Archaeologists

I came across this picture of two very mysterious-looking archaeologists in an article about marble being historically viewed as a form of water. Isn't it nice?

What is an image board? Reflections on Image Threads

I've just taken down the Image Threads installation that I described in my last post. It wasn't a fabulous success, but it was enough to give me some reflections on two issues:
1) Why interactive installations are difficult to set up
2) What is an image board

I'll start on an up-note. While the contributions to the installation were very limited in number, those that did come up towards the end of the installation period were quite interesting in terms of how people made use of the medium. While the system was designed to replicate the topic-threads of web-based image boards, the realisation of the system in a three-dimensional environment led to three-dimensional, cross-thread references. In addition, the flexibility of the materially realised medium, the postcard, allowed people to make additions to other peoples' comments on the same card. This led to a small but recognisable 'trending topic' about squirrels and other small creatures becoming visible at two different trajectories - across different parts of the installation and within a single card.

The limitation on the number of posts to the irl image board was caused by two main factors. Firstly, the timing and placement of the installation to coincide with my MA course's work in progress seminars was ineffective. I had hoped that with over thirty people in the same building for three consecutive days, the installation would get a lot of traffic. However, the schedule for the days was very intensive, with only short breaks during which it was hard for people to relax and take their minds off the content of the seminars. Activity did rise in the last 24 hours of the installation, but this was really too late for any significant dialogue between cards to flourish.

Secondly, the balloon-mounted structure of the installation turned out to be unsuitable. While I had hoped that the balloons would sink a little when loaded with cards, making popular threads more noticeable, they inevitably sank so much that the cards lay flat on the floor or on the table, making the thread appear closed and inactive. This happened regardless of the amount of balloons used to hold one thread, especially after a couple of hours had passed and the helium started to seep out of them, reducing their buoyancy at an alarming rate. It's interesting here to observe the amount of social agency possessed by the balloons, as they effectively silenced the human actors in the installation.

However, the response of users to the failure of the balloons taught me a lot about the nature of the thing I was simulating. While on the first day, when there was very little activity, the sinking of the balloons discouraged people who might have posted something, on the second and third days, as activity increased, people responded inventively to the problem, essentially restructuring the threads around the nearby furniture to keep them alive. Since this furniture just happened to be a computer, the installation seemed to absorb meaning from its surroundings as it was restructured by the users.

For me, this foregrounded the fact that an image board owes very little to its fundamental structure and a huge amount to its users. Even when the structure fails, if the users have enough motivation they will assert their own agency over the structure to make it work. This interpretation illuminates a very important aspect of the history of 2channel (2ch), futaba channel (2chan) and 4chan. All three of these platforms owe their success to people manipulating existing structures for their own ends, be it the ascii art of the text-based 2channel, the set-up of, and migration to, futaba when 2channel was in danger of being shut down, or the impressive ability of the 4chan community to organise powerful, coordinated actions on a mass scale when the hive mind sets upon a target. While Image Threads was a small project with a low level of response, it has succeeded in highlighting the problematic nature of technologically determinist accounts of the development of internet cultures.

Image Threads: an installation proposal

‘There are very few places, now, where you can go and not have identity, to be completely anonymous and say whatever you’d like. And saying whatever you like, I think, is powerful’ - moot, founder of 4chan

This installation will explore how the tactile aspects of our interface with communication devices affect the content of discourse and inscribe particular modes of self-presentation, by recreating in material form the digital communications structure of the image board. Visitors will be invited to contribute to anonymous discussions by writing messages on the backs of postcards and attaching them to message threads hanging from helium balloons. This combination of graphical and written communication in the hands of anonymous contributors will simulate online ‘image boards’ such as those hosted on the infamous 4chan.

Receiving as much web traffic as the New York Times or the Washington Post, 4chan is home to an enormously influential online subculture. Any regular user of the internet has participated in modes of discourse and expression that originate on 4chan’s imageboards. It has a reputation for depravity; much of its discourse is explicitly sexual or otherwise offensive. However, it is also the source of the most well-known memes of internet culture, and its hive mind of anonymous contributors has powered some of the most high- profile collective actions in the history of the internet. The image board is an important site of contemporary cultural production that should be explored by anybody interested in identity and discourse in the internet age. In this installation, the plan is not to deliberately include offensive content, but to see how the same communication platform in materialised form changes the nature of the content contributed by users - presumably people won't post offensive material, and I'm interested in what they will post instead.

This installation will be an experiment into how the virtuality of digital media affects self-presentation and the content of discourse. Visitors will be given the opportunity to interact in a tactile way with a communication structure that simulates the virtual communication of an image board. It is a chance to reflect on the effects of anonymity and virtuality on digital communications media, and also to consider materiality and simulation in the unusual case of an installation that represents the virtual.

Desktop Wallpaper 19.2.11

Some Victorian bottles of paint. Why not?

