Technologies of History

My book Technologies of History: Visual Media, and the Eccentricity of the Past has just been published by Dartmouth Press and is due for release in March 2011. The book examines alternative forms of visual history as constructed through film, television and digital media over the past 30 years. Integrating theory, historical research and textual criticism, I explore issues of cultural memory, textuality and the impact of digital technologies on our understanding of the past, focusing on works that challenge the conventions and forms of traditional historiography. My goal is to broadly reconsider the range of practices that should be regarded as visual history, drawing special attention to voices and forms of practice that have been left out of mainstream historical discourse. Overall, I argue that the primary aspirations of visual history need not be limited to the production of illusionist narratives but may include the creation of new critical contexts in which viewers simultaneously interrogate the past and rethink the entangled relations of history, memory and media. As an intervention in prevailing discourses of media and history, my aim is to rethink our fundamental relationship to history in response to a diverse and rapidly evolving media landscape that includes online video, science fiction, games and digital networks.

In conjunction with the book, I have also created a rich-media interactive history project of the same title that expands upon a single case study drawn from the book. This project allows for an in-depth exploration of the extraordinary diverse ways the John F. Kennedy assassination has been mediated and reinterpreted, ranging from the Zapruder footage to machinima videos captured from the game JFK Reloaded. For me, these two projects represents an ideal conjunction of scholarly modes, with the book allowing for the in-depth development of a more or less conventional academic argument in linear form. However, the project examines a genuinely diverse range of media texts, so that no reader could reasonably be expected to be familiar with all of the objects under examination. By creating a digital companion to the written text, I was able to perform a different kind of textual analysis, not simply through illustration of examples but by juxtaposing different threads of the argument with related media clips. The experience of navigating this database of critical and mediated works allows the user to experience the argument from multiple perspectives and in varying degrees of specificity.

On sharing ideas and community

I’ve been surprised recently by the frequency with which I hear people (even those who should know better!) express concerns about sharing ideas in public or online before they are fully articulated or “protected.” This strikes me as symptomatic of a cultural moment marked by both desperation and the subtle triumph of today’s intellectual property regime.

I think it is worth thinking clearly about the consequences within a community of sharing vs. not sharing ideas. In the commercial realm, it is probably reasonable to expect the worst. This is why we have ham-fisted systems such as copyright, digital rights management and the DMCA. On a listserv devoted to Games for Change (G4C), a newcomer recently expressed her #1 concern with participating on the list as “How do I protect my idea?”

A number of the responses to her message suggested ways to import the copyright-centric conventions of commercial culture into the G4C community. I suppose that this would indeed prevent someone from stealing an idea, commercializing it and cutting the originator out of the profits. At the very least, it would provide lawyers with ammunition to use in court when a lawsuit for copyright infringement goes to trial.

Assuming that this is not really the primary issue for a community focused on social issue game design, I would instead propose a thought exercise to explore possible “worst-case scenarios” if we were to treat the G4C community as a shared, collective space for exploring and developing ideas at all stages.

Worst case #1
You mention an idea on the G4C list; someone takes it and makes exactly the game you were intending and they do so before your game can get off the ground. Perhaps the game will have the very impact you wanted to achieve, which is not all bad; or it will fail without taking up any of your time or resources. Everyone in the community will know what happened and the “stealer” will be regarded with suspicion thereafter.

Worst case #2
Someone takes your idea and tries to make a game out of it but botches the job; in this case, you can go on to make the game you originally envisioned, with the benefit of learning from their mistakes. The stealer will thereafter be regarded as both untrustworthy and incompetent.

Worst case #3
Your idea is not exactly “stolen” but it sparks a creative impulse in someone else, who makes a related project with significant variations, perhaps applying it to a different social issue or context. Again, your idea has brought something good to the world; you are free to go ahead and make your game, having learned from, or perhaps even collaborating with, those who made the other project. In this case, it is worth asking whether your current idea is really 100% original. Surely the best ideas sometimes build on the creativity of others; perhaps the initial idea was made possible precisely because someone else decided to share their own thinking with you or the world.

Worst case #4
Your idea circulates through the G4C community, you receive suggestions for improvement, references to related projects and ideas for collaborators; the original idea evolves and becomes stronger and more achievable; you make connections with others of like mind and G4C becomes an even more dynamic, creative space. In this case, you no longer feel total ownership and control of your original idea; it is no longer “intellectual property,” but it has become one among many parts of a community that shares certain goals and values.

