In recent years many new virtual spaces have emerged as a viable alternative to physical space. These virtual spaces such as social networking websites, videogames, and computer modeling software are significantly more realistic than the cruder virtual spaces created by early computers. Because these spaces more closely resemble the common physical space, the distinction between physical and virtual space becomes less clear leading to concepts like identity in virtual space being mistaken for concepts in physical space. With this new innovative technology, the effects of these concepts are now more pronounced. Our intention is to recognize, identify, differentiate, and assess these current trends new computer technology has influenced in the recent digital movement, addressing how physical and virtual spaces interact with each other, as well as why these interactions are relevant.
This anthology seeks to examine how this new realm of virtual space, and the activities in which we participate therein have consequences that spill over to physical space (real life) that are unprecedented and unpredictable. Following the idea of space as a conglomeration of various fields including the virtual spaces of social networking sites, digital videogame simulations, and computer-aided architecture and designs, the challenge of this anthology is to present a concept that, like spaces, is a unifying theme for many of these diverse disciplines. A space is not only a simple grid made of three coordinates that can be seen in the physical world and virtual world together, but a place where affective qualities and problems can also be considered, in specific, the questions of identity, stereotypes, and misrepresentation. Consequently, the anthology presents three various, and often seemingly disparate points of view that lead and establish one common theme of how these spaces connect from the physical world to virtual world and vice versa.
We will examine the role of identity in online spaces such as Facebook by looking at how users construct these identities. The identity of the user and the identity of the online character are two distinct entities and as such do not need to correspond, even when the goal of the environment (Facebook) is to represent the user's physical identity online. Take the Facebook user's profile picture, for example. The very nature of a photograph is a reproduction of the physical, the “real”, but Facebook directs users to crop their profile pictures to their liking before making the picture a profile picture. The picture intended to represent the user to his or her friends becomes modified by how the user would like to appear. Here, Facebook functions to create a distance from physical space to the virtual space of the profile, despite the apparent goal of Facebook: digital reproduction of the user. We will examine this tension, and others, as well as the modes of identity construction on Facebook themselves. The tools that Facebook users use to create their online identities comprise the interface that links the physical and digital spaces and by examining what happens to identity at this interface, we hope to gain a more deeper understanding of the significance of identities on Facebook.
For preliminary critical thought, we will examine the choice of characters in the game, America's Army. Before even beginning to play this game, one must read a lengthy instruction guide. It teaches the user how choose a character, how to use each single weapon as well as how these weapons are used in real life combat. As soon as the game begins, one finds himself (the character is always male) in a dark room. Outside it is mostly dark. A striking feature of this game is that civilians are absent. One gets the illusion that war has no effects on the everyday life of people. The player does not experience the remorse that comes from killing babies, bombing coalescent home, ripping open pregnant women, rapping five year old girls, destroying schools, using nuclear warfare in hospital areas as well as molesting adults in the presence of their children. Yet these are the very things that happen in real warfare; there is no mercy and therefore there is no guilt. The player only experiences the thrill of firing ammunition and mysteriously hitting the target. Oh how fun that must be! Civilian life is not affected. In the game, the player does not see how families have to run in the night as they flee the places whether there heavy fighting; the player does not even have to run or share a small meal with other family members because the war does not allow for food to be grown or sold. The player may very well be having a burger or a bag of Doritos. Video games only reveal a small portion of combat life whereas the gruesome portions are intentionally omitted. The gaps left create a feeling of excitement about violence that is manifested in an aggressive mood. Those who engage in these games experience an urge to keep playing these games even outside of the virtual world; they want to keep feeling the thrill that accompanies such activities. After all, the games did not really involve people getting hurt, and if they did, they just stood up or simply disappeared once “wasted.”But in real life, violence is going to have painful consequences. Violence will result in victims who will need bandaging, hospitalization and actual pain.
Finally, the last examination will visit the various perspectives on the recently emerging area of digitizing technology in architecture. It is differentiated from the computer-aided-designs, or CAD, and computer graphics in the sense that this technique is not solely based on computers and the virtual world. With these advanced programs far too often designers are tempted to be seduced into creating architecture based on complicated forms that do not serve an idealized purpose other than seducing and tempting the viewer into these elaborated shapes. The questions that arise in this investigation are mainly associated with an overview and study of various examples of work, including the so-called "cacophonic" works of Frank Gehry, many of which are successes, failures, and misunderstandings of the use of computer technology in design and architecture. This will also look into the process of how designs are transferred and transmitted from one medium to the other, starting from original idea or inception of the design to the final building. We hope to show that with the addition in the process of digitizing designs, the architecture of recent times has grown and expanded to create new forms and how this technology must be utilized as a tool to help the design and not conceal the original idea with confounding and misused techniques.
