PROPOSALPRESENTATIONBY SHAWN JOHNSTON VISM-2003-001

beginnings: discover article about video game Never Alone, created by the Cook Inlet Council Tribe of Anchorage, Alaska.

Article Key Elements:

Concept by Cook Inlet Tribal Council (CITC) —nonprofit community support organization for Alaska Natives.

Council saw game as both a way of becoming more financially self-sufficient and a necessary new method of transferring cultural knowledge from one generation to the next.

Game features an Alaska Native main character and is based largely on a traditional Iñupiaq story.

"We saw video games as a way to connect to our youth in a place where they're already at"

Amy Fredeen, executive vice president and chief financial officer of the CITC

SOURCES: TEXT/IMAGE – Upworthy article by Eric March 2015TEXT/IMAGE – Facebook profile page 2015

NEVER ALONE (KISIMA INNITCHUNA)DEVELOPED BY: Upper One Games & E-Line Media

PUBLISHED BY: E-Line Media

RELEASE DATE: November 18th, 2014

GAME TYPE: Atmospheric Puzzle – platformer

PLATFORMS: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Wii U, PlayStation Vita, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS

SOURCES: VIDEO – YouTube video by Cherry Davis – Published on October 29 2014TEXT/IMAGE – Wikipedia & Never Alone Homepage

We paired world class game makers with Alaska Native storytellers and elders to create a game which delves deeply into the traditional lore of the Iñupiaq people to present an experience like

no other.Never Alone is our first title in an exciting new genre of “World Games” that draw fully upon the richness of unique cultures to create complex and fascinating game worlds for a global audience.

Play as Nuna, an Iñupiaq girl and her Arctic fox

Player solves puzzles by swapping control between Nuna and the fox

The fox is fast and can jump to higher areas, while Nuna can pick up objects and open new areas using her bola(throwing weapon)

Game draws on Alaskan indigenous folklore and tells the story of restoring balance in "eternal blizzard" by visiting its source.

The game is based on the intergenerational transference of wisdom

ART INSPIRED BY ALASKA NATIVE PEOPLE

Inspired by the rich art and imagery of Alaska Native cultures, Never Alone brings the atmospheric and compelling world of Iñupiaq stories alive.

SOURCES: TEXT/IMAGE – Never Alone Website – Inspirational Artwork

Essay Thesis/Questions:

How can video games as part of digital culture offer a way to preserve and communicate the fundamental lessons of non-dominant cultural groups, who are faced with the challenge of preserving their fundamental histories and knowledge narratives?

What are the factors that warrant importance & how is this decided by a collective?

Proposal Excerpt

Video gaming is an ever evolving entity incorporating process and imagery from a variety of industries – music (audio and video components),

film/video and art/design. The way that we as a society approach these genres is being remixed – forming a new way of preservation. The

video game Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna) was created out of a similar need. Elders from the Cook Inlet Council Tribe of Anchorage Alaska,

have partnered with E-Line Media(Publisher), to create a platform puzzle game that, while fulfilling the goal of entertainment, also becomes a

vessel of education – a means by which the elders of the town can relate their customs and stories to younger generations. As the player

traverses the game, they are rewarded with “insights”, unlock-able video segments that shed light on the Iñupiaq tribe and their customs. Thus

the video game alters the landscape of storytelling folklore, updating the means in which these fundamental elements were commonly passed

down through the tribe and keeps these important elements of information and education alive.

This essay will provide an analysis of the ways in which we navigate storytelling, and communicate our lineage(customs/practices/etc) to future

generations and as we move further away from print and the spoken word into visual landscape. The following present the ways in which I seek

to provide background and context within the framework of existing literature and practices.

SCOPE OF DISCUSSION: possibilities

Video Games

Games to incorporate into discussion include:Never AloneAssassins Creed III, Farcry 3/4, Okami, Dark Souls.

Game characters that could be incorporated into discussion include:

The spirit helpers from Never Alone/Kisima Ingitchuana – what are spirit guides and what is their significance in different cultures? Connor Kenway, the main character from Assassins Creed III – mixed race character. How does representation work or not?Pagan Min in Farcry 4.Amaterasu, the white wolf from Okami. Gwyndolin the dark sun deity from Dark Souls.

Art and style

Art Styles that could be discussed include:Scrimshaw – style from Never Alone/Kisima Ingitchuana. Scrimshaw is the term given to carvings typically etched into bone or ivory. Common to Alaskan Native Art. Sumi-e Art – style from Okami, Sun/Moon Gods from Dark Souls. Sumi-e or Japanese brush painting, is an over 2000 year old practice that has its roots in Zen Buddhism. It is considered quite spiritual, and was commonly practiced by monks.

Culture: Stories and Customs

Never Alone incorporates some of the stories commonly found in Alaskan indigenous folklore. The game’s main story speaks to restoring balance by visiting the source of the upset. I would like to reference and further discuss this practice in other video games.

Additional sources not included in proposalWunderkammer

WUNDERKAMMER

Cabinets of curiosities (also known as Kunstkabinett, Kunstkammer, Wunderkammer, Cabinets of Wonder, and wonder-rooms) were encyclopedic collections of objects whose categorical boundaries were yet to be defined. Modern terminology would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history, geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art and antiquities. "The Kunstkammer was regarded as a theater of the world, and a memory theater.

