scholarly journals Gaming and Photography: Investigating the Elision of Illusion and the Actual

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Matthew Paterson

<p>The application of aesthetics and techniques from photography into computer generated images leads audiences to read images of a virtual space similarly to images of a physical space. This phenomenon has allowed for a continuation in the cultural fascination with photorealism, and cases of audiences mistaking images from the virtual space as ‘real’. This thesis looks in detail at how the boundaries between the virtual and physical space shift when approaching the virtual space of a video game from the perspective of a photographer, rather than a player. It looks in detail at how audiences interpret images of the virtual space of video games when displayed in a form reminiscent of art photography. Photographs of the virtual and physical spaces were produced for online surveys and an exhibition to test audience perceptions of image origin. Participants were also asked to try and distinguish photorealism in the landscape form, urban form, and material form. Technical analysis of audience responses, combined with textual analysis of the images themselves, helped in determining the types of content, as well as styles of photography that were used by the audience as indexes to reality in the virtual space. In some cases, the technical theory could explain the thought process of the participants, however in other cases there were dominant factors that more significantly impacted participant interpretations, despite what theory suggested. This highlighted the blur that is emerging between the physical and virtual spaces. There were difficulties in designing tests that could identify and isolate the elements that influenced perceptions of photorealism, due to the complex, and sometimes unexpected, ways in which people made judgments about the images. A variety of factors and areas for future research arose from the tests, including using the medium of photography to document the ever-changing landscape of the virtual space.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Matthew Paterson

<p>The application of aesthetics and techniques from photography into computer generated images leads audiences to read images of a virtual space similarly to images of a physical space. This phenomenon has allowed for a continuation in the cultural fascination with photorealism, and cases of audiences mistaking images from the virtual space as ‘real’. This thesis looks in detail at how the boundaries between the virtual and physical space shift when approaching the virtual space of a video game from the perspective of a photographer, rather than a player. It looks in detail at how audiences interpret images of the virtual space of video games when displayed in a form reminiscent of art photography. Photographs of the virtual and physical spaces were produced for online surveys and an exhibition to test audience perceptions of image origin. Participants were also asked to try and distinguish photorealism in the landscape form, urban form, and material form. Technical analysis of audience responses, combined with textual analysis of the images themselves, helped in determining the types of content, as well as styles of photography that were used by the audience as indexes to reality in the virtual space. In some cases, the technical theory could explain the thought process of the participants, however in other cases there were dominant factors that more significantly impacted participant interpretations, despite what theory suggested. This highlighted the blur that is emerging between the physical and virtual spaces. There were difficulties in designing tests that could identify and isolate the elements that influenced perceptions of photorealism, due to the complex, and sometimes unexpected, ways in which people made judgments about the images. A variety of factors and areas for future research arose from the tests, including using the medium of photography to document the ever-changing landscape of the virtual space.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Jingyi Li ◽  
Ceenu George ◽  
Andrea Ngao ◽  
Kai Holländer ◽  
Stefan Mayer ◽  
...  

Ubiquitous technology lets us work in flexible and decentralised ways. Passengers can already use travel time to be productive, and we envision even better performance and experience in vehicles with emerging technologies, such as virtual reality (VR) headsets. However, the confined physical space constrains interactions while the virtual space may be conceptually borderless. We therefore conducted a VR study (N = 33) to examine the influence of physical restraints and virtual working environments on performance, presence, and the feeling of safety. Our findings show that virtual borders make passengers touch the car interior less, while performance and presence are comparable across conditions. Although passengers prefer a secluded and unlimited virtual environment (nature), they are more productive in a shared and limited one (office). We further discuss choices for virtual borders and environments, social experience, and safety responsiveness. Our work highlights opportunities and challenges for future research and design of rear-seat VR interaction.