By examining how the desire for violence is transported from the virtual world of a video game to the physical world, how a person's likeness and identity is carried into virtual space, and how ideas in the physical world can come to fruition by means of the virtual world, we hope to gain a deeper understanding of the interface between virtual and physical space. As the current ideology of technology seems to correspond to the digital or computer technology, we will address these issues to understand, clarify, and identify these key ideas in these three fields. Technology is often misused as a term that refers to only current technology, which would be heavily impacted by computers in the process of creating virtual spaces. In fact, much of the technology used today does not involve any computes and relates more to physical spaces. For example, technology may simply be using a pen to write on a piece of paper. This misunderstanding is one of the most common ways that the virtual world is causing more consequences into the real world. While the aid of virtual spaces has enabled many benefits from their uses, it has also created many of the issues concerning identity, stereotypes, and misuse addressed in this anthology.
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Means of Identity Creation on Facebook
Matthew Brown
The Internet has become a powerful tool for creation, consumption and collaboration since its emergence several decades ago, but the creation of identities has only became widespread since the dawn of "Web 2.0", or a paradigm of the Internet dominated by user generated content and social networking. Internet users can interact with each other in a manner so broad and meaningful as to approach physical interactions, and these online interactions are negotiated through online identities. In this paper, I will examine how the online identity is constructed on a website obsessed with identity, Facebook. I will show that Facebook enables users to construct identities of their own choosing (independent of their real, physical identity), but that no matter how much the user focuses on constructing the perfect identity, the resultant online identity will be heavily influenced by the online community.
Facebook is a social networking tool that allows users to create profiles for themselves and use these profiles to interact with other users through their profiles. Because no physical interaction is involved in this process, the user's online identities are very important. The Facebook profiles that represent these online identities are created with pictures of the user and text description of the user, neither of which must be verified to be true or accurate. This information does not even need to be falsified to deceive: mere careful selections of pictures and slightly exaggerated descriptions are enough to alter a perceived personality. A 2008 study of Facebook users cites one male student's "About Me" section as reading "Sports...basketball, football, golf, dancing, partying, technical stuff, cars, movies, hanging out, chillin... hmm what else??" (Zhao, Grasmuck and Martin 5.3). This laundry list of activities has incredible breadth, and because of this, the list itself becomes less believable. How can one person be truly interested in such a wide range of activities? The last element of the list, "hmm what else??", points us to an explanation. As the student pauses to consider what the next item on the list should be, he reveals that the list is his construction. This may seem obvious, but when taken in it's context, it becomes important. The "About Me" section of Facebook is not necessarily "About Me"; it is "About the Ideal Me". The student writing the profile may not like golf and cars and football and dancing and movies, but he does want to like them. And this extends beyond this one user. After examining over fifty profiles, Grasmuck and Martin concluded that "people on Facebook... present their hoped-for possible selves rather than their “true” or hidden selves" (Zhao, Grasmuck and Martin 3). The "About Me" or "Info" section of Facebook allows users to present who they want to be to the online community.
There are more methods than just the "Info" section that users use to present the ideal version of themselves, and one very powerful method is the careful selection of pictures. The use of the photograph to manipulate perceptions of physical reality is an enormous field and its entirety is beyond the scope of any single paper, so I will instead focus on how Facebook allows users to present their pictures, concentrating on the frame instead of the photograph. When visiting a profile, the fastest and easiest way to view pictures is to click on the profile picture in the upper right-hand corner. Upon clicking the profile picture, the user is brought to a screen displaying twenty profile pictures, including the current one. This is significant because the profile picture is given privileges beyond that of a standard picture. When a user selects a picture to be his or her profile picture, he or she is prompted by Facebook to select what portion of the picture is to be kept as the profile picture, and what portion is to be cropped out. Ostensibly, this feature exists to ensure profile pictures have significant features such as faces filling a large fraction of the picture, but this tool allows--and encourages--users to craft profile pictures that exclude unappealing aspects of the picture, background context, or anything else the user does not want in his or her profile picture. Then, Facebook places these edited pictures in a location of high visibility where they will be seen very often. In this way, Facebook's profile pictures maintain the user's ability to create a profile that represents the user's idealized self.
So far, we have examined static elements of the Facebook profile. However, Facebook is not a unchanging medium: much of its appeal lies within its ability to be constantly up to date. These dynamic aspects of Facebook are not fundamentally different from the static aspects such as the “About Me” section or pictures, both allow for user editing, but the former presents new implications about the use of Facebook. The status update, becoming a “fan” of specific pages, and joining groups are all dynamic aspects of Facebook, and their real-time creation points to what they look like to other users: a performance. Status updates do not accomplish anything for a user on a personal level; users do not receive personal gain from becoming a “fan” of certain groups. Users post status updates not for themselves, but for their friends, their audience. And because any user's online interaction with any other user comes through these status updates and wall posts, the perception of identity is created through this performance. To his friends and over long periods of time, John Doe's many status updates subtly change who he is online. The constant and cyclical performance of John Doe by John Doe is done to show other users who he is, but this very performance changes who is. To rectify this, he continues the cycle, posting updates and joining groups, informing other users of his identity and changing it once again.
