Papers by Margarita Skomorokh
The article covers one of the topics explored by the researchers of the Laboratory of Computer Ga... more The article covers one of the topics explored by the researchers of the Laboratory of Computer Games Research — the image of the Other (Alien, Different, Enemy, etc.) in computer games. Being a new form of aesthetic, cultural, social, and communicative experience, computer games are beginning to influence our everyday practices. Many of the processes in social life (production, labour, education, rest, communication) become mediated and playful. Game mechanics are used in non-game contexts (this process is called “gamification”), and due to this procedure, the experience of computer games is transmitted to the areas that are considered to entirely lack playfulness: war, pain, violence, corporeal feelings. All in all, nowadays many social relationships are formed by the game. For instance, the space of MMORPG often becomes a laboratory, where social skills are perfected, the first encounter with the other occurs, and the contours of new intersubjectivity are set. In games humans are ...
Медиафилософия XII. Игра или реальность? Опыт исследования компьютерных игр / Под ред. В. В. Савчука. СПб.: Фонд развития конфликтологии, 2016
Galactica Media: Journal of Media Studies, 2019
The time we live in is characterized by the crisis of interaction: the interface is losing its me... more The time we live in is characterized by the crisis of interaction: the interface is losing its medial and communicative nature and no longer performs the function of linking elements — rather, it becomes a source of immediate experience and an environment, a signifier without a signified, an amedial mirror-like surface. In computer games, this trend shows itself most vividly. In games, reflection about anything is transformed into production of a new reality: game mechanics force their laws upon the narrative, generate a special sensual-bodily experience, and set the perception of the categories of space and time. The reality of the interface, eluding the researcher’s gaze in its entirety but manifested in a variety of specific forms, often generates breakdown, glitches, and phantom phenomena, which in turn bring forth various ludic mutations.
Международный журнал исследований культуры, 2019
В статье на примере неиммерсивных игр (тамагочи, дигимонов, Pokémon Go, первазивных игр) рассматр... more В статье на примере неиммерсивных игр (тамагочи, дигимонов, Pokémon Go, первазивных игр) рассматривается предложенное Й. Хейзингой понятие магического круга, то есть границы между игрой и не-игрой. Неиммерсивные медиа рассчитаны на особый режим потребления: пользователь делит внимание между несколькими медиа и занятиями, что приводит к тесному переплетению вымышленного мира и повседневной жизни. Явления такого рода позволяют исследователям компьютерных игр критиковать понятие магического круга, описывая его как проницаемую или подверженную разрывам границу. Анализ литературы показывает, что эта интерпретация является следствием ошибочного понимания Й. Хейзинги, а также теории фреймов. Различение игры и не-игры в неиммерсивных играх сохраняется, однако, за счет своей временной структуры они, подобно ритуалу, придают новые смыслы повседневной жизни. Легенды, стоящие за тамагочи и дигимонами, позволяют предположить, что неиммерсивные игры воспроизводят миф о киберпространстве как гибриде, стирающем разницу между воображаемым и матeриальным. Граница, таким образом, уничтожается в этом акте самоосмысления только символически.
This article, drawing on the example of non-immersive games (Tamagochi, Digimon, Pokémon Go, pervasive games) discusses the notion of magic circle, coined by J. Huizinga, which means a boundary between the game and non-game. Non-immersive media are intended for a special mode of consumption: users split their attention between several media and activities. As a result, the fictional world and everyday life become closely intervened. Such phenomena encourage game studies scholars to criticize the notion of magic circle: they describe it as a boundary that is permeable or easily broken. A critical reading shows that this interpretation is driven by misunderstanding J. Huizinga as well as the frame theory. In non-immersive games, the difference between the game and non-game is not lost. However, their time structure allows them to assign new meanings to the everyday life, like rituals do. The legends behind Tamagochi and Digimon suggests that non-immersive games reproduce the myth of cyberspace as a hybrid that blurs out the distinction between the reality and fantasy. In this self-reflective act, the boundary is broken only symbolically.
