After reading Ian Bogost’s article titled “Persuasive Games: The Proceduralist Style” I couldn’t help but have a few questions.  Maybe it was my unfamiliarity with the rhetoric and vocabulary being used to describe his concept, but I felt that Bogost’s article needs a bit of unpacking before I can attempt to provide any commentary on it.

First of all, the concept of a Proceduralist Style is in reference to games that lie between the categories of the abstract genre (Tetris) and that of the “concrete” or realistic games (SimCity).  This quote describes the difference the best:

“Games like Go and Tetris are abstract; if they have any aboutness, it is limited to the experience of the system itself. One can make representational claims about these games (as Janet Murray did of Tetris in Hamlet on the Holodeck), but only in an overtly metaphorical way.

By contrast, games like SimCity and Madden are concrete; they deal very clearly with specific subjects and activities, in this case urban planning and American football.

Proceduralist games sit between these two poles. Their systems characterize some aboutness that is not an accident of genre or convention, but one deliberately selected — often from personal experience.”

Ok so creators of Proceduralist games want there to be real, concrete activities or subjects, but these stem from some abstract personal experience or emotion.  Therefore, Proceduralist games suggest a artistic medium in which people “play” a game that doesn’t necessarily have a set goal or rules, and then see how they feel about it.  I guess for me, the best way to think about it is that Proceduralist games attempt to entice some form of deeper introspection, internalization and/or analyzation of the games themes that aren’t present in more “concrete or abstract” games, like those mentioned previously.

Now of course this is exactly what art attempts to do, bring about a reaction to a piece and cause the experiencer to interact with it on a deeply personal level.  This is obviously an extremely generalized definition for art, but it holds within it the basis of the question being asked I think.  Mainly, is it possible to call Proceduralist games art because of their ability to bring about this experience with it’s audience that is comparable to other media and forms of contemporary art, or socially accepted form of artistry.  My answer to that question…..who knows….our notions of constitutes are are ever changing from generation to generation.  So whose to say what is art and what isn’t…

Read the full article here: ArtGames

For today’s reading I must say that was extremely wary when the introduction included the statement that

“We argue that SL Residents participate in an Activity System, engaging in myriad activities (e.g. language classes) which provide structured environments that generate both intended and unintended outcomes (e.g. learning) for participants.1 We found, paradoxically, that although participation in SL is a sedentary activity involving physical isolation, in many ways active participation and virtual travels in SL also enhanced Residents’ intercultural literacy as they connected with other geographically dispersed participants.”

However, that being said, I discovered, to my surprise, some interesting ideas that surface when discussing cultural growth and exchange within Second Life.  The main one being formally scheduled language classes.

After reading the portion of the study that suggests because there is such a diverse demographic of Users on SL, there of course would be number of different languages spoken within the virtual world.  However, what I wasn’t prepared for was the notion that language classes would therefore flourish within this virtual realm as an outcome of that diverse demographic.  ESL classes, as the study states, are on the rise in SL because of the virtual worlds bias toward English as being the dominant language found in SL.  It’s fascinating to me that you can sit down at a computer and possibly explore a new language and even learn to speak it within the confines of a virtual world like SL.    Now I don’t know if that’s necessarily a good thing or a bad thing, but the fact that it is happening is extremely interesting to me.  Therefore, I’ll reserve passing judgement on SL for now….

Read the entire article HERE…

So my first experience with Second Life can be described as uneventful, to say the very least.  After creating my avatar, a giant bunny that goes by the name of “Intercult”-Internet Culture, I was dropped into the game world.  After following the arrows on the floor around in seemingly large circle, I began to get a feel for the movement controls and the way that my avatar interacted with the virtual world around it.  I noticed that you could select different movements that range from walking and running to flying.  That being said I wasn’t able to figure out how to fly to my supreme disappointment.

After following the arrows I arrived at a portal that by walking into it, transported me to a mountainous landscape where I had to attempt to fine red, yellow, and orange crystals.  Safe to say that I promptly gave up after I a failed search attempt of 10 minutes or so took place, after which I returned to the previous introductory world and logged off.

As for the hobbies and interests of my avatar, I haven’t really thought about it much.  I mean, he is a giant rabbit, reminds me of the character Donny Darko but I don’t really think I want that personality to be a role model for my avatar.  I’ll figure something out I’m sure but if anyone has any helpful insights or suggestions I would appreciate it : ).

Elizabeth Drescher’s article titled “Five Social Media Trends that are Reshaping Religion” appeared in the online magazine Religious Dispatch.  The magazine focuses on publishing a medley of “expert opinion, in-depth reporting, and provocative updates from the intersection of religion, politics and culture.”

Drescher, who currently teaches religious studies at Santa Clara University, focuses her article on the affect that technology, specifically that having to do with social media, has on our current perceptions of religion.  The main point that I found to be the most interesting was the inclusion of religious apps, or as Drescher terms them “O Holy Apps”, as a means of outreach for ministry services.  However, what struck me as odd, was Drescher’s reference to the Confession App.  Granted, apparently the Vatican has released a statement saying that the confession app is not a substitute for a real face to face confession, but the creation of the app still raises an interesting point.  I personally do not think that a confession app is a viable option to replace a face to face interaction with a priest, but i have a  feeling that as our society becomes more and more technologically saturated that people will eventually have no problem with it.  To me, that seems a little scary.