Panoptic games

***This blog post contains spoilers. Go play Portal and Metal Gear, then come back and read this.***

I have some recollection of first playing the Sims, and assuming that controlling the lives of tiny little people who I created would be like playing god. But it never felt like playing god. There was no power trip, no sense of responsiblity and no guilty feeling that I had crossed a line that humanity must never cross. It's not that I wasn't immersed in the game or didn't on some level believe that the Sims were real. I did play the game as though there really were tiny little people who just wanted to have their needs met and their goals fulfilled; my rational knowledge that this was all a computer-modeled simulation that could easily be hacked didn't get in the way of my emotional response to the poverty, sickness or loneliness of my Sims. But I didn't feel like their god.

Looking back, I think the reason for this may have been that although I had a panoptic gaze over the Sims, they were not aware of it, and as a result their behaviour was not affected by my gaze. I suspect that if they had looked up at me guiltily after sleeping with their best friend's spouse, I might have felt like their god. They did look up pleadingly at me when their needs were not being met, but they didn't try to bargain with me as they would if they were more aware of my presence. If they had promised some sacred offering that would please their maker (say, the construction of a beautiful garden or the enactment of a ritual orgy) in return for my favour, I might have felt more like a god.

Portal is an obvious example of a panoptic game - you're surrounded by cameras, and the viewer periodically chides you if you misbehave, to remind you that you are being watched. But in this case, the panopticon fails. Maybe it's because you don't want to die, maybe it's because you know that you can disobey, or maybe it's because you have seen glimpses of a world in-game beyond Glados' gaze, but in the end you do disobey and you do wreak havoc. The failure of the panopticon is written in the game's narrative, but I'm still left with the niggling question - what if Glados had understood human behaviour just a little better? What if she had managed to get the world outside of the shiny, white testing areas closed off completely so that you knew you were always in range of her watchful eyes no matter where you went? What if she had offered some reward better than cake? Would you have disobeyed her then? Is it possible to re-write Portal so that the player feels obliged to jump in the fire pit?

It is possible for a panoptic game to exist? Can a game control your behaviour by making you feel that you are under surveillance? Perhaps all games do, without necessarily having the sign of surveillance built into the game world. You know that the game itself is assessing your actions and giving you points accordingly - it's surveying you so that it can reward good behaviour, rather than punish the bad. Games are hard-wired with a protestant work-ethic - the knowledge that your virtuous hard work in the game will be rewarded drives you to spend hours on end on even dull, menial tasks like levelling up. You pursue side-quests that could take hours of your time, just for the fanfare and pat on the head that the almighty algorithm will give you. The 'camera shy' challenge in Portal is an ironic case in point. You spend time and effort seeking out and destroying the sign of surveillance for the reward of your real panoptic observer, the game itself.

An awareness of the power balance of seeing and being seen is key to the Metal Gear series. Your first concern is not being spotted by the guards. If one guard sees you, you are seen by all, thanks to their radio communication, so if you do enter a confrontation you usually try to break their communication device to disrupt the network of connections that comprises the panoptic gaze. After that, you're trying not to be seen on camera, either by avoiding their visual range or by shooting them. So in general, you either avoid the gaze or you attempt to disrupt it. However, this is only the sign of surveillance - the real panoptic gaze is from your commander, who sees everything you do, reads signals from your body that even you are not aware of, and yells at you if you fail, as if dying weren't punishment enough. Snake is always, at the end of the day, a soldier, a pawn and prisoner of an all-powerful governing system that he can never observe in its entirety. Of course, in terms of the storyline, the gaze of his commander is a minor expression of control compared to the fact that the government gave him life, made him who he is and then tried to kill him. But in terms of the gameplay experience itself, the gaze of the government is ultimately more real than the events that occur in the game, because the gaze is the game. Metal Gear Solid 2 was a thrilling shock to the system as I was reminded that the game is in fact gaming me, and I'm just trying to play within its confines to see what I can make of it.

Constructing the self

I'm reading Judith Butler on how the self is constructed out of normative gender. It reminds me of a Channel 4 TV series for older teens that I saw when I was a younger teen - I don't remember the name of the series or any details like character names, all I remember is this one scene. Nevertheless, I appreciate this scene as an example of our intuitive understanding that gender categories are closely tied up with the stability of the self. The scene somehow makes more sense because of the portrayal of the character as outside of hegemonic norms of embodied gender presentation.

The protagonist is an enigmatic, dark, 'alternative' and tomboy from that lovely time when the hottest alternative fashion was baggy clothes, chunky criminal damage jeans and dirty blonde dreadlocks. She's had a massive row with her long-term boyfriend and is now alone in her tiny flat, distraught, on the verge of doing something really stupid. Behind a cupboard door is a huge collection of minidisk recordings of her psychotherapy sessions. She picks out disks at random and listens back over hours and hours of conversations about her subconscious, her childhood, how she relates to others... and then she finds that one is missing. She realises that her boyfriend must have been listening to them, eavesdropping on her most intimate conversations. He was just feeling shut out and wanted to take part in her emotional life.

