Explanation // Conclusion
Quantified Flaneur
When moving through our urban space we tend to notice trends. We see patterns emerge in our rationalized surroundings, reflecting back the quantified nature of the city. I have concentrated on the juxtaposition of the organic movements of the flaneur and the regimented quantified approach of gamification. How can both exist when the other is present and do they interact? Using a thematic colour to create a ‘punctum’ as Barthes (1981) described them, a punctuation in my depiction of the city. “The punctum is a rupture, a discontinuation in the fabric of received knowledge .” The orange punctum to me represents the unnatural and stand out nature of gamification, the colour is a metaphor for the rationalisation and creation of social control in a public space. The rationalization that the flaneur was working against is a constant battle, gamified social control is an environment centred on efficiency not simply existing in a space (deWinter, Kocurek, Kocurek, 2014). This fascinating pairing of the flaneur experience and gamification I believe shows two elements of modern life, often pitched against one another. Finding both in our day to day lives. I created hyperbolic representation of gamification to show what people are afraid of happening, but I hoped to enable critical thought on whether or not this was a justified fear or a fallacy. The switch back to normal sounds and the removal of the distorted backing track when the credits role means that the dystopian reality that people fear is only a creation of the mind. While gamification exists I do not think it will be able to trump the experience of the Flaneur. Both tell interesting stories about modern life and our crafted environments.
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Barthes, R. (1981). Camera lucida: Reflections on photography. Macmillan.
deWinter, J., Kocurek, C. A., & Nichols, R. (2014). Taylorism 2.0: Gamification, scientific management and the capitalist appropriation of play. Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, 6(2), 109-127. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/jgvw.6.2.109_1