We have examined pictures on Facebook earlier, but there are more options for viewing photographs than just clicking the profile picture. When viewing John Doe's profile, users can also click the “Photos” tab to jump to pictures John. This is to be expected, but what is surprising about this process is that the photographs that are presented first are not John's. What is immediately visible are pictures of John, located in other user's profiles. Here, Facebook presents a major part of the online identity, the photograph, through other user's pictures. Almost literally, part of John Doe's online identity is defined by how other people view him. This bizarre twist on the personal photograph demonstrates how Facebook enables the online community, other users, to influence the online identity of the user.
Of course, users can post their own photographs, and they are by no means buried under a hierarchy of menus. Upon clicking the “Photos” tab and viewing the pictures of John Doe posted by others, users can view pictures John has posted, organized by album. Taken in the context of the performative identity, the pictures John posts become interesting. These pictures are posted by John in a manner that allows them to show a part of his idealized self to other users viewing them. For example, pictures posted of John in his baseball uniform, on the field and in action may be intended to show John's athletic prowess, while pictures of John at the center of a group of friends or at a party may be intended to show John's social aptitude. But, when John posts pictures of himself, he is performing for other users. In light of this, he posts pictures he believes other people want to see. This is not a private photo collection; John does not post any picture he wishes. Instead, he posts pictures that will accomplish goals, as previously specified, according to established social guidelines. As John chooses pictures to show his idealized self, he narrows his selections based on what his friends online think are acceptable. Thus, John Doe's online identity is based, in part, on how other users perceive him.
This is not the only way a user's online identity is changed by others. Let us reexamine the “About Me” section of the student from Zhao, Grasmuck and Martin's study: “...hanging out, chillin...hmm what else??”. We previously observed how this section allowed this student to list attributes he wished others thought he had to create an ideal, online self. But this passage also reveals something interesting regarding the influence others have over this user's identity. The user poses the question “what else??” to his audience of friends, literally, albeit perhaps not intentionally, asking his friends for additional definition for this part of his identity. The attempt to construct the ideal self has failed, and in lieu of his own definition of the ideal self, the user substitutes that of his friends. Of course, this case does not explicitly show other user's modifying the user's identity, but it does show the inclination of the user to choose an identity in line with others.
This tendency to define the self through others is evident in a recent change to the way Facebook handles Pages, and how user's become a Fan of those Pages. Previously, Facebook enabled users and businesses to create a “Page” for an almost anything. These were (and still are) essentially profiles for things like specific television shows, activities like rock climbing or swing dancing, even pages that professes to have no purpose. User's could become a “Fan” of these pages, and links to these Pages would appear in the Info tab. Facebook recently modified this system to integrate it with the Info tab and to replace “Fan” with the ubiquitous “Like”. Now when users “Like” a Page, a link to this page appears under one of a preset list of categories, and clicking the link can informs the user which of his or her own friends also like this Page. Where previously Facebook allowed users to define themselves based solely on their own input, Facebook now groups the things users construct their identity (television shows, movies, activities) into categories that are based on what other users of Facebook have selected. Facebook users are now effectively building their identities with common or general tools available to everyone, with what differentiates users arising from the configuration of these Pages, rather than the Pages themselves. Facebook is emphasizing the connections between users as they show who they wish to be, basing the building blocks of identity construction—which shows what makes users unique—on how different people are the same. Facebook's Help Center reveals Facebook's intent in this change, saying “We think your experience on Facebook will improve as your profile is turned into a living map of all the connections that matter to you, instead of a static list of your interests” (Facebook Help Center). The goal here is define the user based on the connections between the user and other users. This “living map of connections” Facebook aims to create is constantly updated by the actions of other users, presenting in interesting twist in which the performative identity of John Doe's friends in turn aids the definition of John Doe's identity. In this case, John Doe is performing his identity onstage, but the entire audience is onstage playing a role as well.
