Performance Studies student work

WEEK 6 PRESENTATION ON-

PERVASIVE PERFORMANCEPrepared by

Annie Lok, Dana Baasiri, Trevor Roach, Varsha Thadani, Vivian Kam

CHARADES

Game can be played by anyone, anywhere without any props, tools, or technology

Only relies upon people. Personal and intimate Very social game Requires teamwork and reliability Creates a closer knit community – Lack of

technology? Use of Physical space not cyber space!

DISCUSSION QUESTION 1

How you think that gaming matters with learning? In addition, do you think is the gaming content that affects learning or is the technique of playing the game that matters for learning?

TOWARD AN ECOLOGY OF GAMING

- By: Katie Salen

KATIE SALEN BIOGRAPHY

1. Background Game, interactive, animator designer Taught at many schools including Parsons

School of Design, School of Visual Arts etc. Worked on a film called Walking Life as an

animator Also, the co-author of a textbook on game

design called Rules of Play: Game

KATIE SALEN BIOGRAPHY (2)

2. Current Work: Lead Designer on a digital game designed to

teach game design to middle school and high school youth.

She also writes on game design, design education and game culture

She has also written books and lectured on how the creation and the use of games can be a foundation for learning and innovation in our ever accelerating world

KATIE SALEN BIOGRAPHY (3)

3. Influences: Her primary influences is developing a

critical practice that designs different types of games

Big games, downloadable, conference and hybrid games.

The change in consciousness of people through time has affected how games are developed and played from casual games, to second life games and more

FOUR MAIN QUESTIONS ASKED:

What forms of participatory practices do games and gaming engender for youth; which forms of learning are present, missing, or reinforced through gaming?

What gaming literacies, or families of practice produced by games and gaming attitudes, do we see emerging?

FOUR MAIN QUESTIONS ASKED: (2)

How does gaming act as a point of entry of departure for other forms of knowledge, literacies, and social organization?

What barriers of entry into gaming and game communities exist, and what are the implications for those who haven’t been invited to play?

Salen’s goal is to offer an understanding of the various ways in which gaming should and could matter to those considering the future of learning.

LEARNING ECOLOGIES

Explores the spaces of intersection between gaming, the design of dynamic and player-driven learning spaces, and the role that each play for kids familiar with video games.

Articulates a form of learning ecology that is present in the way that kids game.

The culture of video game play is one tangled up with other cultural practices.

Designer Amit Pitaru making digital games accessible to a wider audience benefits everyone by providing opportunities for play across communities.

As kids get left out of video game play and other digitally based experiences, they will continue to fall behind.

HIDDEN AGENDA

Games have been used as learning tools. Ian Bogost “The Rhetoric of Video Games”

HIDDEN AGENDA (2)IAN BOGOST “THE RHETORIC OF VIDEO GAMES” “Playing video games is a kind of literacy.

Not the literacy that helps us read books or write term papers, but the kind of literacy that helps us make or critique the systems we live in . . . . When we learn to play games with an eye toward uncovering their procedural rhetorics, we learn to ask questions about the models such games present” (Bogost).

HIDDEN AGENDA (3)IAN BOGOST “THE RHETORIC OF VIDEO GAMES” Procedural rhetoric (Bogost) the art of

persuasion through rule-based representations and interactions.

Video games construct arguments about the way social and cultural systems work in the world.

Example: how race and gender are codified and constructed within games.

Opens up the possibility for defining a new set of literacies associated with reading, producing and playing games.

GAMING LITERACIES

Builds on the belief that exposure to the flexible rule sets and iterative, cyclical play embodied in both design and gaming practices are critical for thinking about literacy.

GAMING LITERACIES(2)SQUIRE “OPEN ENDED VIDEO GAMES”

Attempts to take into account a set of disparate activities that partially define the current landscape of work around games and learning. Video game based learning environments

= designed experiences focusing on open ended simulation games.

Interested in observing and analyzing the learning occurring in these commercial, games, and in transforming this understanding into an effective design framework.

GAMING LITERACIES(3)SQUIRE “OPEN ENDED VIDEO GAMES”

As students progress, they develop new interests, which then propel them out of the community of practice toward new areas of interest.

Gaming drives kids to discover and nurture interests they may not know they have.

GAMING LITERACIES(4)

Examples that Salen offers: Jane McGonigal Alternate reality games

are well suited to encouraging reflection on the skills that players use to meet new challenges.

Ondrejka The use of virtual worlds as building blocks.

Barry Joseph Gaming as a form of youth media.

