Teleplastic technologies: charting practices of orientation and navigation in videogaming

Abstract

In this paper I develop the concept of ‘teleplastic technologies’– technologies that pre‐shape the potentials and possibilities for human action, movement and sense – through the example of videogaming. I develop a case study of videogame users through which I unpack the characteristics of teleplastic technologies and the ways in which they operate to reorganise the capacities and capabilities of users’ bodies through spatial means. In the first section I argue that teleplastic technologies should be understood from a spatial/ethological perspective and show how ethologically limited videogame environments encourage users to act and move without conscious thought in response to various inhibitors and disinhibitors designed into that environment. In the second section I show how the somatic techniques users develop in response to these worlds reorganise the cardinal orientation of users’ bodies and, thus, how the ‘geography’ of teleplastic technologies shape the potential and possibilities for spatial sense.

Kuva rajapintana

“…Esimerkiksi tietokonepelien kuvia on tarkasteltu korostaen niiden affektiivisuutta ja kiinnittäen -Jacksonin ja della Doran tapaan -huomiota affektiivisuuden rakentumiseen nimenomaisesti kuvallisessa sommittelussa. Ash (2010aAsh ( , 2010bAsh ( , 2012 on tutkinut sekä digitaalisten pelien affektiivisen vetovoiman tärkeyttä että sitä, mihin pelien kuvien affektiivinen voima perustuu. Samaan tapaan kuin Jackson ja della Dora esittävät markkinointikuvista, Ash huomauttaa, että digitaalisten pelien visuaalinen affektiivisuus kytkeytyy paljolti kaupallisuuden tuottamaan myyntipakkoon: jotta pelejä saadaan kaupaksi, niiden on vangittava pelaajien huomio affektiivisesti.…”

3-D cinema: immersive media technology

“…The most amazing tactual effects'' (Aldous Huxley 1984in Paterson 2006 3-D cinema is a largely overlooked media within geographical critique. This paucity is notable given the sustained academic consideration afforded to other popular media, including, for example: newspaper cartoons (Dodds 1998(Dodds , 2010aFalah et al 2006), videogames (Ash 2009(Ash , 2010a(Ash , 2010b(Ash , 2012Ash and Gallacher 2011;Hughes 2010;Power 2007;Shaw 2010;Shaw and Sharp 2013;Shaw and Warf 2009;Stahl 2006), graphic novels (Holland 2012), comic books (Dittmer 2005(Dittmer , 2007, radio (Pinkerton and Dodds 2009), magazines (Sharp 2000), journalism (Pinkerton 2013), and film (Aitken and Dixon 2006;Carter and Dodds 2011;Carter and McCormack 2006;Dittmer 2011;Dittmer and Dodds 2013;Dodds 2010b;Lukinbeal andZimmermann 2006, 2008;Pile 2011;Power and Crampton 2005;Shapiro 2009;Sharp 1998).…”

The geographies of cultural geography III

“…The interdependencies of the embodied eye, the visual and material economies are considered too by Ash (2010), Hawkins ( 2010), Horton (2010), Capriotti and Kaika (2008), Rantisi and Lisle (2010), Fish(2007), Pratt(2007) and Wilson (2011). The cultural practices of the visual are squarely situated within the visceral realm by these authors.…”