In any case, participating in such a community improves the chances that any given idea will not be the last one (good or bad) that you ever have and certainly it increases the likelihood that both your idea and the community will get better. For me, the question comes down to what kind of creative communities I want to be a part of. I come to communities such as G4C to find creative, socially conscious people who care about issues and the potentials of games to make a difference in the world. Such a community is enriched when ideas are shared freely and openly and it is greatly impoverished, even poisoned, when ideas are held back or treated as property to be either protected or stolen.

Ideas are cheap and they should be plentiful; doing good work that makes a difference takes a whole community.

IKEA as ARG project at HASTAC conference

On Friday April 16 as part of the HASTAC Grand Challenges and Global Innovations virtual conference, I will be “presenting” (live via pre-recorded video) a project from my class last semester titled “Interactive Experience and World Design: IKEA as ARG” in which graduate students from USC’s Interactive Media program infiltrated an IKEA retail outlet to analyze the spatial and narrative design of the store as part of an Alternate Reality Game experience. The video offers a summary of the course context and project assignment, focusing on the concept of “scripted spaces,” drawn from Norman Klein’s book The Vatican to Vegas. This video also marks the first time I have had content automatically removed from my YouTube account due to the inclusion of copyrighted material. In representing the transmedia context for this project, the video includes clips of television programs, feature films, advertisements and popular music, at least one of which was flagged by YouTube’s copyright-filtering system on behalf of the Fox/News Corp. media conglomerate. I have filed a counter-takedown notice with YouTube in the hopes of having the video reinstated for public viewing, but for now, it is viewable as a Quicktime file or on Vimeo.

Introduction to Cast-Offs from the Golden Age

The history of entertainment technologies, so the media and technology industries would have us believe, is best framed as a series of creative and technological triumphs, moving inexorably toward faster processing, increasingly realistic graphics and more engaging forms of interactivity. Like the film industry, game companies would probably prefer we didn’t think in terms of history at all, choosing instead to situate themselves on the brink of a perpetual future, looking forward to the next big thing rather than contemplating how we got here. Heroic attempts to recapture some of the rapidly fading history of the game industry – from JC Herz’s Joystick Nation to Van Burnham’s Supercade – have appeared from time to time, but usually with a focus on North American and Pacific Rim game industries and always seeking to map a comprehensive history of progress toward the present.

However, the stories that historians choose to tell about the past are often inextricably entangled with their own personality quirks and idiosyncratic obsessions. If we are honest about it, the narratives we pursue probably consist of as many dead-ends, digressions and anachronies as neatly packaged elements of a grand historical narrative. It is a rare work of history that not only acknowledges this, but seeks to weave it into the fabric of the historical work itself, becoming a strength rather than a liability. So it is with Melanie Swalwell’s Cast-Offs From the Golden Age, created in collaboration with Vectors Art Director Erik Loyer.

In order to experience the largely unexamined history of video games in New Zealand, Swalwell asks us to retrace some of her steps – and occasional missteps – in seeking to discover this arcane and fragmented history. Swalwell’s project refuses to deliver a comprehensive history, choosing instead to allegorize the research process by embedding bits of information within an information space. The implication is that, following Michel Foucault, all history is rightly conceived of in terms of fragmentation and partiality. The seductive narrative of the definitive, totalizing history is both mendacious and misleading. Swalwell’s investigation is part exploration and part role-playing-game, as different facts reveal themselves with each traversal of the research space. Although probably a source of frustration for “Dragnet historians” (those hoping to receive “just the facts”), the rewards of engaging fully with the dynamics of Swalwell and Loyers possibility space are as formidable as that of any totalizing historical narrative.

State of CA sponsors earthquake ARG

They are calling it an emergency preparedness drill, but this sounds to me like the largest government sponsored ARG in history. It’s not the most expensive ARG in history, because that would be the U.S. stock market. Whatever we call it, USC is playing its part in The Great Southern California ShakeOut, with a call for “victims” that has just been distributed. Volunteers will be adorned with fake blood and neck collars and asked to lie on Cromwell Field until they are “rescued” during the drill on November 13. Rumor has it that students from Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design (which is slated to be reduced to a pile of rubble when the Big One hits – just take a look at this USGS-produced computer simulation) were enlisted to help design promotional materials for the event. Shouldn’t the IMD community be getting a piece of the action to bump up the collaborative storytelling aspects of earthquake survival? Fake blood and neck collars? That is so George Romero. Come on, people. We’re making an earthquake here!