Визуальная экология: формирование дисциплины, 2016
Международный журнал исследований культуры, 2014
The author describes multiplayer online games in the context of new media, using the notion of in... more The author describes multiplayer online games in the context of new media, using the notion of interactivity. The aim of the article is to understand what form the power of media takes in this case, and whether the interactivity of games creates the possibility of resistance to this power. The format of online games is considered, as well as gamers’ behavior: different gaming modes and marginal practices are analyzed.
Rossica Petropolitana Juniora, 2007
Talks by Margarita Skomorokh
Philosophy of Computer Games: Aesthetics of Comuter Games (2019), 2020
In this paper, a new concept, “if-image”, is introduced to grasp the unique aesthetic qualities o... more In this paper, a new concept, “if-image”, is introduced to grasp the unique aesthetic qualities of digital games and applied to several case studies – art games with unconventional visual language (Panoramical, Aentity, The Catacombs of Solaris, etc.).
A historical overview of pre-computer art techniques involving formal operations on discrete data shows that there is link between digitality and interactivity and that, in a sense, digital art is older than computers. However, the invention of computers allowed orchestrating a set of well-known artistic techniques in a new way.
The real-time 3D technology made a revolution in computer games—just like montage and the mobile camera, according to G. Deleuze, transformed cinema by replacing moving images with “movement-images”. Gamers actualize / generate (movement-)images by choosing branches of the algorithm. At the same time, these choices and branches are not perceived as a distinct actions and entities—rather, there is one multifaceted and susceptible to influence yet indivisible image – an “if-image”, named after the if / then statement in programming. It is percevied mostly at the bodily level.
Digital aesthetics, as shown in the paper, is based on a paradox: digital systems are discrete by nature and yet they are used to simulate the continual if-image; the monotonous mathematical structure of the digital “grid” somehow gives birth to its opposite. As an art form, games either suppress this paradox to create perfect illusions or take a self-reflexive approach and reveal the underlying tension and attraction between the opposites.
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Papers by Margarita Skomorokh
This article, drawing on the example of non-immersive games (Tamagochi, Digimon, Pokémon Go, pervasive games) discusses the notion of magic circle, coined by J. Huizinga, which means a boundary between the game and non-game. Non-immersive media are intended for a special mode of consumption: users split their attention between several media and activities. As a result, the fictional world and everyday life become closely intervened. Such phenomena encourage game studies scholars to criticize the notion of magic circle: they describe it as a boundary that is permeable or easily broken. A critical reading shows that this interpretation is driven by misunderstanding J. Huizinga as well as the frame theory. In non-immersive games, the difference between the game and non-game is not lost. However, their time structure allows them to assign new meanings to the everyday life, like rituals do. The legends behind Tamagochi and Digimon suggests that non-immersive games reproduce the myth of cyberspace as a hybrid that blurs out the distinction between the reality and fantasy. In this self-reflective act, the boundary is broken only symbolically.
Talks by Margarita Skomorokh
A historical overview of pre-computer art techniques involving formal operations on discrete data shows that there is link between digitality and interactivity and that, in a sense, digital art is older than computers. However, the invention of computers allowed orchestrating a set of well-known artistic techniques in a new way.
The real-time 3D technology made a revolution in computer games—just like montage and the mobile camera, according to G. Deleuze, transformed cinema by replacing moving images with “movement-images”. Gamers actualize / generate (movement-)images by choosing branches of the algorithm. At the same time, these choices and branches are not perceived as a distinct actions and entities—rather, there is one multifaceted and susceptible to influence yet indivisible image – an “if-image”, named after the if / then statement in programming. It is percevied mostly at the bodily level.
Digital aesthetics, as shown in the paper, is based on a paradox: digital systems are discrete by nature and yet they are used to simulate the continual if-image; the monotonous mathematical structure of the digital “grid” somehow gives birth to its opposite. As an art form, games either suppress this paradox to create perfect illusions or take a self-reflexive approach and reveal the underlying tension and attraction between the opposites.