The change from “Fan” to “Like” is a significant, if cosmetic, change in Facebook's look and feel. The word “Fan” implies not only that the user has appreciates the object, but that there are other users who feel the same way; to be a fan is to be one of many. “Fan” is a word of community, and Facebook's implementation of the word lends this same sense of community to users choosing to become a “Fan”. If the Pages help to define the user, and the user chooses to what pages of which to become a “Fan” based on the sense of becoming part of a group, then the user's online identity is based in part by the desire to be a part of some group, to be connected to others. Incidentally, Facebook attempted to further emphasize the role connections play in identity creation by removing “Fan” and replacing it with “Like”. The word “Like” does not carry the social connotations the word “Fan” carries. To “Like” something is personal; it does not depend on others liking it. This means that in order to continue to emphasize the connections between users, Facebook needed to socialize the means of presenting the Pages on a profile to make up for the personalization of the rhetoric of the Pages, and so the Info tab was restructured. Of course, “Fan” and “Like” are not the extent of the interesting rhetoric on Facebook. On every user's profile, there exists in the center of the page, a “Wall”. The “Wall” is the central method of adding content to the profile, both the user and his or her friends can “publish” to the “Wall”. The word “Wall” is an interesting choice for a communication hub: why not “Bulletin Board” or “Sign Post”? But “Wall” does carry interesting implications. Walls are used to divide, to keep people out, or keep people in. In this case, the “Wall” keeps the masses of users out of the profile (it is interesting, however, to consider the “Wall” as a wall that keeps users locked in their own profiles, considering the apparent addiction many have to the site). Facebook provides the metaphor of the wall to be a convenient communication hub, but also so that users can feel safe in their individuality. In the metaphor, large wall surrounds the profile, protecting and distinguishing it from all the other profiles. That users “publish” to the “Wall” supports the view of the “Wall” as being a castle rather than a prison. Publishing has its own set of implications that reveal how Facebook enables users to perform their online identities. A published work is a both work that has met a certain standard of quality and a work that is intended to be read by many. While the former connotation may merely satisfy a professional desire in Facebook users, the latter is more interesting here. Even when placing content on a friends Wall, presumably intended for this friend, a user “publishes” the content. This word highlights the nature of activity on Facebook to have an audience, and shows that even a post to a friends Wall is ultimately meant for a much wider range of readers.
Facebook has a history of making key changes to its site. While the recent change from “Fan” to “Like” has garnered little opposition, users have not been so kind to previous changes. In 2006, Facebook added the “News Feed” feature. “News Feed”, still in use today, aggregates activity from a user's friends, and presents this activity to the user. Users were outraged at what they perceived to be privacy violations, and “News Feed was met by an enormous outcry from users, who vociferously objected to the extensiveness of the exposure” (Solove 169). Solove explains that the object of Facebook users anger was not that the information was available to each user's audience of friends, but that there was “increased accessibility of their personal data” (Solove 170). “News Feed” gave an audience to the users of Facebook. Where previously, activity such as accepting a friend request or changing a relationship status would have been noticed by friends at some point, “News Feed” became a stage upon which the actions of Facebook users could be witnessed and scrutinized. The online identity of users was no longer relegated to sitting statically in a profile, it could by performed dynamically in real time. “News Feed” has become an integral part of the current Facebook's functionality, and users are no longer outraged by it. Users have deemed this acceptable due to exposure; it took some getting use to, but now users embrace the performance based nature of Facebook with voyeuristic abandon. This evolution of Facebook shows how the performative identity so easily influenced by the presence of the audience, has become a central component to Facebook.
The users of Facebook may construct their online identities to be ideal versions of themselves, but Facebook itself proclaims a slightly different goal. The Facebook Help Center describes this goal: “Your Facebook profile is about representing yourself and sharing what's going on in your life with your friends” (Facebook Help Center). Facebook intends the profile to be an accurate representation of the the user, not an idealized one. The introduction to Facebook continues on to address profile pictures, “Having a profile picture makes it easier for friends to identify you as being the real you...When selecting a profile picture, we recommend picking a picture that best represents you. If you're unsure what that means, check out some of your friends' profile pictures to get a sense of how they represent themselves” (Facebook Help Center). Facebook suggests that a photograph will capture the “real you”, making the user identifiable to friends, but then prompts the user to crop the photograph to his or her liking. There is discrepancy between Facebook's claimed intent and Facebook's presented opportunities. After the suggestion for capturing the “real you”, Facebook recognizes that “picking a picture that best represents you” has an elusive meaning. Do Facebook users have personalities so two-dimension as to be able to be represented by a small picture? The suggested remedy for this problem to look at what everyone else is doing, further emphasizing the reliance of a Facebook user on his or her friends to construct his or her identity. Not only is the content of the profile influenced by others online, but the methods Facebook users should use to construct their online identities is also based on the methods other users implement.
A certain parallel exists between the identities created on Facebook and the identities created in MUD, or Multi-User Dungeon. MUDs are a text based online virtual reality that enable users to create characters to interact with a fantasy environment. The act of creating a character in a MUD involves typing a description of the character in a manner similar to Facebook's Info tab, although usually in more poetic fashion. When creating her character, Jenny Sunden observes, “I thought that it would have been easier to create a character very different form offline self. But how do you textualize yourself?...I wanted my description not to deviate too much from the 'truth'” (Jenny Sunden 86). Millions of Facebook users attempt to answer Sunden's question “how do you textualize yourself?” by describing what they do and what they enjoy consuming, but in the case of MUDs, it is readily acknowledged by the users that they and their characters have separate identities. As we have seen, Facebook users create a separation between themselves and their online identities. Sunden addresses this separation, “By actively, and ore or less consciously, having to write oneself into being, a certain distance to this construction is at the same time created” (Sunden 88). On Facebook, a user must write himself or herself into existence over and over, constantly showing his or her friends who he or she is. And as Sunden has observed, this very act (typing a status update or posting a picture through the user's physical computer) creates a distance between the user and the online identity of that user.
