Bits and Pieces

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth B. McAlpine
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Video Game Music ◽  
The Social ◽  
Home Computers ◽  
Video Game Consoles

This book explores the development of and the social, cultural, and historical context of chiptune, a form of electronic music that emerged from the first generation of video game consoles and home computers in the 1980s. Through a combination of musical and procedural analysis and practitioner interviews, the book explores the role the technical constraints of early video game hardware played in shaping the sound of 8-bit video game music and the inventive approaches to coding and composition musicians used to circumvent them. It examines the sounds, culture, and personalities behind the music and shows how chiptune links as closely to the music of Bach as to the aggressive posturing of punk or the driving electronic sounds of house. The book begins by looking at chiptune’s roots in video game music and discusses how, as the sound chips that gave rise to its distinctive voice were superseded by more sophisticated hardware, chiptune moved underground to become an important part of the demoscene, a networked community of digital artists. It discusses chiptune’s reemergence in the late 1990s as a new wave of young musicians rediscovered these obsolete machines and began to use them as quirky and characterful musical instruments, in the process taking chiptune from the desktop and placing it centre stage. The book concludes by contemplating what lies ahead; as more people incorporate the chiptune sound into their work, will it ever hit the mainstream or will it remain firmly countercultural as part of the digital underground?

The Game Boy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth B. McAlpine
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon ◽  
Video Game Music

This chapter examines the cultural phenomenon that was Nintendo’s Game Boy and suggests that its portability and low cost was pivotal in taking chiptune from primarily a desktop activity to something that could be taken onstage and gigged. Crucial to the Game Boy’s success was Tetris, the machine’s ‘killer app’. It was such a hit that its music made the transition from silicon to vinyl, demonstrating that video game music could be popular music in its own right. After the release of Nanoloop and Little Sound DJ in the late 1990s, musicians realized that the Game Boy was more than just a handheld gaming device; it was a cheap and very portable music workstation. The chapter concludes by looking at how this idea has driven a new wave of equipment hacking, as users have rediscovered and reinvented vintage consoles as musical instruments.

The Hitman Study

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Ferguson ◽  
Stephanie M. Rueda
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Aggressive Behavior ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Mood Management ◽  
Video Game Play ◽  
Video Game Playing ◽  
Violent Video Game ◽  
The Social

This article explores commonly discussed theories of violent video game effects: the social learning, mood management, and catharsis hypotheses. An experimental study was carried out to examine violent video game effects. In this study, 103 young adults were given a frustration task and then randomized to play no game, a nonviolent game, a violent game with good versus evil theme (i.e., playing as a good character taking on evil), or a violent game in which they played as a “bad guy.” Results indicated that randomized video game play had no effect on aggressive behavior; real-life violent video game-playing history, however, was predictive of decreased hostile feelings and decreased depression following the frustration task. Results do not support a link between violent video games and aggressive behavior, but do suggest that violent games reduce depression and hostile feelings in players through mood management.

Game Sound

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-102
Author(s):  
Karen Collins
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Video Game Music

Karen Collins reflects on her seminal volume Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design, a little over a decade after its publication.

Race and the Epigenetics of Memory

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela Soto Laveaga
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Dna Analysis ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Neural Function ◽  
Social Constructions ◽  
Race Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
Black Bodies ◽  
Dead Bodies ◽  
Lasting Change

In my brief response to Terence Keel’s essay “Race on Both Sides of the Razor,” I focus on something as pertinent as alleles and social construction: how we write history and how we memorialize the past. Current DNA analysis promises to remap our past and interrogate certainties that we have taken for granted. For the purposes of this commentary I call this displacing of known histories the epigenetics of memory. Just as environmental stimuli rouse epigenetic mechanisms to produce lasting change in behavior and neural function, the unearthing of forgotten bodies, forgotten lives, has a measurable effect on how we act and think and what we believe. The act of writing history, memorializing the lives of others, is a stimulus that reshapes who and what we are. We cannot disentangle the discussion about the social construction of race and biological determinism from the ways in which we have written—and must write going forward—about race. To the debate about social construction and biological variation we must add the heft of historical context, which allows us to place these two ideas in dialogue with each other. Consequently, before addressing the themes in Keel’s provocative opening essay and John Hartigan’s response, I speak about dead bodies—specifically, cemeteries for Black bodies. Three examples—one each from Atlanta, Georgia; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Mexico—illustrate how dead bodies must enter our current debates about race, science, and social constructions. 

