Meaningful Play: Performativity, Interactivity and Semiotics in Video Game Music
2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 36; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/08145857.2014.958272
ISSN1949-453X
Autores Tópico(s)Digital Humanities and Scholarship
ResumoAbstractVideo games are a challenging object of study for the musicologist because they are never played the same way twice. As interactive texts, they lack the static and repeatable form of other audiovisual media. Furthermore, the timing of musical events in video games is dependent on both player interactions and conventional cues, and the analysis of these musical events must be able to account for a dynamic context of reception. The relationship between the pre-composed music of video games and interactive gameplay is consequently difficult to analyse. However, through an understanding of interactivity as a performative act, we can treat the musical experience of gameplay as the text to be studied—a text the player has a non-trivial role in creating. The player's unique series of actions during gameplay evolves into an interpretation of the designers' complete, preconceived game experience. Similarly, although music is received in a series of unique contexts during gameplay, the player's actions shape the music into an interpretation of the musical experience envisioned by the composer. This article discusses a video game music analysis that incorporates a performative approach to interactivity. The article examines the types and sources of meaning found in video game music, with particular focus on the player's role as a producer. In doing so, it is argued that video game music exhibits a twofold semiosis, the analysis of which must contextualize both the music's initial composition and the player's interactivity in relation to the complete musical experience. AcknowledgementsThanks to James Wierzbicki and Charles Fairchild for guidance and advice, and Daniela Kaleva for organizing the highly engaging Performative Voices conference.Notes 1 Roger Moseley, 'Playing Games with Music (and Vice Versa): Ludomusicological Perspectives on Guitar Hero and Rock Band,' 6–7 and footnote 17 (Accessed 13 February 2014), < http://www.rogermoseley.com/Music/musicology/Entries/2012/1/19_Playing_Games_with_Music,_and_Vice_Versa_Performance_and_Recreation_in_Guitar_Hero_and_Rock_Band_files/Playing%20Games%20with%20Music.pdf>. 2 Zach Whalen, 'Play Along—An Approach to Videogame Music', Game Studies 4/1 (2004) (Accessed 13 February 2014), < http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/whalen/>. 3 David Bessell, 'What's That Funny Noise? An Examination of the Role of Music in Cool Boarders 2, Alien Trilogy and Medievil 2', in ScreenPlay: Cinema/Videogames/Interfaces, ed. Geoff King and Tanya Krzywinska (London: Wallflower Press, 2002), 136–44. 4 Karen Collins, Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2008), 5. 5 See, for instance, Leonard Meyer, Emotion and Meaning in Music (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961); Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Fondements d'une Sémiologie de la Musique (Paris: Union Générale d'Éditions, 1976); and the works of Jonathan Dunsby, Jean Molino, and Theo van Leeuwen discussed and cited later in this article. 6 Karen Collins introduces a semiotic consideration of video game audio in 'An Introduction to the Participatory and Non-Linear Aspects of Video Games Audio' (Accessed 13 February 2014), < http://gamessound.com/texts/interactive.pdf>; originally published in Stan Hawkins and John Richardson (eds), Essays on Sound and Vision (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2007). Collins also cites numerous technical studies of procedural music in video games that discuss musical semiotics in 'An Introduction to Procedural Music in Video Games', Contemporary Music Review 28/1 (2009), 5–15. 7 Collins, 'An Introduction to the Participatory and Non-Linear Aspects of Video Games Audio'. 8 Collins, Game Sound. 9 Karen Collins, Playing with Sound: A Theory of Interacting with Sound and Music in Video Games (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2013).10 Hanna Wirman, 'On Productivity and Game Fandom', Transformative Works and Cultures 3 (2009) (Accessed 13 February 2014), < http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/145/115>.11Ibid.12 J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975).13 Robert S. Goyer, 'Communication, Communicative Process, Meaning: Toward a Unified Theory', The Journal of Communication 20 (1970), 15.14 Donald G. Ellis, 'Fixing Communicative Meaning: A Coherentist Theory', Communication Research 22/5 (1995), 517.15Ibid., 516.16Ibid., 540.17 Jean Molino, 'Musical Fact and the Semiology of Music', trans. J.A. Underwood, Music Analysis 9/2 (1990), 128.18 Theo van Leeuwen, 'Music and Ideology: Notes toward a Sociosemiotics of Mass Media Music', Popular Music and Society 22/4 (1998), 26.19 Tia DeNora, Music in Everyday Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 21–5.20Ibid., 158.21Ibid., 158–9.22Ibid., 43.23 See, among others, Mark J.P. Wolf, 'Introduction', in The Medium of the Video Game, ed. Mark J.P. Wolf (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001), 2–5. For a discussion of the nature of video games outside the context of a comparison with films (as proof of concept, perhaps), see Jesper Juul, Half-real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005).24 Collins, 