In the MUD analyzed by Sunder, there are many more genders available for characters then Facebook. In this particular MUD, the choices of gender are male; female; neuter, which is referred to as “it”; either, which is referred to as “s/he”; spivak, which uses a different set of gender neutral pronouns; splat, which uses yet another set of gender neutral pronouns; as well as several more permutations of point-of-view and plurality. In sharp contrast, Facebook presents users with the, presumably biological, field “Sex”, in which “Male” or “Female” may be chosen. Of course, Facebook users can express their gender through many of the other mode of identity construction discussed previously, but the “Basic Info” section must read either “Male” or “Female”. The absence of a “Gender” field, or even an “Other” option for the “Sex” field, is an instance in which the identity of the Facebook user is manipulated by the structure of Facebook: the user must be Male or Female, any information beyond this is irrelevant. The variety of genders offered to MUD users creates much more flexibility when creating a character, but of course, the aim of the MUD is provide an environment for a fantasy character, unlike Facebook which ostensibly aims to reproduce the user's identity online. In contrast to the sparse and nonexistent choices of sex and gender, Facebook provides a much more granular control of relationship status. The “Relationship Status” field has seven options, including the famous “It's Complicated” and “In an Open Relationship” in addition to the generic like “Single” and “Married”. With this subject, Facebook is emphasizing the connection between users, rather then the users themselves. Facebook is less concerned with a user's own gender, than with how that user is romantically (or un-romantically) interacting with other users. This reinforces the recent shift Facebook has made to focus on the profile as a “living map” of connections. In this state, much of a user's identity is based on the actions of others, as some connections, such as relationship status, require reciprocation. Here, the idealized self cannot be realized in all fields and the connections between users are necessary to more fully define the user.
However, Facebook users and their online profiles do not posses wholly distinct identities, whatever distance may be between them. They are still created in the image of the creator, the Facebook user making the profile. This tie to the physical world can be better shown by who Facebook users befriend online. A study on Facebook users at Michigan State University found that “Facebook users from this particular community are primarily using Facebook to increase their awareness of those in their offline community” (Lampe, Ellison and Steinfeld 169). So for Facebook in particular, user's online identities are not generally used to meet new people online, but to interact with people they already know in an offline capacity. In this way, the user's Facebook identity is tied to physical space. The performative act of typing out an identity may create a distance between the creator and the identity, but user's purpose for Facebook creates a connection between their physical and digital realities.
With Facebook users growing in number, and the online world becoming more and more entangled with the physical world, the question of who we are online becomes more and more important. The relationship between how we present ourselves and how others perceive us is constantly changing as, as we have seen, who we are online is influenced by others. The explicit intentions of Facebook are often contrary to how the structure of Facebook guides users to act, so scrutiny of the actual means of identity construction is always necessary. The future of identity on Facebook is also subject to interrogation. Facebook recently unveiled the “Open Graph” project, which allows third parties like Pandora and Yelp to access information that users have made public in order to personalize their services based on a user's Facebook profile. What is public on Facebook is now public on all services using the Open Graph API. There are currently only a few companies using Open Graph, but this number can jump dramatically. As Facebook continues to spread across the internet, a part of Facebook users' identities goes with with it, which has serious implications for how these online identities can, in turn, influence user's offline identities.
Questions of Identity in Physical Space
Works Cited
Facebook Help Center. Facebook, 2010. Web. 5 May 2010.
Lampe, Cliff, Nicole Ellison and Charles Steinfield. “A Face(book) in the Crowd: Social Searching vs. Social Browsing.” Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Ed. Pamela Hinds and David Martin. Branf: ACM, 2006. 167-170. Web.
Shanyang Zhao, Sherri Grasmuck, Jason Martin. “Identity construction on Facebook: Digital empowerment in anchored relationships”. Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 24, Issue 5,September 2008. 1816-1836. Web.
Solove, Daniel. The Future of Reputation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Print.
Sunden, Jenny. “Cyberbodies.” Digital Borderlands: Cultural Studies of Identity and Interactivity on the Internet. Ed. Steve Jones. New York: Peter Lang, 2002. 79-107. Print.
