Digital Commons Network^™

Making Happiness In West Egg And Simburbia: An Inquiry Into Consumption In The Great Gatsby And The Sims, Shawn Thomson

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First two paragraphs]

At the end of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway reflects of his journey to the East: “this has been a story of the West” (184). Nick never explains exactly how this is the case, particularly odd since all the action takes place between Manhattan and Long Island. Nick’s hesitant explanation for this puzzling conclusion lies in the western origin of the central characters of the novel and their inability to adapt “to Eastern Life” (184). But the characters seem a part of, if not overshadowed by, the riotous world of West Egg. Only …

You Need Love And Friendship For This Mission!: The Final Fantasy Series As Social Education For Japanese Youth, Ben Hourigan

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

From the mid to late 1990s, popular and academic discourse on video games, particularly in the United States, has focused on their supposed capacity to engender violent and otherwise anti-social behavior in youth. Much like ludologists' recent claims that video games are not a narrative medium, at least one reason for this is that commentators have too narrow an understanding of the diverse range of games that exist. In addition to this, game demonizers have demonstrated an inadequate understanding of the ways games are related to real life. In order to combat these misunderstandings, this chapter analyzes the role of …

Little Gods And Little Heroes: Hyperreal Ethics In God Games And Online Gaming, G. Christopher Williams

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Media critics, notably Jean Baudrillard, have suggested that the environment of simulations are to be defined as something more real than the real, or, in his terms, hyperreal. If hyperrealities are indeed the way that we can define the environment of multimedia technologies like video games, what sorts of ethical considerations should exist in a place that gamers conceive as more real than the real? This essay considers what ethical considerations are worth contemplating as gamers begin to take on the roles of gods and heroes in multiplayer video games. The little gods and heroes whose identities gamers have begun …

The Horror Is Alive: Immersion, Spectatorship, And The Cinematics Of Fear In The Survival Horror Genre, Jay Mcroy

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

The video game genre known as survival horror resembles contemporary horror cinema in that both increasingly popular forms of entertainment allow audiences to experience fear resulting from the development of suspense coupled with the dread and shock of encountering monstrosity. One need only note the remarkable success of next generation video game franchises like Resident Evil (1996) and Silent Hill (1999) to realize that, more than ever before, game players in their late teens and beyond long to immerse themselves within interactive nightmares that offer the kind of thrills and chills once available exclusively through horror literature and films. However, …

Role Playing Games As Interactive Fiction, John Miller

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

This chapter compares the experience of gaming and the experience of reading, and explores what that comparison might tell us about each. More specifically, it applies methods of literary analysis to the study of two narrative activities situated near the border of reading and gaming: Electronic hyperfictions and role-playing games. Miller first reviews literary theories of reader response and interactivity and notes how these have informed recent critical discussions of literary hyperfiction. He then critiques these discussions and the claims made for hyperfiction's liberating or empowering effect on readers: Contrary to the claims of some critics, such narratives generally fail …

Imagined Cities, Real Futures: Simcity And The Co-Production Of Urban Dystopias, Samuel Gerald Collins

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

While the author of this chapter agrees with anthropologists who reject an urban studies predicated on postmodern surfaces and insist that we analyze cities in regional, national and global contexts of political economy, he nevertheless suggests that the urban imaginary has never been so important: Movies, television and music have proven all too useful in the continued vilification of an urban underclass. In 2001, in order to explore the role media might play in the structuring and delimitating of the ways we think about cities, Collins assigned SimCity, a computer simulation game combining models of urban development with cellular automata, …

Digital Extensions And Performed Players: A Theoretical Model For The Video/Computer Game, Ben Fisler

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Despite over twenty years of studies, scholars have yet to identify a productive theoretical model for the video game that does not depend on a fragmentary understanding of its form. Following Pierre Bourdieu's contention that the purpose of criticism is to understand cultural products as distinct scientific objects, and Marshall McLuhan's theory that the message and formative power of media are the media themselves, this study attempts to generate a foundational critical understanding of the video game. Building on the most lucrative intrinsic (such as David Myer's 1991 Computer Game Semiotics) and extrinsic (such as Jeffrey Goldstein's 1998 Immortal …

Allegorical Reductions And Social Reconstructions: An Introduction To Games, Gamers, And Gaming Cultures, Matthew Wolf-Meyer, Davin Heckman