I guess the main reason why I have reservations about such things as the confession app is because it allows us to retreat into a world were physical interaction with others is not necessary.  We are social creatures and to be cut off from others, I think, would be extremely detrimental to our evolution as a species.  I just don’t see technological advancements such as this app as being beneficial to humanity as a whole.

Read Elizabeth Drescher’s entire article here…

I was interested in finding an app like “Voice Memos” that could turn an android into an audio recorder.  I find this one by Mamoru Tokashiki called “Voice Recorder” that seems to work fairly well.  Not only that but the ratings provided on the Android Market website were above average.

I’ve had one or two projects in which we had to embed an audio file into a power point presentation or some other medium.  That being said, I have never used Audacity before so this should be a new learning experience.  The last project that I had to edit audio and video files for was dedicated to Tracy Chapman in which I compiled a series of videos that highlighted certain concerts, as well as narrated the project myself, hence the editing of the audio.  However we used iMovie and not Audacity to do the editing so I’m looking forward to learning this new program.

The SCU’s California Legacy Project, maintained by SCU English Professor Terry Beers, is a collaboration between the publishing company Heyday and Santa Clara University whose goal is “to raise public awareness and appreciation for our state’s cultural legacy and to encourage faculty and students in their creative and scholarly interest in Californian culture.”  The website dedicated to this project can be found here.

Currently Terry Beers is teaching a seminar class at SCU that has it’s main focus situated around California Landscape Literature, an offshoot of the California Legacy Project.  One of the pieces that Beers chose to discuss was Masumoto’s “Epitaph for a Peach”.  On the California Legacy website, there is a podcast interview with Masumoto about his “Epitaph..” in which he discusses how a person’s environment, pastoral vs. suburban for example, can affect the way one views the world around him or herself.  An example that Masumoto presents is that of the weather.  Masumoto laments that a person in the city isn’t going to have as close of a relationship with the weather unless it affects their life directly. However for someone like Masumoto, a farmer in Northern California, the weather takes on a whole new meaning and rhythm.

In my opinion, The CLP represents a call to preserve, sustain and even amplify a nostalgia for the California landscape and all the history and rich cultural tradition that is present in it.

The aspect of the study highlighted in The Revolutions Were Tweeted: Information Flows During the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions is the notion that the social network, Twitter, was able to elicit an “information cascade” among it’s users in response to the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions.  From what I understand, the fact that Twitter grants it’s users with a very small space (in terms of characters used)  in which to post their comment, the messages that are presented through this social network are extremely concise with very small room for elaboration.  Therefore, the possibility that the “message” embedded in these tweets is unaltered as it travels from user to user is significantly increased.  This leads to an extremely close proximity between those experiencing the news, and those reading about it.  In other words, Twitter creates a networked news service that rivals most news organizations in terms of audience and quality of information disseminated throughout that audience.  Furthermore, because of the phenomenon of the Hashtag found in Twitter, in which users can immediately label information and tweets that are directly connected to a certain overarching topic, this action of an information is increased even more.

What does his mean for professional news organizations who conduct journalism and such services within a certain code of ethos?  It seems that it is still to early to begin answering this question, but this study attempts to begin dissecting this issue.  This quote from the study seems to sum up the dichotomous views of the kind of research that needs to be examined:

“Studies of mainstream news production can be understood in terms of two broad phases of research. The first focuses on how journalists work within formal news organizations, while the second—a newer body of literature—investigates how news emerges from networked actors who span different professional and organizational identities and contexts.”

The main focus here being the impact of individual citizen journalists being linked together rather than the typical news organization.  It will be extremely interesting to see how our perspective of the news and who should be able to present it will change with the further inclusion of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook into our everyday lives.

Read the whole study HERE.

NPR (or National Public Radio) is a privately and publicly funded, non-profit  Network of public radio stations that stretch across the United States.  One of the aspects of NPR is the exploration of new artists and their music.  Therefore NPR, in order to incorporate this theme into their broadcasting network, has created the “Tiny Desk Concerts” podcast that can be accessed on their website Here.  This podcast, supplemented with videos of the artists’ performances, provides listeners with a space in which they can explore different genres of music and artists that may not be “mainstream.”

One such artist is Thao Nguyen, who performs for a Tiny Desk Concert session.  Thao, who began playing the guitar at age 12, was born in Falls Church, Virginia and is currently a part of the indie band, Get Down Stay Down.  Her performance on the Tiny Desk Podcast was nothing less than spectacular.  Her distinct vocals and catchy melodies provide for an extremely entertaining acoustic session, with the host of the Tiny Desk Concerts describing her as ” raw and infectious, her voice has a distinctive swagger, and she’s a remarkably nimble guitarist.”  Check out her performance at Little Desk Concerts:Thao Nguyen.  You wont be disappointed.