#bogost

[faithfully-game]

‘Flux Within Limits 10′ 2018

[hillerska-official]

i fully closed the app right as I read the first line of that Bogust ask and had to open it up and scroll in the tag to find it again bc WHAT. then i had to scroll awhile to find the og ask for context. I’m so glad I did bc i think that would have stayed in my mind forever, just wondering what the heck that was about. Thank you I should have fallen asleep 30 min ago /lh

Oh god I'm so sorry 😂 I probably should have linked the original since ALL my season 2 liveblogging was inbetween lol.

[occlusions]

[christiesentner]

Alien Phenomenology, or What It’s Like to Be a Thing

by Ian Bogost. University of Minnesota Press, 2012. $19.95, 168 pages.

Published here by The New Orleans Review

What do computer microchips, chicken wings, baby pandas, and packs of cigarettes have in common? For one, they are all pictured on the cover of videogame theorist Ian Bogost’s new book Alien Phenomenology, or What It’s Like to Be a Thing, in which Bogost argues that these objects (and literally everything else) hold just as much philosophical import as human beings. Bogost uses contemporary philosopher Graham Harman’s term object-oriented ontology as an umbrella title, under which he places his own philosophy, alien phenomenology. To break this term down, Bogost defines “alien” as “anything—and everything—to everything else” and phenomenology as “the area of metaphysics concerned with how stuff appears to beings.” So although the theory may sound dense, alien phenomenology is simply the practice of considering how everything appears to everything else—Bogost calls the process “carpentry.” An alien phenomenologist creates “carpentry” that must “capture and characterize an experience it can never fully understand, offering a rendering satisfactory enough to allow the artifact’s operator to gain some insight into an alien thing’s experience.” The possibilities of Bogost’s theory applied to fine arts, theater, music, education, and even science are endless.

Bogost puts his work into context, citing the work of Hegel, Heidegger, Derrida, Lacan, and Latour, to name a few. At the basis of these and Bogost’s theories is the rejection of anthropocentrism and the argument for considering things (or “units,” as Bogost prefers) and how they interact with each other outside of their existence for or in relation to human beings. Luckily, readers need not obtain an advanced degree in philosophy to enjoy Alien Phenomenology. Bogost breaks up long discourses on the nitty-gritty details of object-oriented ontology with “litanies,” such as “plate tectonics, enchiladas, tourism, digestion” or “quarks, Elizabeth Bennett, single-malt scotch, Ford Mustang fastbacks…,” that demonstrate his theory in action: “Lists of objects without explication can do the philosophical work of drawing our attention toward them with greater attentiveness.”

As he explains how we must reject a “hierarchy of being,” he juxtaposes the ordinary with the extraordinary, and the massive with the minuscule. Because Alien Phenomenology addresses anything and everything, enthusiasts of all kinds, not just of philosophy, can appreciate Bogost’s call for broader consideration of the world around us, instead of just the world as it pertains to us.

[cinema-and-games]

updated readings for next two weeks

Week 3, January 20th  How to talk about video games part 1

Required: Ian Bogost  How to talk about video games

introduction-Chapter 10

Week 4, janary 27th, How to talk about video games Part 2

Required: Ian Bogost  How to talk about video games

Chapter 10-conclusion

[bogostpressurewasherstatus]

Ryobi Responds

In a shocking turn of events this morning, an anonymous Ryobi representative reached out to Ian Bogost about Bogost’s desire to purchase a drain cleaning attachment for his RY14122 1700psi Pressure Washer.

Ryobi admitted that they do not make a drain cleaning nozzle/hose attachment, and recommended 60 foot drain cleaning attachment from another manufacturer. Ryobi asserts that this attachment will be compatible with Ian’s RY14122.

@ibogost We do not make an attachment at this time, but this one will still fit the RYOBI unit you have: http://t.co/4KHZn8ikJ9. Thanks!

— RYOBIOutdoors (@RYOBIOutdoors) April 15, 2015

Bogost praised Ryobi for their advice, and their usage of a social media technique known as brand engagement.