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Games have become a central metaphor in representations of society, and most people are familiar enough with Lewis Carroll's Alice to know that when she passes through the looking glass she finds herself embroiled in a game a Chess which is also much more (Carroll 1992 [1897]). This strange game of Chess is simultaneously a simulation and an enactment of social life in Wonderland, and Carroll plots out Alice 's narrative path as a series of tactical Chess moves, which can be understood as both an attempt to win the game and to navigate through Wonderland and her …

Cold War Games And Postwar Art, Claudia Mesch

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

During the Cold War both “superpowers” used games, particularly chess, in order to construct an ideology of complete conflict and irreconcilable division between East and West. This essay focuses on the broad cultural challenge to divisive Cold War zero-sum mentality issued by a number of artists—André Breton, Marcel Duchamp and Öyvind Fahlström, and Fluxus artists George Maciunas, George Brecht, Robert Watts, Takako Saito and Yoko Ono. These artists, in a second wave of game-focused art, returned to the concerns of surrealist art practice and to earlier cultural game theory. Even conceptual art production was impacted by the predetermined structure of …

When A Killer Body Isn’T Enough: Cross-Gender Identification In Action-Adventure Video Games, Marc Ouellette

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

While sports games try to recreate the atmosphere of a stadium or of television broadcasts of games, role-playing and action-adventure games attempt to duplicate cinematography through animation. For Tomb Raider, the virtual reality created by the cinematic animation of the game produces an environment for male-to-female cross-gender identification, a topic that has received little critical attention. The sense of identification intended in this chapter comes from psychoanalysts Jean Laplanche and Jean-Baptiste Pontalis, who describe identification as a psychological process in which a subject assimilates an aspect, a property, a characteristic of another and transforms himself [or herself] totally or partially …

Sheep Updates 2005 - Part 3, Rob Davidson, David Pethick, C. F. Engelke, B. D. Siebert, K. Gregg, A-D G. Wright, P. E. Vercoe, Robin Jacob, Russell Barnett, Joanne Sneddon, Sandra Brown, G. Rose, C. Kabore, J Dart, Stuart Adams

Sheep Updates

This session covers seven papers from different authors: CUSTOMER 1. Benefits VIAscanR to producers and WAMMCO, Rob Davidson, Supply Development Manager, David Pethick, School of Veterinary and Biomedical Studies, Murdock University. 2. Healthy fats in lamb: how WA lambs compare with others, C. F. Engelke Animal Biology, University of Western Australia, bCSIRO Livestock Industries, Western Australia B.D. Siebert, Department of Animal Science, University of Adelaide, South Australia, K. Gregg, Centre for High-Throughput Agricultural Genetic Analysis, Murdoch University, Western Australia. A-D.G. Wright CSIRO Livestock Industries, Western Australia, P.E Vercoe Animal Biology, University of Western Australia 3. Shelf life of fresh lamb …

Drs Quarterly Council Report: Issue 11, Alec Robertson

Quarterly Council Reports

QCR Issue 10 did not appear due to a hard-disc failure. Some material was used in the following Issue, 11.

This QCR Issue includes a short Obituary on Professor L Bruce Archer who died on 16th May 2005. There is Part 2 of Vesna Popovic’s report on design research in Australian Universities and a report from new ICM Eduardo Corte-Real who announces the DRS Biennial 2006 Conference. In addition there an overview of Journals for which DRS member subscription discounts have been negotiated and it includes a reminder of the DRS AGM and associated Event held on 15 July 2005. …

Textile Society Of America Newsletter 16:3 — Fall 2004, Textile Society Of America

Textile Society of America: Newsletters

Oakland Beckons! TSA Symposium, October 7–9, 2004
From the President
TSA News
TSA Study Tours
TSA Member News
Symposium Exhibition: The Past in Present Tense: Four Decades of Baskets by Julia Parker
Member Reports
Collections News
Exhibition Review: The 11th Triennial of Textiles, Central Museum, Lodz, Poland
Book Reviews
Opportunities
Grants and Awards
Call for Papers
From the Editor
Calendar-Exhibitions, Lectures, Seminars, Tours
Conferences and Symposia

Creating A Life Of Art: A Personal Journey Towards Creative Freedom, Kristen Hanks

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This paper is a journey through my life as a Creator, from early childhood to the present. As I have moved through the process of writing my creative history, I have been able, for the first time, to take an introspective, reflective look at who I am as a person and an artist/creator. Using skills introduced to me in the Critical And Creative Thinking Program, it has been possible for me to undertake the task of confronting my past, my present and my future. My journey towards creative freedom begins in early childhood as I struggle with being a creative …