2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (7) ◽  
pp. 498-506 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Kuo ◽  
Richard J. Lutz ◽  
Jacob L. Hiler

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the phenomenon of active escapism – a unique form of experiential consumption that engages fantasy and role-play as a means of coping. In contrast with passive forms of escapism, whereby consumers act as observers (e.g. watching a movie), active escapism provides consumers with the opportunity to directly interact with mediated realities, whether constructed in a virtual space (e.g. a video game) or the real world. Design/methodology/approach Within the context of video game consumption, a conceptual framework for active escapism comprised antecedents, processes and consequences is established through literature review, depth interviews and naturalistic inquiry. Findings The findings suggest that active escapism functions as a coping mechanism when consumers are confronted with external stressors that threaten either their sense of identity or control. While other forms of emotion-focused coping relieve stress through psychological avoidance (i.e. refocusing of attention away from stressors), active escapism provides the benefits of affirmation and empowerment through projective fantasy (i.e. role-play) and presence (i.e. immersion into a mediated reality). Originality/value The conceptual framework established by this analysis gives insight into the structure of active escapism as a theoretical construct, providing a foundation for future research. Managerial implications for consumer escapism (e.g. branded in-game content) are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 34-55
Author(s):  
Ailbhe Warde-Brown

The relationship between music, sound, space, and time plays a crucial role in attempts to define the concept of “immersion” in video games. Isabella van Elferen’s ALI (affect-literacy-interaction) model for video game musical immersion offers one of the most integrated approaches to reading connections between sonic cues and the “magic circle” of gameplay. There are challenges, however, in systematically applying this primarily event-focused model to particular aspects of the “open-world” genre. Most notable is the dampening of narrative and ludic restrictions afforded by more intricately layered textual elements, alongside open-ended in-game environments that allow for instances of more nonlinear, exploratory gameplay. This article addresses these challenges through synthesizing the ALI model with more spatially focused elements of Gordon Calleja’s player involvement model, exploring sonic immersion in greater depth via the notion of spatiotemporal involvement. This presents a theoretical framework that broadens analysis beyond a simple focus on the immediate narrative or ludic sequence. Ubisoft’s open-world action-adventure franchise Assassin’s Creed is a particularly useful case study for the application of this concept. This is primarily because of its characteristic focus on blending elements of the historical game and the open-world game through its use of real-world history and geography. Together, the series’s various diegetic and nondiegetic sonic elements invite variable degrees of participation in “historical experiences of virtual space.” The outcome of this research intends to put such intermingled expressions of space, place, and time at the forefront of a ludomusicological approach to immersion in the open-world genre.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lizhen Lu ◽  
Kun Ding ◽  
Emanuele Galiffi ◽  
Xikui Ma ◽  
Tianyu Dong ◽  
...  

AbstractSymmetry deepens our insight into a physical system and its interplay with topology enables the discovery of topological phases. Symmetry analysis is conventionally performed either in the physical space of interest, or in the corresponding reciprocal space. Here we borrow the concept of virtual space from transformation optics to demonstrate how a certain class of symmetries can be visualised in a transformed, spectrally related coordinate space, illuminating the underlying topological transitions. By projecting a plasmonic system in a higher-dimensional virtual space onto a lower-dimensional system in real space, we show how transformation optics allows us to construct a topologically non-trivial system by inspecting its modes in the virtual space. Interestingly, we find that the topological invariant can be controlled via the singularities in the conformal mapping, enabling the intuitive engineering of edge states. The confluence of transformation optics and topology here can be generalized to other wave realms beyond photonics.


2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110547
Author(s):  
Henry Korkeila

This study explored how social capital has been utilized in video-game studies by conducting a scoping review. In total, 74 peer-reviewed publications were analysed from three different databases. The following aspects pertaining to social capital were analysed: definition, methodology, game or genre as stimulus, its utilization inside or outside the stimulus, whether it was the sole concept or variable, how it was utilized, whether social capital was used to predict variables or whether variables were used to predict it, and what where the predicted or predicting variables. The results of the analysis show that Putnam’s research, the quantitative method and Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games were most commonly combined. Social capital was predominantly utilized in binary form. It was utilized almost equally inside and outside the video games’ sphere of influence. The study then presents the main findings and discusses future research avenues.


