Abstract
This paper aims at conceiving a heuristic framework for analyzing video game aesthetics as well as the ways in which these aesthetics are experienced. As the main point of departure for the thoughts laid out throughout the article, I turn to phenomenological contributions to film, media and game studies—with a special emphasis on approaches to kinaesthesia. After discussing essential papers on the kinaesthetic experience of playing video games as well as drawing on a phenomenological approach to the intersubjective sharing of affects by means of kinaesthesia conceived within the field of developmental psychology, I turn to a series of brief game-analytical sketches that are supposed to highlight certain aspects of experiencing time, space, and materiality while playing video games. Finally, the specific quality of interactive intersubjectivity in video gaming is discussed, resulting in the introduction of the theoretical concept of auto-affectivity.
Highlights
After discussing essential early work on the kinaesthetic experience of playing video games (Swalwell 2008) as well as drawing on a phenomenological approach to the intersubjective sharing of affects by means of kinaesthesia conceived within the field of developmental psychology (Stern 2010), I will turn to a series of brief game-analytical sketches that are supposed to highlight certain aspects of experiencing time, space, and materiality while playing video games
While these steps largely remain within a train of thought that considers neophenomenological film theory as something that can be expanded and adapted to produce meaningful insights for the study of video games, this article’s final section will come back to the question how what will be reasoned might be further elaborated by explicitly taking the grave and obvious differences between film and video games into account—and will take another brief game-analytical observation as a point of reflection for doing so
Whenever I will refer to ‘the’ aesthetic experience of video games within this article, this will be in full awareness that only a very limited, particular approach to audiovisual aesthetics outlined in the theoretical sections of this article will be addressed—and that there are plenty of aesthetic features and aspects of the video games under discussion that are just as worthy looking at
Summary
Let us come straight to the point—this article’s core ambition might seem somewhat paradoxical at first sight. After discussing essential early work on the kinaesthetic experience of playing video games (Swalwell 2008) as well as drawing on a phenomenological approach to the intersubjective sharing of affects by means of kinaesthesia conceived within the field of developmental psychology (Stern 2010), I will turn to a series of brief game-analytical sketches that are supposed to highlight certain aspects of experiencing time, space, and materiality while playing video games While these steps largely remain within a train of thought that considers neophenomenological film theory as something that can be expanded and adapted to produce meaningful insights for the study of video games, this article’s final section will come back to the question how what will be reasoned might be further elaborated by explicitly taking the grave and obvious differences between film and video games into account—and will take another brief game-analytical observation as a point of reflection for doing so. Let us start by looking at theoretical approaches to the phenomenology of video games
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