Book Review. Crafting Tradition, Jo Farb Hernandez

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

History Of Research On African Factory-Printed Cloth And Current Approaches In The Field, Michelle Willard

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper examines the significance of factory-printed cloth in Africa and its potential to communicate various messages through its use as clothing. Factory-printed cloth also has unintended communicative value when it is displayed outside Africa in museum contexts. I will introduce the topic with a brief history of research carried out on African factory-printed cloth and its appearance in museum and gallery exhibitions. This has led to contemporary forms of art historical and anthropological research. Some of the latter, including my own, has involved field collecting of commemorative cloths in West Africa. My research resulted in a museum exhibition of …

Resisting Aggression : Graphic Re-Presentations For Other Bodies, Camilla C. Loveridge

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

These chapters consider how art can provide a space for wider critical debate on established patriarchal power relations, which have operated in Western culture since the Enlightenment period. As a female artist, I want to explore the space in art of both the female body and the community body. This work seeks to position the female body within the "form" of her subjectivity, to destabilize patriarchal strongholds through the displacement of the traditionally aestheticised female "nude”. That is, I examine the (historicized) notion of a “subject” and the representation of an "object”, and understand the female "nude” as a representation …

Text As Technology: Reading N. Katherine Hayles' Writing Machines, Davin Heckman

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

N. Katherine Hayles' Writing Machines is a beautiful little book. Thanks to the innovative spirit of MIT Press' Peter Lunenfeld, the graphic design prowess of Anne Burdick, the multimedia talents of Sean Donahue (creator of the book's website ), and the insights of N. Katherine Hayles, Writing Machines arrives as one of the first installations of the Mediawork Pamphlet Series, and offers one possible line of development to follow for any scholar concerned with the future of The Book.

Rogerian Rhetoric As Negotiation: Does Its Dependence On Game Theory Pose Ethical Problems?, Stacy Fussell Thorne

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

In the war game Diplomacy, players win by gaining control of Europe. In order to win, however, players must successfully negotiate with other players, make alliances with them, and sometimes gain the support of their ally's military resources, their armies or fleets. In the rules of the game, Diplomacy is described as

a game of negotiations, alliances, promises kept, and promises broken. In order to survive, a player needs help from others. In order to win the game, a player must eventually stand alone. Knowing whom to trust, when to trust them, what to promise, and when …

Risd Views | Fall 2002, 125 Years Of Looking…, Elizabeth O'Neil Publishing Director, Liisa Silander Editor, Fleet Library, Risd Archives

RISD Views

This issue complements other initiatives planned and/or sponsored by RISD’s 125th Anniversary Committee, including a historic timeline outlining the evolution of the college and special events planned throughout the year.

The photograph on the cover of the Fall 2002 issue is the Carr House turret, shot by David O’Connor. Guest designers for the feature section of this issue are Marion Delhees ’92 GD and Achim Wieland MFA ’95 GD of lookinglately, New York/Zürich, a visual communication and design office founded in 1998.

While Mind Dances With Heart: Nurturing Design Vocabularies Through Personal And Cultural Identities, Shenglin Chang

Proceedings of the 18th National Conference on the Beginning Design Student

Although there are many ways of approaching design. my aims "in teaching young student designers was to have them understand the importance of finding the balance between the intuitive with the rational." (Mirochnik, 2000: 65) The approach that I take in teaching my beginning landscape design studio is one in which I draw upon my former career as a dancer/ choreographer. I have found that within the process of creating and performing dance, the rational and the visceral constantly intersect: choreography and performance are processes in which the mind dances with the heart. I educate my beginning design students to …

The Hand Of The Maker: The Importance Of Understanding Textiles From The "Inside Out", Beverly Gordon

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This is a position paper of sorts, arguing that the experience of making a textile is an important component of understanding it, and we should be encouraging textile researchers to include hands-on experiments as part of their investigation. Some TSA members will take this idea for granted because they have first-hand experience with textile making, and may find it overly obvious. The point is hardly new, and archeologist Elizabeth Barber made a strong case for the value of textile "reconstruction" in her 1994 book, Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years. Nevertheless, this is not a universally shared assumption, and …

The Hand Of The Maker: The Importance Of Understanding Textiles From The “Inside Out”, Beverly Gordon

