Disorienting the logical : on the gestural poetics of video games

Egumenovska, Kristina (author)

This paper presents an analysis of video games by focusing on the gaming process and its uniquely dynamic configuration (e.g. psychological/semiotic, aesthetic, and potentially political). It first explores the two major challenges that make a strong rationale for such a focus and then it goes on to define video games in reference to the question they formally share with calligraphic practice. Lastly, the paper considers the specific influence of manga, the Japanese comic art, on the (de)sign of video games as a way to further probe into their engaging semiotic dynamics. Formally and thematically, the analysis shows that video games are evocative of the way we engage with the world through the gestural regimes of language and imagination.

• Language: English
• Keywords: computer games, imagination, manga, poetics
• Work type: Not categorized
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publisher: Fakulteta za sociologijo, politične vede in novinarstvo v Ljubljani
• Year: 2014
• Number of pages: Str. 8-21, 186
• Numbering: Letn. 51, št. 1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-76910
• UDC: 794-028.23:159.954.2
• ISSN on article: 0040-3598
• COBISS.SI-ID: 32560221
• Publication date in RUL: 30.12.2015

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Teorija in praksa : revija za družbena vprašanja
• Shortened title: Teor. praksa
• Publisher: Fakulteta za družbene vede
• ISSN: 0040-3598
• COBISS.SI-ID: 763652

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian

Abstract

Članek poda analizo videoiger z vidika igralnega procesa in njegove unikatno dinamične konfiguracije (psihološko/semiotske, estetske, potencialno politične). Analiza se najprej posveti dvema glavnima izzivoma, ki se kažeta kot odločilni razlog za omenjeno osredotočenost analize, nato pa definira videoigre v razmerju do kaligrafskih praks, s katerimi si delijo isto formalno vprašanje. Nenazadnje, članek obravnava specifičen vpliv mange (japonske stripovske umetnosti) na obliko(vanost) videoiger in njihove semiotične dinamike. Formalno in tematsko analiza prikazuje, da videoigre povzemajo način, kako se spopademo s svetom skozi gestualni režim jezika in imaginacije.

• Keywords: videoigre, domišljija, jezik, manga, poetika