http://www.xkcd.com/659/
Video Games as a Veneer for Stereotypes
Betty Wanjiku Njenga
An alternative rock band, Rage Against the Machine warned against the increasingly blurred line between entertainment and war in 1998. Their fears are now confirmed with the growing symbiotic relationship between militarization and popular culture. Ed Halter in his article, “From Sun Tzu to Xbox” says that “If recruitment seemed important during the economic boom time of the Clinton years, when the army had to compete with a healthy job market, it became an even more pressing issue after the 9/11 attacks.” (Halter, Ed. Xvii) The rate of unemployment in the United States was relatively low, and risking one's life did not seem like a viable way to make a living. The Department of Defense had to make it more attractive for recruits to enlist and developed an interdependent relationship with the video game industry with an objective of creating "an arm of media culture geared toward preparing young Americans for armed conflict" (Turse, 2003) Various campaigns began, one of which was the use of digitized destruction to promote warfare. Working with Epic games and the THX division of Lucas film, the Naval Postgraduate School constructed a new, vivid and thrilling game, America's Army, which was made available for free downloading at the army's official branch for recruitment-GoArmy.com on the 4th of July 2002. This is the day that we celebrate the might, sovereignty and legitimacy of the American people. This date is significant because the game was the debut of the aggressive front that the United States was taking against the War on Terrorism; and those who engaged in this game were mentally preparing for war for generations to come, even the young ones who had very little information on what was going on. Within the first two months, this game had been downloaded 2.5 million times, with the numbers soaring to 5 million by the end of 2005. Costing about 7 million dollars to construct, the cartoonist Penn Arcade called it the “Best Misappropriation of Taxpayer Dollars Ever.” This game is the point of departure for my analysis, which will show how numerous motives are included in these digitized destruction games. Such games target special messages, like the hegemony of the U.S warfare tactics as well as the “demonizing” (Halter, xii) of Middle Eastern culture by the association of Middle Eastern geography and lifestyles with the “bad guys.” (Halter, xii) Certain stereotypes are incorporated into these video and computer games, some subtle and others pretty obvious. Such prejudices are introduced into the minds of children from an early age, a phenomenon that creates hidden enmity or apprehension towards certain people.
A game developed by the U.S army, in the U.S using resources from this country should very much promote American values and patriotism. But, as we know from interaction with one another in the global community and even within ourselves, certain issues, particularly those thorny enough to solicit combat are hardly ever just black and white, right or wrong. America's Army only allows player to be U.S affiliated. OPFOR meaning Opposing Forces is used to denote the enemy in the game which Ed Halter says “quickly dehumaniz[es] human targets with a bureaucratic-scientism, though without the boyish conceit...Your opponents' team appears as OPFOR to you ( slightly swarthier than U.S troops, and sometimes mustached) but your team in turn appears to be OPFORs from your opponents' perspective. Thus players can only fight as members of the U.S Army, or in later versions of the game, as non-American “indigenous forces.” In America's Army, you always play on the right side.”(xii) It does not matter that this game is not only available in the United States, but also in Europe and other places; or that wherever you are, you could only be playing on the “right” side- the American side. While realizing that this was a game made by the United States army, we would expect such glorification of the actions that the United States is involved in. However, this game does not allow for the perspectives of other players to be incorporated. The United States is always “right”, that is the message that is promoted: yes, with all the violence in the games, which is a reflection of what happens in real life, destruction of property and life, that is the “right” thing. Those kinds of actions are to be celebrated, and that kind of lifestyle is to be rewarded. The right wing atmosphere that is created leads to a desire, even a feeling of entitlement, to have ones opinion enforced. The characters are made to believe that the combat in which they engage in is the right and normal thing to do. Not only is the kind of violence that they practice a norm in life, it is also important for human civilization and must be done. That very feeling of entitlement is the sentiment that has been responsible for penetration and colonization throughout the years. Leonard David in his article, “Unsettling the military entertainment complex: Video games and a pedagogy of peace” argues that “exploration, discovery, frontier, colonization, and penetration have been used-and continue to be used-to justify Euro-centric imperialism based on the power of becoming and occupying the other.” (5) Gamers find themselves in an environment where characters are designed to aggressively seeks to occupy other people's land, penetrate, make use of for our own benefit, destroy when necessary, annihilate when questioned, forcefully assimilate and colonize others. This aggression is has been fully endorsed by the United States and the pioneers who founded it as they occupied a land belonging to others and stubbornly refused to leave, cooperate or respect the current inhabitants. That penetrating behavior is still practiced by our constant battles with other nations regarding their land and resources as made manifest by our occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Violence that is justified because it is seemingly important for current civilization enforces the concept of American hegemony.
