Mondo Nano

Gaming the Stage

“…5 Studying the past involves not only playing with our objects of analysis, but understanding the "metagame" we play when we do this. 6 By taking seriously the metagame as an essential and, indeed, innate part of the activity of playing with history, we not only become more aware of methodology and how it shapes the meaning of information uncovered about the past, but we recognize the ways our own historical moment, our own contexts for engagement with history, shape our understanding of the past. We need to game history in order to provide a history of gaming.…”

“…The plays depict social relationships in much the way sociologist Erving Goffman does in scholarship that was, notably, inspired by his fieldwork on card playing in casinos. 6 Goffman describes social relationships as "strategic interactions": interactants attempt to uncover information that they know their fellow participants are hiding and carefully manage the information they give off about themselves. 7 This interaction is less nefarious than it sounds, for the game of hiding and revealing information is, Goffman points out, a cooperative venture, one that helps reveal the character of each of the participants and solidify their social bond.…”

“…Because there were no assigned seats, patrons attending the more popular plays had to compete for the best viewing spots. 6 Even when they were not full, amphitheaters were set up in such a way as to encourage, or at least by no means inhibit, physical interaction among patrons. With plays performed in full daylight, moving around was all the easier and probably quite necessary, since, unlike in the indoor theaters, playgoers did not enjoy intermissions between every act: they would have needed to move about while the play was being performed in order to buy refreshments, relieve their bladders, and socialize with friends.…”

“…(12. [1][2][3][4][5][6] Shakebag and Black Will's strategies of emplacement have rendered them so reliant on visual modes of perceiving and abstract modes of interaction that they are unpracticed in engaging their other senses to navigate space and interact with their target. As it leaves them "making false footing in the dark" and attempting to follow Arden "without a guide" (12.51-2), the murderers' visual impairment is a material rendering of the blindness of those who, according to de Certeau, walk the city streets, unable to see the "urban 'text' they write" with their movements.…”

“…These games mandate that players become embodied performers, treat the game space as a kind of stage, and even encourage spectators to cluster around and watch gameplay as if it were a performance for an audience. 6 Although the content of most of these games is dance or music, not theatrical drama, the gaming done via Xbox and Nintendo's Wii systems is fundamentally theatrical in design and effect. 7 To understand this gaming technology and its social uses fully, we need to overcome what Jussi Parikka calls the "strategic amnesia of digital culture" 8 and look more closely at a historical moment when theater and games were decidedly interdependent media technologies: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or the "early modern" period.…”