“Of Charles I of England's collection, Peter Thomas states succinctly, "The Kunstkabinett itself was a form of propaganda"[2] Besides the most famous, best documented cabinets of rulers and aristocrats, members of the merchant class and early practitioners of science in Europe formed collections that were precursors to museums.”

From the Cabinet of Curiosities Wikipedia Page

SOURCES: TEXT – Cabinet of Curiosities Wikipedia PageIMAGES – The White Lodge & Travel to Eat Webpage

SCRIMSHAW“Scrimshaw is the name given to scrollwork, engravings, and carvings done in bone or ivory. Typically it refers to the handiwork created by whalers made from the byproducts of harvesting marine mammals. It is most commonly made out of the bones and teeth of sperm whales, the baleen of other whales, and the tusks of walruses. It takes the form of elaborate engravings in the form of pictures and lettering on the surface of the bone or tooth, with the engraving highlighted using a pigment, or, less often, small sculptures made from the same material.”

Scrimshaw Wikipedia Page

SOURCES: TEXT – Scrimshaw Wikipedia Page

IMAGES – Never Alone WebsiteVIDEO – SCRIMSHAW Never Alone Insight Collection YouTube

Ōkami (“great god”/”great spirit”/”wolf”)

One of the last PS2 games to be released

Action Adventure game developed by Clover Studios & released by Capcom

Set in Classical Japanese History, the game draws from myth, legend & folklore to illustrate how the land was saved from darkness by the Shinto Sun Goddess Amaterasu, who took the form of a white wolf.

Game features sumi-e inspired cel-shaded visuals & the ‘Celestial Brush’, an in game gesture system used to perform miracles(special moves).

SOURCES: TEXT – Ōkami Wikipedia PageIMAGES – Ōkami HD Homepage

Excerpt from Videogames and Art:The Early History of the Computer as a Dollhouseby Toby Crockett

The Early History of the Computer as a Dollhouse (pg.218)

The history of dollhouses is fraught with themes of obscure cultural artefacts, feminine cultural productions and self-expressive, imaginative creativity. Ancient Chinese and Egyptian tombs, dating as far back as 7,000 BCE, often contained small replicas of the world around them, objects which were meant to serve as substitutes for the real world in the next life. The urge to model miniature versions of our world, either for ritualistic, educational or imaginative purposes, is a very ancient human activity. Some of our earliest known Ice Age objects, some as old as 25,000 years BCE, are doll-like fetishes made of bone and ivory, symbolizing the feminine, mysterious and chthonic.

Excerpt from Videogames and Art:The Early History of the Computer as a Dollhouseby Toby Crockett

The Early History of the Computer as a Dollhouse (pg.219)

As for the history of dollhouses themselves, it is challenging to piece together a critical history of such marginalized and ephemeral objects. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, special cabinets or small rooms known as WunderKammer housed exquisite collections of natural objects, rare artefacts, optical devices and special toys. These toys often included automata, which were early mechanical devices with analog programs and proto-cybernetic systems of automation, objects which were very early forerunners to the computer. As Barbara Maria Stafford explains so vividly in her catalogue for the “Devices of Wonder” exhibition, Wunderkammer were engineered, collected and arranged to offer practical glimpses of the entire material array of objects which represented our expanding perceptions of life on this planet.

Excerpt from Videogames and Art:The Early History of the Computer as a Dollhouseby Toby Crockett

The Purpose of Play(pg.222)

Digital authorship of new models becomes a critical issue for the kind of participatory play which such games enable and this the same play phenomenon which I discern for free-form virtual worlds in general. This play is a kind of artistic self-expression where narrative agency is given to the player, even for players who do not think of themselves in terms of “expressiveness” or artistic capabilities. One way that we practice such perhaps unconscious self-expression is by imitating and appropriating the mass media forms with which we are relentlessly inundated in this advertising-driven culture.

READINGS & SOURCE MATERIALSNEVER ALONE & ŌKAMI GAME RESOURCES

Never Alone Homepage

2014 Upper One Games LLC

Never Alone Wikipedia Page

Wikipedia(Wikimedia Foundation Inc.)

Never Alone Game article – Upworthy

2015 Upworthy(Cloud Tiger Media) article by Eric March

Ōkami Homepage

2006 Capcom Co., Ltd.

Ōkami Wikipedia Page

Wikipedia(Wikimedia Foundation Inc.)

VIDEO GAME AND NATIVE CULTURE & LEGENDS THEORY

Videogames and Art

Edited by Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell, 2007 Intellect Ltd

Indian Country: Essays on Contemporary Native Culture

By Gail Guthrie Valaskakis, 2005 Wilfred Laurier University Press

Legends of America: Native American Legends

2003 – Present, Legends of America Website

IMAGE & ART

In Game Artwork: Never Alone Website

2014 Upper One Games LLC

Geek Talk video – Never Alone Game

2014 YouTube video by Cherry Davis

Scrimshaw Insight Video

Never Alone - Kisima Ingitchuna YouTube Page

Scrimshaw Wikipedia Page

Wikipedia(Wikimedia Foundation Inc.)

Alaska Native Art Wikipedia Page

Wikipedia(Wikimedia Foundation Inc.)

A Scrimshaw Art Journey

Powder, Patch and Ball online

The First Museums, Kunst-und Wunderkammer

2015 Travel to Eat

Die Wunderkammer: The White Lodge

The White Lodge Republic Worldwide website