Crisis play. Perceptions and didactics of states of crisis in digital games as a neo-baroque phenomenon.
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School of Arts, Design and Architecture |
Master's thesis
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Date
2023
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Master’s Programme in Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art
Language
en
Pages
83
Series
Abstract
The contemporary age is permeated by the omnipresence of crises, represented and experienced through mass media and affecting individuals globally. While several understandings of critical states as pandemics or war are in parallel with historical counterparts and their reception, the omnipresent digital technology of contemporary times creates both new narratives of threatening crises as well as new ways of simulation and coping. Often recognized within this situation and the socio-cultural response to it are the parallels to the baroque age and art, an era subjected to massive societal, spiritual and political changes, resulting in the production of cultural artifacts not only representing critical states, but attempting to provide comfort or teachings to the audience. Its contemporary continuation is found in the concept of neo-baroque as formulated by Omar Calabrese and Angela Ndalianis. While focusing on cinema and literature, both scholars already hint towards the potential of examining games from a neo-baroque perspective. Following these first attempts, this thesis proposes an understanding of the digital game as both an expression and reflection of historical and contemporary states of crisis, represented through technological spectacles and received through intense and emotional acts of play. Throughout this thesis, the interconnection of crisis and digital play will be considered under three aspects from an idea-historical and neo-baroque perspective. The digital crisis game will be located in a historical thread of crisis-themed cultural artifacts, with a focus on baroque theatre and religion. Recognizing the explicit teachings of (neo-)baroque media, following a distinction between different motivations of play and reflection will be introduced. Finally, the reciprocal relationship of critical states of technology and games will be examined, providing an understanding of crisis games as metaleptic media.Description
Supervisor
Ryynänen, MaxThesis advisor
Ryynänen, MaxKeywords
neo-baroque, digital games, crisis research, history of ideas, game research, eschatology, metacrisis