The article considers new ways of interaction, non-typical interfaces and controllers based on the deconstruction of classical game design systems of control and on the deconstruction of the gamer’s body. Already in the middle of 1960s Marshall McLuhan, anticipating the critique of technologies and virtual capitalism that unfolded later in cyberpunk novels, noticed that our bodies and central nervous system belonged to big corporations. The organisation of sensibility via interfaces and controllers, different apparatuses, and technical devices ceased to be a dream of futurologists and science fiction writers. The design of apparatuses forms normative schemes, and as a result, big companies such as Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo spend hundreds of millions of dollars to assess ergonomics and effective ways of interaction. They create a technically grasped gamer corporeality, which can be easily reproduced and replicated. However, normative corporeality is ironically and easily, mockingly and ruthlessly played out and reinvented in the projects of indie game developers, artists, and engineer-enthusiasts. The foundation of the following article is the analysis of 166 project-winners at the biggest annual festival of alternative controllers alt.ctrl.GDC and the analysis of works by Cologne artists Tilman Reiff and Volker Morawe (//////////fur//// art group), who used pain as the main gameplay resource. A variety of scrutinized projects form a non-conventional experience, using analogue manipulators, physical impact on the gamer’s body, and including unusual game elements (such as a cow’s udder, synthesizer, cold weapon, etc.). On the one hand, the article describes the current phase of human evolution, which supposes technological forms of violence and disciplinary organization of the body; on the other hand, it considers their deconstruction in the works of artists, engineers, and designers, who create non-typical controllers and interfaces, developing and enlarging the perception experience of gamers and users of contemporary technologies.
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