GAMING LITERACIES(5) 4 types of gaming literacies:

1. Learning to “read” a game system.2. Learning to navigate a complex system of out-of-

game resources.3. Negotiating the variable demands of fair play.4. Learning how to collaborate within a multiplayer

space. Gaming can allow players to experience

various perspectives.

BEYOND GAME Gaming the sum total of activities,

literacies, knowledge, and practices activated in and around any instance of a game.

Gaming is play across media, time, social spaces, and networks of meaning.

Includes engagement with digital FAQs, paper game guides, parents and siblings, the history of games, other players as well as the games themselves.

Requires players to be fluent in a series of connected literacies.

BEYOND GAME (2) Requires an attitude oriented towards risk

taking, meaning, creation, problem solving, non-linear navigation, etc.

Lusory attitude the attitude required of players in order to play.

BEYOND GAME (3) Different perspectives on the conditions of

learning and play:1. Gaming can include interaction with non-

digital media.2. The relationship between games and

learning has a history that predates the advent of video games.

3. Learning about games and learning with games take place simultaneously.

4. There is no “one” game.5. All play means something.6. Players determine how they learn.

KEY MOMENTS

“Can I try?” When a player unconsciously reaches for the game controller or mouse and asks if he can try.

“Can I save it?” Records the moment that the player feels invested in the experience.

“Want me to show you?” The player’s desire to teach another.

“How did you do that?” Desire to learn technique and skill.

Games invite learning through a reputation of trust.

GAME TIME!!!- ONLINE GAMING (ONLINE POKER)

Lack of physical aspects Not immediate response (no facial reactions) Space and time are thrown out of balance Reliance upon technology Is a recreation of a game that

possesses a lot of physical and emotional aspects

What does this cyber space change? Better? Worse?

DISCUSSION QUESTION 2

When people can go online everywhere that has Wi-Fi or Internet service provided, how do you think it will lead to a better community building or vice versa and why?

SUPERGAMING: UBIQUITOUS PLAY AND PERFORMANCE FOR MASSIVELY SCALED COMMUNITY

- By Jane McGonigal

JANE MCGONIGAL… IS A GAMES RESEARCHER AND DESIGNER AND SO MUCH MORE

Has PHD from UC Berkley in performance studies

With her game called The Lost Ring she was recognized by BrandWeek as the #1 Bright Idea of 2008

Her idea of “alternative reality business” was recognized by Harvard Business Review as one of the “Top 20 Breakthrough Idea of 2008”

Named one of the 20 Most Important Women in Videogaming in 2008

MIT Technology Review named her one of the top 35 innovators changing the world through technology.

MORE MORE MORE

The more the better (optimal number of players required for more intense games, players experience pleasure in being part of a much larger, co-present whole)

More is different (unexpected things when you scale up)

More is needed (to connect to many individuals as possible)

UBICOMP AKA. UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING

The practice of connecting and embedding increasingly smaller and more mobile computing devices and network technologies in everyday environment and public spaces

massively scaled communities Ubicomp technologies like cell phones and

wi-fi hot spots

ARGUMENTS ABOUT SUPERGAMING & UBIQUITOUS PLAY An audience – is typified by a one-way

relationship between sender and receiver, and by the disconnection of its members from one another

Community – people typically send and receive messages and the members of a community are connected to one another, not just to some central outlet (two-way relationship)

SOME LINKS

Flash Mob http://flashmobcomputing.org/

Go Game http://www.thegogame.com/team/index.asp

CONCLUSION

Supergaming: 4 attributes massively scaled (super size) projected onto everyday public

environments (super imposed) heightens the power and capabilities of its

players (superhero) harnesses the play of distributed individuals in a

high-performance problem solving unit (super computing)

Purpose of Supergaming: To generate a visible expression that attracts an

audience either local, online or through traditional media outlets

GAME TIME!! – MAFIA

A new breed of gaming Takes the best of both worlds. Provides optimal connectivity between

participants Makes games multi-dimensional Allows for new modes of creativity and

expression A primitive example of ARG’s Promotes inclusiveness?

GAME TIME!! - MAFIA

= Host

= Killer (chooses someone to kill)

= Doctor (chooses someone to save)

= Detective (finds the killer & convince civilians)

Numbers = civilians

DISCUSSION QUESTION 3

Combining the two articles, how do think that gaming, especially supergaming can be taken into account as a pervasive performance?

REFERENCES

McGonigal, Jane. “SuperGaming: Ubiquitous Play and Performance for Massively Scaled Community.” Modern Drama. 48, 3(2005): 471-491

Salen, Kate. “Toward an Ecology of Gaming.” The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media Learning. (2008): 1-20