The Hidden Potential Within Video Game Consoles

IEEE Micro ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
Michael Mattioli ◽  
Atte Lahtiranta
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Video Game Consoles

scholarly journals Economic and Sustainability of Biodiesel Production—A Systematic Literature Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-36
Author(s):  
Tamás Mizik ◽  
Gábor Gyarmati
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Volatile Fatty Acids ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Biodiesel Production ◽  
Important Research Topic ◽  
The Social ◽  
High Production

As Earth’s fossil energy resources are limited, there is a growing need for renewable resources such as biodiesel. That is the reason why the social, economic and environmental impacts of biofuels became an important research topic in the last decade. Depleted stocks of crude oil and the significant level of environmental pollution encourage researchers and professionals to seek and find solutions. The study aims to analyze the economic and sustainability issues of biodiesel production by a systematic literature review. During this process, 53 relevant studies were analyzed out of 13,069 identified articles. Every study agrees that there are several concerns about the first-generation technology; however, further generations cannot be price-competitive at this moment due to the immature technology and high production costs. However, there are promising alternatives, such as wastewater-based microalgae with up to 70% oil content, fat, oils and grease (FOG), when production cost is below 799 USD/gallon, and municipal solid waste-volatile fatty acids technology, where the raw material is free. Proper management of the co-products (mainly glycerol) is essential, especially at the currently low petroleum prices (0.29 USD/L), which can only be handled by the biorefineries. Sustainability is sometimes translated as cost efficiency, but the complex interpretation is becoming more common. Common elements of sustainability are environmental and social, as well as economic, issues.

Tusslers, Beatdowns, and Brothers: A Sociohistorical Overview of Video Game Arcades and theStreet FighterCommunity

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 742-762
Author(s):  
Michael Ryan Skolnik ◽  
Steven Conway
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Moral Panics ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Historical Movement

Alongside their material dimensions, video game arcades were simultaneously metaphysical spaces where participants negotiated social and cultural convention, thus contributing to identity formation and performance within game culture. While physical arcade spaces have receded in number, the metaphysical elements of the arcades persist. We examine the historical conditions around the establishment of so-called arcade culture, taking into account the history of public entertainment spaces, such as pool halls, coin-operated entertainment technologies, video games, and the demographic and economic conditions during the arcade’s peak popularity, which are historically connected to the advent of bachelor subculture. Drawing on these complementary histories, we examine the social and historical movement of arcades and arcade culture, focusing upon the Street Fighter series and the fighting game community (FGC). Through this case study, we argue that moral panics concerning arcades, processes of cultural norm selection, technological shifts, and the demographic peculiarities of arcade culture all contributed to its current decline and discuss how they affect the contemporary FGC.

Transforming Labour: From the Workers’ State to the Post-Socialist Re-Organization of Industry and Workplace Communities

2017 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 413-438
Author(s):  
Eszter Bartha
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Social Basis ◽  
Standards Of Living ◽  
The Social ◽  
East German

Abstract The article seeks to place the workers’ road from socialism to capitalism in East Germany and Hungary in a historical context. It offers an overview of the most important elements of the party’s policy towards labour in the two countries under the Honecker and the Kádár regime respectively. It examines the highly paternalistic role of the factory as a life-long employer and provider of workers’ needs for the large industrial working class which the regime considered to be its main social basis. Given that the thesis of the working class as the ruling class was central to the legitimating ideology of the state socialist regimes, dissident intellectuals challenging this thesis were effectively marginalized or forced into exile. After the change of regimes, the “working class” again became an ideological term associated with the discredited and fallen regime. The article analyses the changes within the life-world of East German and Hungarian workers in the light of life-history interviews. It argues that in Hungary, the social and material decline of the workers – alongside the loss of the symbolic capital of the working class – reinforced ethno-centric, nationalistic narratives, which juxtaposed “globalization” and “national capitalism”, the latter supposedly protecting citizens from the exploitation by global capital. In the light of the sad reports of falling standards of living and impoverishment, the Kádár regime received an ambiguous, often nostalgic evaluation. While the East Germans were also critical of the new, capitalist society (unemployment, intensified competition for jobs, the disintegration of the old, work-based communities), they gave more credit to the post-socialist democratic institutions. They were more willing to reconcile the old socialist values which they had appreciated in the GDR with a modern left-wing critique than their Hungarian counterparts, for whom nationalism seemed to offer the only means to express social criticism.

In Search of Space: The Trope of Escape in German Electronic Music around 1968

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-352
Author(s):  
TIMOTHY SCOTT BROWN
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
Musical Genre ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

‘In Search of Space’ explores the history of Krautrock, a futuristic musical genre that began in Germany in the late 1960s and flowered in the 1970s. Not usually explicitly political, Krautrock bore the unmistakable imprint of the revolt of 1968. Groups arose out of the same milieux and shared many of the same concerns as anti-authoritarian radicals. Their rebellion expressed, in an artistic way, key themes of the broader countercultural moment of which they were a part. A central theme, the article argues, was escape – escape from the situation of Germany in the 1960s in general, and from the specific conditions of the anti-authoritarian revolt in the Federal Republic in the wake of 1968. Mapping Krautrock's relationship to key locations and routes (both real and imaginary), the article situates Krautrock in relationship to the political and cultural upheavals of its historical context.

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