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+

DIGRA 2009

International Digital Game

ResearchConference, BrunelUniversity,

London, 01-04 September, 2009

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+Patrick J. Coppock

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Department of 

Social, Cognitive and Quantitative Science, School of 

Communication and Business

http://unimore.it

http://sce.unimore.it

patrick.coppock@unimore.it

Research Network: game_philosophy@unimore

http://game.unimore.it

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+My Title

 Videoludic Texts as Sites of Enactive

Practice:

Reframing the Text-Practice Dichotomy

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+Two types of intentional agency in

text

1) an implicit (or model) reader inscribed in the text by its

empirical author, designed to model and guide readerinteractions with the text

2) an implicit (or model) author that emerges in the course of 

a reading or viewing of the text as a kind of trace that

embodies the particular style, voice, or persona of its

author.

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+The Play of Intention in Text

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+´Openµ Aesthetic Works

(cf. Eco 1984)

´Open worksµ are communicative strategies designed by 

authors with an active interpretational role for their readers inmind

 ́An open text cannot be described as a communicative

strategy if the role of its addressee (the reader in the case of 

 verbal texts) has not been envisioned as at the moment of its

generationµ

´The reader as an active principle of interpretation is a part

of the picture of the generative process of the text.µ

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+FictionalPossibleWorlds

Semioticsof Fiction

(Eco: L ector in Fabula, 1979; I  L  imiti dell·Interpretazione, 1990)

Fictionalpossibleworldsmaybecharacterisedas:

´S  mall worlds µ,´furnishedµ with actors and objects with certain´propertiesµ

´« alternative ways things might have been, not descriptions of these ways.µ

´«  states of affairs « described in terms of the same language as

their narrative object ´Finite, enclosedµ,´handicappedµ,  ́parasitic on the real world µ,

must be ´taken on trust µ

´Constructedbyhumanminds and handsµ.

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+Reality,Fiction and Imagination

Cf. Iser

Fiction (bothliterary and lying/make-believe/simulation)

mediatesbetween reality and ouranthropologicalability toimagine (and re-imagine) ourselves and our relations

 withvarioustypesof alterity or otherness.

Fictional play spaces/textsfunction as a kindof 

´transitionalobjectµ ²cf. Winnicott

FictionalisingActs open up fordifferent´areasof playµ, where

new meanings can come intobeing

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+Reality,Fiction and Imagination

Cf. Iser

Three Typesof FictionalizingActs

Selection²ofaspectsof reality to berepresented in fiction Combination² (generally in non standard ways)

ofrepresentationsofaspectsof reality in fictionaltexts

Self-Disclosure²impostion on readerby the text of a

revelationofitsownfictiveness, forcing acknowledgementofits ´as-

ifµ character

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+FictionalisingActs

Selectionresults in Intentionality

Combinationresults in Relatednesswithin the text

SelfDisclosureresults in Bracketing (suspensionofdisbelief)

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+FictionalisingActs and the World

WORLD / BEING

EmpiricalObjects/Material Formsof Otherness

Human Culture

Convention-Governed Cultural Representations

FictionalisingActs

Selection

Combination

Self-Disclosure

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+FictionalActs and the World

FictionalisingActs are underliedby:

Free Play ²overstepswhatis and turns in the direction ofwhatisnot

InstrumentalPlay ²brings to light the

motivationforthiswoverstepping

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+ AmodalEnactiveExperience

 Alva Noë  ́Action and Perceptionµ (2004)

 All perceptual experience has an

uneliminableamodal component.

This allows us to experience concrete aspects of the physical world as co-present, in spite of the fact that some of their

empirical details may be hidden from our view at any given time.

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+ AmodalEnactiveExperience

The inherent ´realityµ of our embodied phenomenological

experience is grounded in the fact that we know from past

experience we have real possibilities to use our physical

agency and mobility to explore and ´fill outµ details of practical, spatial and other relationships between ourselves,

our environment and its various objects in ways that can be

interpreted by us as meaningful.

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+Tangible, Intangible & Mediated

Cultural Artefacts

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+Material Cultural Artefacts

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+Intangible Cultural Artefacts

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+Mediated Cultural Artefacts

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+First PersonShooter

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+RPG SecondPerson

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+CharacterPortraits

Freeman was born in Seattle,

Washington, and from the time he

 was a child, he had a strong

interest in theoretical physics.

 After seeing some teleportation

experiments, teleportation and its

applications became Gordon·s

obsession. He eventually received

his Ph.D. in theoretical physics.

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+SpeedRuns

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+EnactiveInterfaces

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+Player ² Avatar Relations

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+Brain-Wave Interface

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+Player-Console Relations

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+HolisticGameplaySpace

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+HolisticCinematographicPlayspace

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+TransworldTransmediaGamespace

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+TransworldTransmediaGamespace

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+TransworldTransmediaGamespace