Everything is a game. Including our everyday lives. But gaming in its literal sense, a form of play or sport that proceeds competitively in which your succes is based on your skill, strength and luck has been around for decades.
Digital Games, also known as Video Games, on the other hand are essentially about 30 years old. For the first time humans took gaming to a whole different level. Digital Games allow you to be in whatever world you desire doing what ever activity you want. Whether its playing basketball at the NBA championships or shooting an Afghani in Afghanistan, this age of gaming allows for this level of sophistication. We are yet to create the worlds at a level indistinguishable from reality - this is not the case with CGI for movies. In movies CGI can now create worlds and characters indistinguishable, to the average human eye, from reality.
Unlike other forms of gaming, where the pleasure and satisfaction one gets are more singular, i.e Poker, with Video Games you are, as if, living a life. You are living the life of the character. Right now the character's feelings and senses are only communicated visually and through the vibration of the controller. But soon the player will be able to sense what the character feels and senses first hand.
At some point games took a more narrative root. This came from the movies with some games stylized to look like a movie. Some games even restrict you in what you can do to give you more of that movie feel.
Gaming is an interactive medium. Video Games have an intelligence of their own.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Auteurship - Tom Tykwer
I watched Tom Tykwer's "Cloud Atlas", "Run Lola, Run"and "Perfume, the story of a murderer".
Tom Tykwer, a German, seems to be interested in unusual and corky material. He asserts himself in the story by bringing out its corkiness. His authorship can also be seen in the performances in his movies. He brings out not just the pretty, but often the ugly and the pure in his actors. This can specially be seen in "Perfume, the story of a murderer".
He has an unconventional use of lenses, i.e extremely wide lenses for closeups. His cast are usually very diverse. But despite all the technical touches, he brings a sense of absurd reality to his pieces. Even when the style bombars the content, i.e in "Run Lola, Run", he manages to stay true to his sense of humor and bring almost an acute form of reality.
Tom Tykwer, a German, seems to be interested in unusual and corky material. He asserts himself in the story by bringing out its corkiness. His authorship can also be seen in the performances in his movies. He brings out not just the pretty, but often the ugly and the pure in his actors. This can specially be seen in "Perfume, the story of a murderer".
He has an unconventional use of lenses, i.e extremely wide lenses for closeups. His cast are usually very diverse. But despite all the technical touches, he brings a sense of absurd reality to his pieces. Even when the style bombars the content, i.e in "Run Lola, Run", he manages to stay true to his sense of humor and bring almost an acute form of reality.
Contemporary Media
Medium communicates content. The content, i.e. the message, is really a constant. Being a human and each being capable of an individual experience, we experience the content differently. That experience as well as being dependent on us, it is dependent on the medium through which it is being communicated.
The classic example of this is when you've read a book and then you go and watch the movie of the same book. Almost every time with every person what they had imagined turns out to be different from what the movie looked like.
Different Medium require different levels of interaction from the human. For example a book is more interactive than watching a movie. That is not to undervalue movies, but to understand that the process of watching a movie is more of a passive act.
All Mediums create their own environments. The environment is what influences the human experience.
The classic example of this is when you've read a book and then you go and watch the movie of the same book. Almost every time with every person what they had imagined turns out to be different from what the movie looked like.
Different Medium require different levels of interaction from the human. For example a book is more interactive than watching a movie. That is not to undervalue movies, but to understand that the process of watching a movie is more of a passive act.
All Mediums create their own environments. The environment is what influences the human experience.
Lolita
The morality of Humbert thoughts, feelings and action can be looked upon from a few different perspectives.
We should also keep in mind that the Human Sexual intercourse has three primary segments -
1. Reproduction,
2. Physical pleasure, and
3. Mental satisfaction.
So one who can't reproduce, having not hit puberty yet, can still physically enjoy sexual intercourse. Yet it seems that the mental satisfaction goes beyond the physical pleasure. It is the satisfaction of achievement. When one works hard towards making it happen and it actually happens and its with the right person - what is known as 'making love' - the satisfaction comes from their understanding of what they have just accomplished. The younger you are the less you understand the ins and outs of intimacy. You don't quite understand the advantages and the disadvantages of your action. You don't get the game as well as the other because you are not as experienced. For this reason it is wrong to have sex with someone who is drastically younger than you.