@ryobioutdoors Hurrah! I am glad for this advice via #brand #engagement! cc @MaxGeiger

— Ian Bogost (@ibogost) April 15, 2015

[dithyrambs]

Video Games Are Better Without Characters

The real legacy of SimCity is its attempt—and failure—to make complex systems the protagonists instead of people.

Ian Bogost’s latest essay provides a new lens from which to to view the storm of gender politics that’s shaken the world of games this past year. It’s baffling that people have reacted so strongly to it--not harassed online, doxxed, and sent death threats strongly--he is, after all, just a straight male-- but some have expressed offense at his fundamental premise: that one can subvert identity politics entirely by making and playing games with no characters. 

What if replacing militarized male brutes with everyone’s favorite alternative identity just results in Balkanization rather than inclusion?

As always, as I've interpreted much of Bogost’s criticism over the years, this is just another call to procedural rhetoric, his design philosophy in which meaning from games comes primarily from interaction, that one thing unique to this medium, rather than the extra-ludic elements such as text, audio, and art. This is a call for systems-focused games. 

What if the thing games most have to show us is the higher-order domains to which we might belong, including families, neighborhoods, cities, nations, social systems, and even formal structures and patterns?

What Bogost doesn’t say, and the thing I disagree with about his position, is that one could probably, theoretically, build a game system that interacts with identity politics in an interesting way. But then he goes beyond procedural rhetoric, beyond games criticism, to talk about something much larger.

What if the real fight against monocultural bias and blinkeredness does not involve the accelerated indulgence of identification, but the abdication of our own selfish, individual desires in the interest of participating in systems larger than ourselves?

So here it is, then. The crisis point on which this article hinges. Bogost has inclusively attacked not just all games, gamers, and creators, but all people. It’s a fascinating philosophical claim, inevitably bound to be unpopular, and one in which gamers and creators are left to deal with.

Bogost’s call-to-arms here is futile. The irony is almost tragic: videogames as a medium are perhaps best suited to this type of non-egoic systems-focused experience than any other, and yet the primary consumer of games, “gamers”, are perhaps the least interested in an experience that immerses you back in reality. What Bogost calls for is a kind of maturity few people could ever hope to attain. The ironic futility of the whole thing is so beyond cynical. It’s heartbreaking. Which I think was Bogost’s intent. As he states, we’re mourning the symbolic death of these “other” kinds of games. Or rather, what that signifies.

We’ll sign away anything, it would seem, so long as we’re still able to “express ourselves” with the makeshift tools we are rationed by the billionaires savvy enough to play the game of systems rather than the game of identities.

Capitalism is the promise of agency. But it’s a corpocracy and not democracy that sells us our own identity as freedom for dollars. Scott Benson’s joke theoretical game, “Wake Up Sheeple Simulator”, as reaction and criticism to this essay is spot on; or rather, would be spot on, except Bogost’s essay isn't really games criticism. It isn't even really an alternate solution to the identity politics debate. Nor is it a vigil to the death of a specific kind of game. Not exactly. It’s admitted wishful thinking and postured naivety is a thought experiment; one that yields a disturbing position on the human condition. It’s philosophy.

Bogost isn't alone in wanting the art we consume to face the problems we have in life; in wanting something more than escapism. It’s clear Bogost loves videogames, loves what they can do, the things only they can do. In an industry of escapists, though, Bogost might end up being the world’s first posthumous game developer--and also--another in a long line of posthumous thinkers.

A game, it turns out, is a lens onto the sublime in the ordinary. An emulsion that captured behavior rather than light.

[aramzs]

"From outside, people have the same prognosis for videogames that they have about, say, the Sudan. This state of affairs ought to chasten us. It ought to revise our understanding of the scope of the work before us. For example: if you want to fight for diversity in games, then absolutely you should fight to broaden representation among players, creators, and characters. But there’s another kind of diversity: the diversity of our interests and our dispositions, of the company we keep and the influences that inspire us, the people and the groups and the industries and the materials that we contact. It has to do with having dealings enough with the world such that it is no longer possible to be seen as a parochial backwater not even worth opposing let alone supporting. We have become too comfortable here in games."

Why Anything But Games Matters.