation’s slides are to be found here:http://www.slideshare.net/joerissen/games-reflexivity-and-governance

Introduction

My talk is itself a bit on the edge insofar it will be a kind of explorativecrossover of two questions. The first axis is that of a certain contemporarytheory of self-education through media – Medienbildung, and I want to askif ideas such as reflexivity, articulation, creativity, which are crucial to it,have to be more critically assessed with regard to subliminal, impliciteffects of power. The second axis is that of the phenomenon of digital games in relation to“self-education” (Bildung). The intended shift on the first axis – if self-education is implicitly tied to effects of power – also touches this secondquestion. The whole sums up to the question: are Bildung and powerstructurally

intertwined

in computer games (and if so, how)?Why, you may ask, am I looking not only for the important issue of educational benefits but also

for a

critical

examination of this field, in a1

situation where digital games and new media in general are still mostlycondemned by the mass media and politicians (except of course in thisbeautiful city of Vienna)? It’s because I think that, thanks to the work of very many practitioners and researchers, the educational relevance,benefits, and potentials have meanwhile been shown in so many ways andexamples that they have to be at least

basically

clear for everyone whodares to take a serious look upon this field. I personally focused for quitesome time on showing up potentials of various the realms of new media,and I have the feeling that, on this basis, it’s just logical to take a further,more differentiated step towards a constructive and theory-basededucational media critique.I’d like to start with a little story of a gaming experience I made long timeago – and I guess, many of you will have made similar experiences. It’smaybe about 12 or more years or so ago when I used to play the MicrosoftGolf Simulator Version 3. It was just a kind of state of the art golf simulator, very primitive of course for today’s standards, but very wellplayable. I just played it times and times again and learned how to handlethose virtual golf clubs in a satisfying way. At that point, I began to explorethe areas beside the course. As you may know, in a golf simulator youusually can’t just walk around; you’re more or less bound to the placewhere your golfball lies. So the only way to move around in a golf simulator is by hitting the ball in the direction you want to move. Luckily,the game let me do this, hitting the ball in any direction (except theappropriate) one time after the other, which was a lot of fun in itself (because it’s deviant). Of course I was curious where this world would end.When I finally reached the border, I was astonished. Unfortunately, I don’thave a screenshot of it. What I saw was a mixture of the regular landscapeon the ground and a sky and horizon that was cluttered with smearedblocks and pixels of the background graphics (some Canadian mountains)all over. I had the feeling that I saw the graphics engine at work, as if Iwould look right upon the embodied code of the game itself in a way. Andit was beautiful! (13

floor) You’d be in a place that shouldn’t be there,2

wich has not been intended, which is kind of

impossible

. I’m a philosopher,so I immediately felt like home at this strange, intermediate place. I wasnot able to move beyond (though I would have loved to), but at least I wasstanding just right

the border of the “regular” world simulation and thisarea where the construction principles of this world had gone wild andunveiled themselves to me in form of this unpredictably changing sky. Ithas not been the last time I’ve been there, and as you see, I stillremember this experience with joy. The beautiful imperfection of thisgame world was just perfect to me.I have no statistics about this phenomenon but I strongly guess thatexperiences like this, which are sometimes called “emergent gameplay”,are not uncommon to most gamers. Where did this odd feeling of joy camefrom? Is it just I’m a fan of cluttered, smeared pixel-horizons? (not inparticular). Should I be

that

kind of nerd which has a metaphysicalexperience when he sees computer code itself at work? (no, not the case).Or did it have something to do with the disciplined in-game practice intrying to follow the conditions and rules in order to

master

the game? Afeeling of liberation, in a way? Was my initial idea of leaving the regularpaths of the game kind of subversive, did I enjoy to take over theleadership of this situation? (And, would it still be like this when I tried tobe “deviant” in GTA 3, a game where it’s pre-programmed that the worldcan be explored without focusing on the official goal?)So, this was a personal example to illustrate kind of “edge” or border mytalk tries to discuss.I’d now like to frame my point of view on digital gaming – in order not tobe unclear about my position in this field of research. As an educationalscientist, I focus on processes like socialization, learning, and education. Iworked on theoretical problems like issues of identity and subjectivationand anthropology on the one hand, media phenomena on the other hand,for example by conducting an ethnographical study about Lanparties(which is rather unknown because media researchers, as I suppose,seldom read books about social rituals).3