I also examine another game, Operation Desert Storm, which is equally packed with stereotypes and is a story of the Gulf War. In this game, the player finds herself as John Conyers, a Caucasian infantryman who is later joined by three other colleagues, two Caucasian and one African American. These men are responsible for winning the war alone. This game creates a feeling of desperate and passionate patriotism where the fate of one country is left in the hands of four individuals. The character must do what he must do because the stakes are too high; or at least his reputation is at risk. This game intends to capture mass nationalism while simultaneously justifying American military activities. Leonard says that “the power in this game... is in the ability to transpose one's real fears into historical-based combat,or in the virtual ability to cause “mass carnage on a grand scale...through a carpet bombing (Stallabras 1993)”...it lies in the promotion of war as a legitimate industry whose product is national safety and security.”(15) This game taps into the historical background of the United States, where this country may have experienced some hostility from one particular regime in another country, and allows participants to take up sweet revenge. America's Army gives a tutorial on the weapons that characters should anticipate using. The length of use, availability, uniqueness and strength of each weapons is elaborated before use. This serves not only as a means of assisting the gamer, but more so of “displaying the technological marvels of military hardware. But we also come away from these games with the sense that our tax dollars have been used productively and wisely to buy the technologically sophisticated military hardware on display-hardware that we, moreover, have been allowed to use... [the game] exist[s] as virtual advertisements for the present and future glory of the U.S. Armed Forces.” (Leonard 14) The game, as illustrated by the attention paid to the show of weapons, is a means of soliciting approval for the massive use of revenue to fund wars that the United States is already experiencing. The message sent is that, not only is the war very necessary indeed, but that the funds are also very appropriately distributed in their use.
In America's Army as well as others such as Conflict Desert Storm, consequences of the actions of the U.S army are numbed in a cunning way. This numbing is what Leonard refers to when he says that “ civilians are almost completely absent from these games, and only opposing soldiers can be killed by video game player[s]. In general, Conflict Desert Storm portrays Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as countries without people...American foreign policy is thus portrayed as benign.”(Leonard, 16) Since these games have no civilians in them, players' destructive actions do not appear to have an effect on the cultural, familial, social and personal functioning of these Arabs to the gamer. The games fail to provide a wholesome experience of war. The gamer does not feel or touch the blood that he or she sheds; there is no chance to be grossed out or overwhelmed by being responsible for bloodshed. The buildings and structures that the character blows up are left as mere chaff; the gamer does not have to experience the remorse that comes from seeing cadavers crushed by falling debris, or the soreness that comes from bodies cut all over by broken glass. The manufacturers realize that such scenes are not for children to see, yet the actions that lead to such inhumanity can be celebrated, and even rewarded as fun and appropriate for all ages. The gamer would not want to be responsible for the molestation of children, the ripping open of expectant women, the rapping of young boys and girls, the hurling of insults and humiliation of grown men, the merciless killing of senior citizens or the use of nuclear warfare on innocent people. In real warfare, heads of households are beheaded and women sexually assaulted in the presence of their children. Different body parts that have been cut up are sold or displayed as trophies by enemy camps. Skulls of babies are smashed against rocks and people are lynched or burned in mass numbers. In real life warfare, families flee in the night when fighting gets heavy. Siblings are separated and sent to concentration camps. People go without food for days, some resorting to cutting up and eating the weakest member of the team. Water becomes a rarity. With such kind of a lifestyle, there is no hope, there is no expectation for things to change in the future. There is only a sorry sickening sight of corpses lying all over accompanied by the stench and the flies that follow. These kind of grotesque actions are very carefully concealed. Halter mentions this omission as well when he says that no “game puts the player in the shoes of an American soldier perpetrating a massacre of civilian at My Lai, and no Gulf War game displays charred corpses of bombed Iraqis lying by the sides of the highway” (265) Only the excitement of the rare chance to fire ammunition is emphasized. Yet, the pain and animosity that accompanies war is the very thing that is hidden. From a different lens, in this game, all civilians are combatants. They appear to have no backgrounds or familial affiliations. The aftermath of war is not felt by the gamer. The games do not reveal the trauma that soldiers experience. The soldiers in the game kill “just bodies without ghosts...bereft of interior experience [and] mere targets for [weapons]”(Halter, 269), yet the ghost like figure lingers for soldiers after war. Post traumatic stress disorder is not evident in the games. Soldiers do not return home to face sleepless nights caused by the memories of other fallen and wounded soldiers. The sexual intimacy that is hard to reach by partners who come from war, and the destroyed marriages that result are not revealed. If they were revealed, perhaps the games would never be exposed to children or even young adults. The most controversial parts of warfare are concealed, leading to a false illusion of sweet inconsequential victory. The young children and adults who engage in these games have an unfounded bout of excitement that results from misleading information. Engaging in warfare suddenly seems trendy and the army is now “wicked cool.”(Halter, xi)
Another motive in the games is the perpetration of stereotypes particularly through the use of specific terrain of the game. “Some of the backgrounds from [America's Army] were lifted from video footage of Afghan landscape.”(Halter, xiv) This game was released shortly after the second Gulf War was initiated, but news from the war front were rare and ambiguous, save the fact that it was conducted in Afghanistan. The American population was hungry for news, any kind of news about the war. This game provided that and much more, an opportunity to virtually take part in the war was part of the package as well. The creators of this game capitalized on the current soaring nationalism and patriotism in addition to the lack of information about what exactly was going on. This game was a good way of playing the part of publicity that old news reels had done during earlier wars like World War 1 and 2. It was not just a few seconds of motion pictures as shown on television, but it allowed gamers to scrutinize, examine, analyze, regurgitate as well as internalize the activities of warfare. Gamers had ample time to watch, over and over again, what the United States Army was fighting against abroad. With some of the war footage lifted directly from Afghan landscape, there was not question of who the enemy is. Another game that mirror this kind of specifically targeted digitized destruction is Kuma: War which is a result of collaborative efforts by Kuma reality games and the Defense Department. It allows gamers to transport themselves to Iraq and take part in the raid that resulted in the assassination of Saddam Husein's two sons.”(Leonard, 10). Gamers are involved in the Operation Anaconda which was targeted at disarming Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan. This game allows players to do the exact same thing that real soldiers do in the war front. The above mentioned stereotype of the bad guys being specifically of Middle Eastern origin is further enforced by the television war footage that is constantly being aired. The line between real and virtual is very blurred, especially for children who are not mature enough to use their judgment and recognize that this is simply a move to prepare for and propagate war.