I love this scene as an illustration of the problem of making sense of the self as both the agent and object of enquiry - her self-discovery and self-control are mediated by her therapist and her boyfriend, each with differing effects. Here the construction of the self - or maybe a reconstruction or a re-envisioning of an already constructed selfhood - is carried out by a process of documentation and the compilation of an archive. The minidisc collection sprawls out over a huge amount of wallspace. It is colossal, too immense to be taken in all at once, but through the process of archiving an attempt has been made to tame and control it. The invasion of the romantic other has interrupted the archive, upseting the whole construct.

However, is this scene's value as an example limited by the fact that I have no idea what the context is? I cannot give the TV series a name, or the character. Nobody can go and view this scene and give their own reading of it, except by re-interpreting my own description of the scene filtered by my own memory of something I saw over ten years ago. The specific self being discussed here is not a real human being or even a complete fictional character, but an incomplete fragment of a self, remembered and reconceived by my mind in pursuit of my own subjective interest in the questions of selfhood and gender.

Agency and Intelligence in computer games

This man is stupid but free
I just wrote this in my essay for this term:

Implicit in the prevalent labelling of computer games as interactive media is the idea that the players* have agency, because through their interaction they are able to influence the content of the media that they consume. However, the Final Fantasy series, in spite of its huge popularity, is often criticised for not being genuinely interactive. Final Fantasy games are usually linear in structure, with only one possible plotline, only one legitimate course of action, and often only one effective tactic in any given battle. The game will not progress without the action of the players, but the players' actions are dictated by the rules of the game - the players have no real choices to make and therefore have no real influence on the content of their gaming experience.

The personalities and behaviour of the playable characters are never significantly altered by the decisions of the players. While the players can sometimes choose during dialogue scenes what the playable character should say next, the core content of the conversation never changes, and the plot continues unaffected by the decision the player made. The appearance of the playable characters is also not under the players' control, except for carried weapons. For this reason, playable characters in the Final Fantasy series cannot be construed as avatars of the players. However, without the intervention of the players, characters will not progress in the game. Furthermore, characters will not become stronger unless the players choose to spend time levelling up by fighting small-scale battles over and over again for prolonged periods of time, as well as acquiring and equipping the best weapons and armour.

Due to the lack of agency on the part of the players, the relationship between the players and the characters cannot be described as simply, `the players control the characters'. At best, the relationship is one of guidance. In some ways this resembles the concept of shido (guidance) in Japanese education; children are seen as dependent on teachers for their own progress towards self-reliance. Teachers earn the respect of children by working together with them, so their authority exists with the consent of children in an essentially egalitarian relationship. Japanese educators such as Arai Ikuo and the Japan Teachers' Union have often argued that that it is only due to the equality of this relationship that they are able to enable the growth of independence in their students. Similarly, the content of Final Fantasy games focuses on the concerns and progress of the playable characters, and the narrative often possesses strong themes of personal growth and life's journey. The role of the players is to enable the playable characters to progress on their journey.

This woman is intelligent but not free

One thing I probably won't do in my essay is compare Final Fantasy games with Dwarf Fortress. I'll do that here instead. Dwarf Fortress players have much more agency. They have control over the direction and strategy of the game, down to small details such as which stone to use to build this square of tiled floor, all the way up to 'what am I even doing here anyway?' Dwarves occasionally act out, reminding you of their agency by, for example, entering a fey mood and occupying a workshop for weeks on end. They also have a 'private life,' that is not under your jurisdicion - you can't tell them what to eat or who to fall in love with. If they become unhappy they won't do your bidding with as much relish, and they may slack off altogether, but that almost never happens. Most of the time, their significant actions in the game are under your control. You're irrefutably in charge.

Although Final Fantasy characters have more agency than Dwarf Fortress characters, they have much less intelligence. Final Fantasy characters are programmed to tread one pre-determined path and follow one set of actions throughout the game. Dwarf Fortress characters have their own thoughts and feelings, and form their own decisions in response to ever-changing situations and opportunities.

At this point I crash into a problem of definitions - I'm thinking of agency in Gell's sense that objects have agency because they have influence in the world of human experience, but usually agency has been construed in opposition to structure. Final Fantasy characters' lack of intelligence by implication limits their agency because they don't make real decisions - they blindly follow the predetermined plot. But if Tidus and I are two agents struggling to work together at making the FFX storyline move forward, Tidus has more agency than I do because I have to act through him but I don't get to choose how he acts. Which is part of the reason why he is so bloody annoying. My dwarves cannot help but do what they're told, so long as their surroundings provide sufficient happy thoughts.

Dwarves are basically slaves. I've felt uncomfortable about this for as long as I've been playing. I'm forcing intelligent actors to give up their agency to me in exchange for food, shelter, security and small luxuries like a fine bed. Final Fantasy characters are stupid people who cannot think for themselves but are 'free' in the sense that my gameplay exists solely to enable them to pursue their single-minded goals.

*Note: I put players in the plural to acknowledge that 'single-player' games are often experienced and played by two or more people - one holding the controller, others watching the game.