Description
Book SynopsisIn recent decades, what could be considered a gamification of the world has occurred, as the ties between games and activism, games and war, and games and the city grow ever stronger. In this book, Anne-Marie Schleiner explores a concept she calls 'ludic mutation', a transformative process in which the player, who is expected to engage in the preprogramed interactions of the game and accept its imposed subjective constraints, seizes back some of the power otherwise lost to the game itself. Crucially, this power grab is also relevant beyond the game because players then see the external world as material to be reconfigured, an approach with important ramifications for everything from social activism to contemporary warfare.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Player's Power to Change the Game 1. The Game vs. the Player 2. Chapters Chapter 1. Lightness of Digital Doll Play 1. The KiSS Doll 2. From Dolls to Avatars 3. The Collaborative Unfolding Game 4. Ludic Mutation vs. Ludic Stasis in M.M.O.R.P.G.s 5. A Virtual Space of Appearance 6. Gender, Identity Play, and the Active Disclosure of the Who 7. Disembodied Sensual Pleasure 8. Beyond the Dollhouse Chapter 2. Modding: Cross-Over Mutation and Unwelcome Gifts 1. A Brief History of First Person Shooter Modding 2. Sandbox World-building, Interface Mods, and Expert Cheats 3. Artistic Noise in the System 4. Cross-Over Mutation of Play Material 5. Thieving Parasites 6. A Common Sphere of Gifted Games 7. Rejected Gifts Chapter 3. Activist Game Rhetoric: Clockwork Worlds, Broken Toys, and Harrowing Missions 1. The Toy World System 2. Overseers of Toy World Operations 3. The Ordinariness of Interactive Toy World Equipment 4. Player vs. Game 5. Harrowing Missions of Refugees 6. Broken Toys and the No Play Imperative Chapter 4. City as Military Playground: Contested Urban Terrain 1. Military Playgrounds 2. Military Theories of Urban Occupation 3. From Deadly Play to Administrators of Life 4. The Artist's Intervention as Situationist Game 5. Hacking the City 6. Contesting the Terrain 7. Funny Resistance 8. Points of Détournement Chapter 5. Toys of Biopolis 1. Biopolitics, Apparatus, Gadget 2. The Biocontrol Society 3. Augmented Urban Reality and Paidiaic Toys 4. A Children's Biopolis Chapter 6. A Tactical Sketchbook for Ludic Mutation 1. Tactic #1: Elude 2. Tactic #2: Mutate from Within 3. Tactic #3: The Broken Toy Tactic 4. Tactic #4: Artistic Hacktivism 5. Tactic #5: Reprogrammable Toy Gadgetry Bibliography Index