2016 ◽  
pp. 79-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konrad Matyjaszek

The rules of the reservation. On the book Jewish Poland Revisited by Erica Lehrer The paper offers a review of Erica Lehrer’s Jewish Poland Revisited, a publication presenting outcomes of an anthropological research on Jewish-Polish memory projects in Cracow's former Jewish district of Kazimierz. In a discussion of the book's theses, the author critically analyses Lehrer's postulate of 'ethnography of possibility' and the resultant strategy of approval for contemporary Kazimierz as a 'space of encounter' alongside with its rules of participation, imposed by the Polish proprietors of the district on its visitors.The article focuses on two such rules that condition a visitor’s possibility of participation in shrinking public spaces of Kazimierz. First of these laws is discussed as an imperative of abandoning the immediacy of district's physical space and its histories signified by the surviving built environment. Instead, Lehrer introduces a conceptual division of "social" and "physical" spaces, which leads to silencing of otherwise immediately present evidence of the violent past. The second rule is analyzed as a requirement of accepting the contemporary Polish owners’ role of 'brokers" and "purveyors" of Jewish heritage, consequential with an approval of a doubtful legal and moral title to the appropriated spaces.Through focusing on these rules of participation that determine and perpetuate the conditionality of Jewish presence in the space of Kazimierz, the author argues for a necessity of questioning and re-defining the traditional divisions of disciplines that establish conceptual separations of "social" and "built" spaces, as well as for a necessity of a critical outlook on contemporary Central European understandings of "heritage". Such an inquiry is discussed as conditional for overcoming the largely avoided yet still present "heritages" in the history of Polish-Jewish relations: the traditions of violence and exclusion, either social and spatial. Regulamin rezerwatu. O książce Jewish Poland Revisited Eriki LehrerArtykuł stanowi recenzję książki Jewish Poland Revisited Eriki Lehrer, prezentującej wyniki antropologicznych badań na temat żydowsko-polskich projektów pamięci realizowanych w byłej dzielnicy żydowskiej na krakowskim Kazimierzu. Omawiając tezy pracy, autor poddaje krytycznej analizie proponowany przez Lehrer projekt etnografii możliwości i wynikającą z niego strategię akceptacji współczesnego Kazimierza jako przestrzeni spotkania, za którą idzie akceptacja zasad uczestnictwa narzuconych gościom przez polskich zarządców Kazimierza.W artykule rozpatrywane są dwie takie zasady, warunkujące możliwość uczestnictwa gościa w kurczącej się przestrzeni publicznej Kazimierza. Pierwszą z nich autor opisuje jako nakaz porzucenia bezpośrednio dostępnej, fizycznej przestrzeni dzielnicy i niesionych przez nią historii, których znakiem jest ocalała zabudowa. W to miejsce Lehrer wprowadza podział na przestrzeń społeczną i fizyczną, skutkiem czego stłumione zostają ślady brutalnej przeszłości, w przeciwnym razie bezpośrednio obecne. Drugą zasadę autor odtwarza jako wymóg akceptacji roli współczesnych polskich właścicieli jako brokerów i pośredników żydowskiego dziedzictwa, co w konsekwencji pociąga za sobą akceptację ich wątpliwych prawnie i moralnie roszczeń do zawłaszczonej przestrzeni.Skupienie uwagi na regulaminie uczestnictwa, który ustanawia i utrzymuje warunkowy charakter żydowskiej obecności w przestrzeni Kazimierza, prowadzi autora do wniosku o konieczności rewaluacji i redefinicji tradycyjnego rozdziału dyscyplin, który tworzy konceptualny podział na społeczne przestrzenie i architektoniczne obiekty, oraz do krytycznego namysłu nad obowiązującym obecnie w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej rozumieniem pojęcia „dziedzictwo”. Tego rodzaju poszukiwanie uznaje autor za warunek przezwyciężenia ignorowanego zwykle, choć mimo wszystko obecnego w polsko-żydowskich stosunkach „dziedzictwa”: tradycji przemocy i wykluczenia, tak społecznego, jak i przestrzennego. 


