06 JUL 2024 by ideonexus
The Allegorithm
A Sim in The Sims is a simple animated character, with few facial features or expressions. In The Sims 2 they seem a little more lifelike, but the improvement of the representation in some particular ways only raises the standards by which it appears to fall short in others. From the point of view of allegorithm, it all seems more the other way around. Everyday life in gamespace seems an imperfect version of the game. The gamespace of everyday life may be more complex and variegated, but it s...06 JUL 2024 by ideonexus
Games Turn Play into Work
‘Play’ was once a great slogan of liberation. Richard Neville: “The new beautiful freaks will teach us all how to play again (and they’ll suffer society’s penalty).” Play was once the battering ram to break down the Chinese walls of alienated work, of divided labor. Only look at what has become of play. Play is no longer a counter to work. Play becomes work; work becomes play. Play outside of work found itself captured by the rise of the digital game, which responds to the boredom...06 JUL 2024 by ideonexus
Being "Good" At a Game Means Internalizing It's Algorithms
The gamer is not really interested in faith, although a heightened rhetoric of faith may fill the void carved out of the soul by the insinuations of gamespace. The gamer’s God is a game designer. He implants in everything a hidden algorithm. Faith is a matter of the intelligence to intuit the parameters of this geek design and score accordingly. All that is righteous wins; all that wins is righteous. To be a loser or a lamer is the mark of damnation. When you are a gamer, you are left with ...Folksonomies: critical theory gaming
Folksonomies: critical theory gaming
04 JUN 2024 by ideonexus
Topic, Topology, and Topography in Critical Theory
In practice, critical theorists use these concepts to:
Topic: Identify and critique the central themes and issues in various discourses, questioning what is considered important or relevant and why.
Topology: Analyze the networks and relationships within social structures to reveal how power and influence are distributed and maintained.
Topography: Map and describe the socio-cultural landscape to expose the underlying forces that shape it, often highlighting issues of power, inequality, a...Folksonomies: critical theory
Folksonomies: critical theory
07 MAY 2024 by ideonexus
How the Powerful Influence Culture
Signification, which is the only function of a word admitted by semantics, reaches perfection in the sign. Whether folk-songs were rightly or wrongly called upper-class culture in decay, their elements have only acquired their popular form through a long process of repeated transmission. The spread of popular songs, on the other hand, takes place at lightning speed. The American expression “fad,” used for fashions which appear like epidemics – that is, inflamed by highly-concentrated ec...Folksonomies: culture critical theory
Folksonomies: culture critical theory
07 MAY 2024 by ideonexus
Cobain Could Not Escape the Monetization of Art
What we are dealing with now is not the incorporation of materials that previously seemed to possess subversive potentials, but instead, their precorporation: the pre-emptive formatting and shaping of desires, aspirations and hopes by capitalist culture. Witness, for instance, the establishment of settled 'alternative' or 'independent' cultural zones, which endlessly repeat older gestures of rebellion and contestation as if for the first time. 'Alternative' and 'independent' don't designate s...28 APR 2024 by ideonexus
The Demise of Legality
In an essay called "The Twilight of Legality," John Gardner theorises the demise of legality in the modern age. He describes the increasing invasion of legislative regulations in every aspect of life. Think, the complicated and mistake-prone process of filling out your taxes, requirements to link government IDs to your bank account, or intellectual property rights and their muddy disputes. Gardner sees this barrage of legal paraphernalia as antithetical to democratic justice and freedom. He c...Folksonomies: legality critical theory
Folksonomies: legality critical theory
28 APR 2024 by ideonexus
Clever References to Critical Theory
Really it is entirely about story, though not in any sense that any of you seem familiar with. Do you know nothing of narratology? Where is Derridean "play" and excessiveness? Foucauldian limit-attitude? Lyotardian language-games? Lacanian Imaginaries? Where is the commitment to praxis, positioning Jamesonian nostalgia, and despair as well as Habermasian fears of irrationalism as panic discourses signaling the defeat of Enlightenment hegemony over cultural theory? But no: discourses on this s...Folksonomies: critical theory
Folksonomies: critical theory
02 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
Star Wars as a Nonsensical Failed State
Most technologies in the Star Wars universe that don’t have some capability of being used in war… well, they kinda just suck.
There are so many areas where it seems like average Star Wars tech should outdo itself given how advanced the military-grade technology is, but in practice it doesn’t appear to make much difference at all. Repair droids who aren’t astromechs—like the pit droid crews used in podracing—have nowhere near the sophistication of their battle-ready cousins. Commu...Folksonomies: critical theory
Folksonomies: critical theory
29 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
The Problem with the Term "Music Theory"
Music Theory. You will forgive me for turning, as I always do in moments of intellectual want, to my Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, which defines the word "theory" as, and we quote, "The analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another." My friends, few words offer as much rational solace as does the word "theory." Examining the plausibility of a theory demands that we analyze facts, reason logically, think objectively, and examine comprehensively. Having done so, we will assumab..."Theory" implies facts and scientific understanding through observation and testing. Music is an art, filled with idiosyncrasies, and no hard rules.