Housekeeping, Conferences and the Significance of Journey

Howdy everyone,

Sorry for the long stretch with no posts. I've been working on a paper on Argentina- the one I posted about way way back in July- to present at a few conferences. The paper still isn't done, but I presented it once already and am headed off to do another presentation this weekend. In the mean time, I have a post on PopMatters about my favorite game of recent memory, Journey. Here's a clip below:

For some time, critics, myself included, have struggled to find ways to interpret games through artistic parameters that we are familiar with, to apply our understanding of what is meaningful in other art forms to a new and developing medium. Video games do not, at least not yet, do what literature or movies do. On the surface, they have little to offer in terms of cultural criticism and their stories are for the most part god awful. The heralding of Heavy Rain, with all of its absurd melodrama and B-movie plot twists, as a hallmark of storytelling should tell us all that we need to know about the current state of the medium in this respect. And yet, those of us who play video games know (and know with a passion) that there is something significant here, something more to playing a game than just… well, playing a game. 

Enjoy! I'm off to sunny Boston, MA!

E3 2011: The Top Five PS3 Games for Artistically-Inclined Gamers to Anticipate: Part 5: Journey

Interpretation takes the sensory experience of the work of art for granted, and proceeds from there. This cannot be taken for granted, now. Think of the sheer multiplication of works of art available to every one of us, superadded to the conflicting tastes and odors and sights of the urban environment that bombard our senses. Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life - its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness - conjoin to dull our sensory faculties. And it is in the light of the condition of our senses, our capacities (rather than those of another age), that the task of the critic must be assessed. What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more.

- Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation

If I can describe the experience with words, then why are we even making the game? People like to ask us, and we would like to tell you, “Oh, we would like to make a sense of awe.” But what kind of awe is that?

-Jenova Chen, thatgamecompany, from 4colorrebellion

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