Brace yourselves: I wrestle with some big ideas/theories in this post. I might not make perfect sense, but I try to convey some of the sparks that went off in my brain when I read this pretty engaging text.
The article “Dionysiac Machines: Videogames and the Triumph of the Simularcra” by Seth Giddings, is a positive and empowering theoretical look at the simulational and simulacra in the context of videogame culture. The basic concept of reality being created or produced in the digital realms of videogames probably is very apparent, but these manufactured environments and activities can also be tied to ideas of social constructivism prevalant in cultural studies and postmodern theory. Individuals have personal desires and cultural influences that reflect how their realities are shaped. This is how the shift from representation to simulation becomes so apparent in the videogame world – players can select what kind of figure they want to be, this figure does not have to represent their physical likeness or or even a realistic image, there is also the selection of various environments or levels of engagement in games. Obviously, simulated realities and the idea of simulation emphasizes the fabricated and artificial nature of these games and digital situations.
With most postmodern theory there is a common pessimistic or apathetic view of reality and simulacra, or copies of copies, that seem to dominate mass media. Baudrillard puts forward the idea that the copy has over time taken the place of the original in his book Simulacra and Simulation, which was published in 1985. I see Baudrillard’s theories at this point as being bound up with much of what Guy Debord wrote about in the Society of the Spectacle, where consumerism and commodity fetishism are lulling the masses into political complacency. Of course all this is rooted in the 1960s explosion of popular and visual culture that has come to be so prevalent in the world of marketing and advertising. Giddings says, “anysense of political agency or progressive knowledge is lost in this seductive, consumerist, apocalypse. The relationship between the real and the mediated, the artificial and the natural, implode” (Giddings, 419). This is the doom and gloom side of the postmodern condition where the traditional sense of the real or of individual agency is lost under a pile of images, copies of copies, and simulacra. BUT NOT ALL IS LOST…
In the 1980s and 1990s a more optimistic view of simulacra develops with cyber studies and technoculture. Giddings references Gilles Deleuze’s Platonism and the Simulacrum as distinguishing between representation and simulation and theorizing the ascent of simulation over conventional forms of representation. Giddings seems to see Deleuze as celebrating simulacra, while the platonic tradition would morally condemn simulacra for being so removed from the original or real. This reminds me of the documentary tradition where there is supposed to be an indexical relation to reality or a conventional method of representing what is real. There is a break in this tradition when it comes to digital simulation and videogames. The focus is instead to create new versions of reality or virtual situations – so to generate a copy that is not essentially representing reality, but creating a reality for the participants. I can definitely see Second Life as fulfilling the promise of digital simulation in this videogame sense; it’s a virtual world where people can enact or play out their desires.
How very exciting… I must write about this more after I visit my friend who broke her ankle…
To be continued…
Works Cited
Seth Giddings, “Dionysiac Machines: Videogames and the Triumph of the Simulacra” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. London, Los Angeles, New Delhi and Singapore: Sage Publications, 2007. Vol 12 (4): 417-431.