On the other hand for many years, in Christianity and Islam, younger girls were forcefully married to older men. The age difference would go from 1 year all to the way to 10. So if you were a female and you were 15, you would marry a 25 year old. Off course by then the girl has hit puberty and is physically ready for sexual intercourse. So looking at from this point of view what Humbert is doing is not that much out of order.
I think what is really morally wrong with Humbert's relationship is that she's his daughter! This takes us to another topic - how humans think and operate.
Humans can think and act in three ways:
1. With their mind
2. With their heart
3. With their Penis OR Vagina
As a father, Humbert, is ment to take care of his little girl. He should by no means let his penis over take his mind. This is not to undervalue ones natural and even innocent sexual feelings. But if you're a dad and you have singed up to take care of this little thing, then you have no right to pursue your sexual desires with her. Go out and find someone else. As a father there are so many million more things, topcis, thoughts and feeling that he can share with his little girl.
Humbert does mention:
“I would be a knave to say, and the reader a fool to believe, that the shock of losing Lolita cured me of pederosis. My accursed nature could not change, no matter how my love for her did. On playgrounds and beaches, my sullen and stealthy eye, against my will, still sought out the flash of a nymphet's limbs, the sly tokens of Lolita's handmaids and rosegirls. But one essential vision in me had withered: never did I dwell now on possibilities of bliss with a little maiden, specific or synthetic, in some out-of-the-way place; never did my fancy sink its fangs into Lolita's sisters, far far away, in the coves of evoked islands.”
As he explains in the quote above, he’s not a scavenger. He’s just going with his feelings. It is through discipline that one becomes a better version of who you they are. And who you are by a big portion is what you experienced as a child all the way to your 20s.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Lyman Frank Baum explores many themes, specially of self-contradiction, in The Wizard of Oz. The three characters, Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion all lack self confidence. The Scarecrow gets them out of trouble using his wits, the Tin Woodman cries when he hurts even the tiniest creature and the Cowardly Lion fights bravely before facing the Wizard. These characters portray the complex human being. As humans our character and consciousness can be divided into three basic sections it seems: Intelligence [mind and the brain], Love [our heart] and Courage [how strong your will is]. With a deep understanding of these three we can do whatever we want. By the end of novel, the characters reach self fulfillment. To assure them of their achievement the Wizard places an amalgamation of bran, pins, and needles in the Scarecrow's head to inspire intellect; gives a silk heart to the Tin Woodman to inspire love; and a drink to the Cowardly Lion to inspire bravery. Lyman Frank Baum believes in our natural characteristic, and although under appreciated, at time when in need they take care of us without our fully conscious decision.
One grown-up feature in Wizard of Oz is Lyman Frank Baum’s subtle political satire. Almost everyone in Oz is afraid of someone believed to be more powerful than they are, and the objects of fear are in turn afraid of the fearful. Even when their inadequate rulers are removed, the people of Oz quickly look for new ones. When the Wizard, for instance, escapes from the Emerald City, the town folks install the Scarecrow, reasoning that his Wizard-given brain will make him a wise leader, “For there is not another city in all the world that is ruled by a stuffed man.”
The religious satire, unlike the political, is less direct. Here the Wizard is telling Dorothy how he came to Oz from Nebraska in a hot air balloon. He confesses that he “found himself in the midst of a strange people, who, seeing me come from the clouds, thought I was a great Wizard. Of course, I let them think so, because they were afraid of me, and promised to do anything I wished them to.” There’s that Oz fear again, only here it serves more of a religious end rather than a political one.
Oz has a timeless message - the challenge of valuing oneself during hardship. This has not lessened during the prior 100 years, hence why this story continues to resonate and connect with contemporary humans.
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