This workshop focuses on the themes of identity through computer game narratives. Similar to the Bildungsroman novel of the 19th and 20th century, the videogame is a form of environmental storytelling, where the protagonists identity is constructed through traversing space (the topographical supplanted for the topological). The hero's quest now becomes a player's goal and the complications created by an unbending social order are replaced with the algorithmic framework of the game designer.

Of note are games such as Under Ash, which is a Palestinian made first person shooter game which starts with an opening scene of the Hebron massacre by the Jewish Baruch Goldstein. The videogame was created as a response to the way in which Arabs are negatively portrayed in the majority of military themed video games being produced.

Other video games such as America's Army has become the most successful recruiting tool the U.S. Army has ever produced. Moreover, FallOut 3 is a fascinating collage of George Miller's Road Warrior narrative and America's Cold War aesthetics and insular consciousness played out in post apocalyptical wasteland of Washington D.C. Like many games each of them are often tweaked for political or cultural sensitivity. The Japanese verision of FallOut 3 has removed the nuclear explosions. Also Metal Gear Solid4 (removed the Arabic language used by the generic enemies in the middle east sequences).

The convergence of allegory and algorithm in computer digital games is redefining not only the way in which social and political narratives are constructed but how contemporary cultures negotiate gamespace and gameplay as a way to enhance or promote prevailing ideologies.

The presenter of this event will approach the subject from a qualitative perspective utilizing a
discursive methodology that examines how the concepts of gameplay and identity have been reshaped by increasing global movements toward algorithmic identity. The Cold War's circuitous logic has become the logic of the circuit.

Hosted by Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University Beppu, Japan.

Speaker:

Peter Mantello
Professor of New Media Center for Advanced Media Arts Studies, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University Beppu, Japan

Friday, 5 June 2009, 11:30 p.m., Plenary Chamber