Author(s):  
Ceylan Zhao ◽  
Timothy Burgess

In this research, we looked at the cognitive and behavioral effects of playing Penguin Go, a video game that was created to help middle school kids improve their computational thinking (CT) abilities. Apart from the general efficacy of the game, we looked at the effects of a single game feature—constraints on the amount of blocks that may be used in a solution. Students' CT abilities increased dramatically after playing Penguin Go for fewer than two hours, according to the findings, but the extra limits had no meaningful effect on learning. Furthermore, although the game as a whole had no effect on students' views toward computer science, the limitations condition of the game had a detrimental effect on students' attitudes toward computer science. The outcomes of this study, as well as suggested possibilities for future research in the area of employing these sorts of games to build computational thinking abilities, are reviewed.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 222-237
Author(s):  
Muhammad Edy Susilo

AbstrakPemilihan umum merupakan salah satu Peristiwa penting yang akan menentukan arah perjalanan sebuahnegara. Ada 12 parti politik yang bertanding dalam pemilihan umum 2014. Pelaksanaan pemilihan umumtidak dapat dipisahkan dengan media,kerana media menjadi salah satu cara bagi parti politik untukmendapatkan pemilih. Di Indonesia, hubungan antara politik dengan media menjadi lebih rumit keranasebahagian besar ahli politik parti juga merupakan pemilik media massa nasional. Sudah menjadi sifatmedia, untuk selalu akan menyuarakan kepentingan pemiliknya. Namun, pada pemilihan umum 2014ada fenomena yang menarik iaitu luasnya penggunaan media sosial, seiring dengan meningkatnyapenggunaan internet di Indonesia. Maka, kempen politik bergeser dari ruang fizik menuju ruang maya.Jika pada pemilihan umum sebelum ini kempen politik selalu melibatkan massa yang besar, pawai atauorasi di tempat, terbuka, namun kali ini kempen yang dilakukan adalah lebih bersifat individu. Kempendilakukan melalui telefon pintar, komputer riba dan gajet yang lain. Dengan media sosial, masyarakatbukan lagi penonton yang pasif tetapi aktif. Masyarakat boleh menjadi penyampai maklumat dan bukanhanya sebagai penonton, sehingga dominasi media massa konvensional runtuh. Salah satu fenomenayang menonjol adalah munculnya Tokoh Joko Widodo, yang popular dengan nama Jokowi, sebagai salahsatu calon presiden dari Parti Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan. Jokowi berjaya menggunakan mediasosial untuk bekempen, walaupun partinya tidak memiliki media massa. Abstract General election is one of the crucial moments that will determine the development of a country. Thereare 12 political parties competing in the 2014 Indonesian national elections. The elections cannot beseparated with the media, because political parties use media in their campaign to influence voters. InIndonesia, the relationship between politics and the media becomes more complicated because most ofthe party’s political elites are also the owner of the national mass media. It is the nature of media, to alwaysbe voicing the interests of its owner. However, in the 2014 elections there is an interesting phenomenon:the increasing use of social media, along with the increasing penetration of the Internet in Indonesia. Thus,the political campaign shifted from physical space to the virtual space. If in the previous elections, politicalcampaigns always involve huge masses and rhetorics in the open space; in this election the campaigncarried more personal. Now, campaigns are conducted through smart phones, laptops and other gadgets.With social media, people are no longer passive but active audience. People can be a message producerand not just as an audience, so the conventional media dominance collapsed. One of the prominentphenomenon is the rising popularity of the president candidates from the Partai Demokrasi IndonesiaPerjuangan, Joko Widodo, who is popularly known as Jokowi. Jokowi has successfully used social mediafor the campaign, even though his political party does not have the mass media.


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