'An Introduction to the Participatory and Non-Linear Aspects of Video Games Audio'.25 The topic of diegetic distinctions in video games is widely discussed (and somewhat controversial) in video game studies as well as ludomusicology. A full exploration of this discussion is outside the scope of this article. However, the basic distinction between 'diegetic' and 'non-diegetic' given by Collins in this instance is accurate enough for the purpose at hand.26 Markku Eskelinen and Ragnhild Tronstad, 'Video Games and Configurative Performances', in The Video Game Theory Reader, ed. Mark J.P Wolf and Bernard Perron (New York & London: Routledge, 2003), 195–220.27 Kirk Hamilton, 'The Case for Video Games as Music', Kotaku (Accessed 15 May 2013), < http://kotaku.com/5920350/the-case-for-video games-as-music>.28 Chris Dahlen, 'From the Editor', Kill Screen 1/5 (2011), i.29 David Kanaga, 'Played Meaning (Concerning the Spiritual in Games)', Wombflash Forest (Accessed 15 May 2013), < http://wombflashforest.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/played-meaning-concerning-spiritual-in.html>.30 Hamilton, 'The Case for Video Games as Music'.31 Tobias Janz, 'Performativity and the Musical Work of Art', Word and Music Studies 12 (2011), 2.32 Nicholas Cook, 'Between Process and Product: Music and/as Performance', Music Theory Online 7/2 (2001) (Accessed 15 May 2013), < http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.01.7.2/mto.01.7.2.cook.html>.33 Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 6.34 See Judith Butler, 'Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory', Theatre Journal 40/4 (1988), 519–31; and Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge, 1999), 171–80.35 Cook, 'Between Process and Product'.36 See, among many others, Bob Rehak, 'Playing at Being: Psychoanalysis and the Avatar', in The Video Game Theory Reader, ed. Wolf and Perron, 103–27.37 Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 94ff.38Ibid., 100.39Ibid., 139.40 Dahlen, 'From the Editor'.41 Eskelinen and Tronstad, 'Video Games and Configurative Performances', 197–8.42 Van Leeuwen, 'Music and Ideology', 26.43 Van Leeuwen used the terminology 'system network' when discussing meaning potentials in more detail; in this article, the concept of the 'set' is used instead (in a pseudo-mathematical fashion) because it allows more precise discussion of elements, bounds, exclusivity, and so forth.44 An example of cheating as a designed parameter can be found in the video game Quake (id Software, 1996). Entering the text 'god' into the game's command console (in the PC version, usually accessible by pressing the tilde key) and pressing Enter enables 'god mode', wherein the player character takes no damage from enemies. Opening the executable file in a text editor enables one to find the text 'god' in a grouping of other enterable commands, including 'fly' (which enables 'flymode', wherein the player character can fly) and 'give' (which, in conjunction with an item code, enables the player to give the character any specified number of an item, e.g. ammunition). These commands allow the player to cheat, but are nevertheless designed parameters constructed into the game during development.45 Eskelinen and Tronstad, 'Video Games and Configurative Performances', 199.46Ibid.47 Douglas Robinson, Performative Linguistics: Speaking and Translating as Doing Things with Words (London: Routledge, 2003), 39.48 Eskelinen and Tronstad, 'Video Games and Configurative Performances', 198.49 Robinson, Performative Linguistics, 29–30.50 Cook, 'Between Process and Product'.51 Charles S. Peirce, 'Pragmatism', in The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1998), 411.52 Van Leeuwen, 'Music and Ideology', 26.53 Collins, 'An Introduction to the Participatory and Non-Linear Aspects of Video Games Audio'.54Ibid.55 Jean Molino, 'Musical Fact and the Semiology of Music', 129–30.56 Jonathan Dunsby, 'Music and Semiotics: The Nattiez Phase', The Musical Quarterly 69/1 (1983), 41.57 Van Leeuwen, 'Music and Ideology', 26.58 Collins, 'An Introduction to the Participatory and Non-Linear Aspects of Video Games Audio' (Figure 1).59 Molino, 'Musical Fact and the Semiology of Music', 130.60 Eskelinen and Tronstad, 'Video Games and Configurative Performances', 198.61 Collins, 'An Introduction to the Participatory and Non-Linear Aspects of Video Games Audio' (Figure 2).62 Wirman, 'On Productivity and Game Fandom'.63 Iain Hart, 'Music and the Narrative Universe in Video Game and Film' (Honours thesis, The University of Sydney, 2010), 12–33.64 Starjackerseth, review of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Bethesda Sotworks, GameFAQs (Accessed 15 February 2014), < http://www.gamefaqs.com/xbox360/927345-the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion/reviews/review-121349>; and Daniel Ran, 'The Elder Scrolls: Retrospective,' Daniel Ran's blog (Accessed 15 February 2014), < http://www.danielran.com/blog/the-elder-scrolls-retrospective>.Additional informationNotes on contributorsIain HartIain Hart is a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney. His research focuses on the communicative functions of music in video games. He completed undergraduate degrees in Science and Arts at the University of Sydney, achieving honours for his research on the similarities between film music and video game music in comparable thematic genres. Email: i.hart@sydney.edu.au
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