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This is a position paper of sorts, arguing that the experience of making a textile is an important component of understanding it, and we should be encouraging textile researchers to include hands-on experiments as part of their investigation. Some TSA members will take this idea for granted because they have first-hand experience with textile making, and may find it overly obvious. The point is hardly new, and archeologist Elizabeth Barber made a strong case for the value of textile “reconstruction” in her 1994 book, Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years. Nevertheless, this is not a universally shared assumption, and …

Autotopography: Graffiti, Landscapes, & Selves, Deirdre Heddon

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

For some time now I have been interested in autobiographical performance -- some form of the theatrical, in which performers explicitly use personal material in their work. Within this general field of autobiography and performance, one area of research concerns performances that are dependent on being located in personalised space -- what could be called, then, site-specific autobiographical performance. A recent example of this would be the performance Bubbling Tom (2000), by the UK based performer Mike Pearson, which saw Pearson return to the village of his childhood, to reflect upon and re-enact certain memories, events and persons …

Passaic Boys Are Hell: Robert Smithson's Tag As Temporal And Spatial Marker Of The Geographical Self, Felicity Colman

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Robert Smithson seductively created stories about his activities as an artist with attention to his duration; his time of existence. Born in 1938 in the New Jersey suburb of Passaic, Smithson lived in the New Jersey suburbs of Rutherford and Clifton with his family until 1957 when he moved to live in downtown Manhattan, New York (Hobbs 1981, 231-232; Tsai 1991, 6). Smithson's adult life was undeniably shaped by his Pascalian/Sopranos awareness of engaging the circumference by which to navigate the centre of everyday life. In 1972 Smithson described New Jersey as: a kind of destroyed California, …

Uncoverings: The Research Papers Of The American Quilt Study Group, Volume 23 (2002), Virginia Gunn, Melissa Jurenga, Connie J. Nordstrom, Judy Elsley, Kim M. King, Carolyn O'Bagy Davis, Marilyn Goldman

Uncoverings Journal

Preface by Virginia Gunn

She Hath Done What She Could: Discovering Memories on a New York Friendship Quilt Vll by Melissa Jurenga

One Pot of Flowers Quilt Pattern--Blossoming Through Centuries by Connie J. Nordstrom

Read Me a Story: Cultural Values in Children's Quilt Fiction by Judy Elsley

Quiltmakers' Online Communities by Kim M. King

Fanny and the Busy Bees by Carolyn O'Bagy Davis

The Wilkinson Quilt Company: "America's Original Makers of Fine Quilts" by Marilyn Goldman

Authors and Editor

Index

Teaching The Arts Through The Appalachian Culture: A Proposal For A High-School Class., Valerie Renee Pitts

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Because of a demonstrable need, there should be a course for the study of Appalachian art in the high school curriculum. This study is a proposal for the study of traditional Appalachian art and its importance to the promotion and preservation of the arts and crafts in the Appalachian region.

This course consists of background information on selected traditional Appalachian art, contact and interaction with local artists and craftspeople, and student hands-on experience in the art forms considered. Detailed unit and lesson plans are included in the following areas: Spinning and Weaving, Dyeing, Basketry, Quilting, Pottery, Woodcarving, Blacksmithing, Vernacular Architecture, …

Textiles, Scholarship, And Art Education: An Art College Perspective, Wendy Landry

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In many communities the art college is the last formal refuge of active textile-making knowledge and heritage. This location appears to value playful, risky, or challenging material explorations which might result in creative design or meaningful visual expression. This should be the best environment for cultivating adventurous students able to integrate a wide range of experience and resources towards generating new ideas for interesting contemporary textiles. It could be a good place in which to discover how textiles contribute to human experience and history, and how they are meaningful. However, I submit that this art environment is still detrimental to …

An Interview With Claude Guillemot, Samantha Mach

SWITCH

This interview with Claude Guillemot, a French video game developer and publisher, talks about his website and some of the issues surrounding it today. Guillemot also mentioned CD-ROM and the web at the time when DOTCOM started to boom in the years 1998 - 2000. He uses the web to create synthetic artworks and talks about how artworks cannot be objective, the same way scientists such as archeologists are not really objective. In his responses to Switch Staff, Guillemot explains scientists and artists do not form a bias in their works and do not favor one side or another. By …

Mixed Media March 11, 1999, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Mixed Media began as the student publication Your Name Here. The March 11, 1999 issue includes articles on the change of editorial team "The Mixed Media Revolution", lack of a performance department at RISD, world news, the band They Might Be Giants, along with the comics "Die." by Paul and "Ben" by Frenzer, announcement of a meeting about censorship after a censored image in Senior Painting opening, event notices, and other announcements.