Through another lens,I also examine the effect of constructing games that show foreign landscape as opposed to having fighting take place on home soil. This results in a illusion where gamers are deceived to think that American warfare only has very specific consequences; that only the OPFOR are wounded. Characters in the game never return home to find their homes bombed, or their spouses taken away as prisoners of war. They never return home because they have no homes. In the game, they do not return only find food franchises closed or food being rationed in order to keep the army (in this case themselves) nourished. They do not find themselves having to discretely conceal their children in the basement because the OPFOR has fired grenades at their own houses and towns. They do not have to watch their children melt as explosive acids mercilessly corrode their little ones' frail bodies. This experience is left out because war is never fought at home. There is no pain because these games create a feeling of being shelter; of leaving the war front and mysteriously transporting oneself to a cozy home while going away from all the turmoil of war similar to how a construction worker leaves his or her tools and all the noise behind and resorts to a warm home in the evening after a long days work . War in this games never reaches home; yet in real warfare, the evening is a time of despair where there is the constant noise of explosives, sirens, military vehicles and soldiers enforcing strict curfews. This “sheltered feeling” leads me to question why the wars are always fought away from home. If we had to go through what the Afghanistan or Iraqi people went through, perhaps we would not engage in this kind of aggression. This game conflicts with what the Bush Administration put forth. The administration glorified war against terrorism, while in this game, it really is the war against Afghanistan. It is a war that promotes violence against the people, those whom we are supposedly liberating from a certain kind of tyranny. We call forced wearing of a scarf , strict gender roles and religious restrictions tyranny. Yet these populations willing embrace them and do not complain. We go to their land, rape the women, destroy their structures, seize their resources and claim to attempting to help by introducing and imposing democracy. Even in the administration of the game, there is no democracy. Matter are not negotiated and neither is the rise in rank affiliated with military prowess. Careful consideration on our part about the consequences of our actions would change our choice of what to do. Even better would be having these consequences taught through digitized destruction.
Another prejudice that is propagated is tied within the concept of machismo. Characters are purely male in both video games. Though I agree that men and women are equally endowed, indeed I am satisfied to see the absence of women in such kind of bloody combat, even though I realize that they are indeed involved in real warfare. In still another game, Vice City, an atmosphere of misogyny is created. There are several instances of female characters (these are engrained in the game and no one particular gamer can control their actions) who walk appear to be strolling on the beach. Gamers are encouraged to ambush these women who are very vulnerable in the game. They have no way of way of protecting or defending themselves. In certain instances, they can be seen walking in dark alleys while scantily dressed. Having seen this kind of behavior in these games, young boys tend to endorse it as truth. This is not to say that it does not already happen in real life but that the women in here are portrayed as being very vulnerable and helpless. They are simple objects that you can fire at to get your own way and gain extra points, or so the game seems to be saying. This machismo that is promoted in the video games gives male children who are engage in digitized destruction the illusion that violence is part of being male. Players could not just be walking on the streets, buying groceries, going to the hairdresser or barber-store; the player are always out to exercise some male affiliated activity-such as violence or destruction of property. Repeated playing of these games blurs the line between just having a good time and simply being physically destructive. There has been an increased aggressive mood in the recent years that is correlated with the playing of these games, especially in young boys.
Yet another illustration of the manner in which stereotypes are incorporated is how in Conflict Desert Storm, there are no African American characters. Leonard points out that “black soldiers are completely missing. Selective memory of this kind reinforces hegemonic ideas about western dominance, emphasizing white/western/non-Arab participation. White people are presented as praiseworthy fighters and heroes; blacks are simply missing in action.”(Leonard, 18) Conflict Desert Storm allows players to date back to World War II, yet there are no African American soldiers. As gamers take up characters at the start of the game, most do not stop to consider the demographics of the characters. Yet these subtle inputs are not mere coincidences; they are put in with specific motives. Why should a gamer have to identify as white in this game? Why the need for forced identity? In as much as the game dates back to World War II, why do we have to fight as being Caucasian males? Since the Allies fought against the Germans, Russian and the Japanese, how are those current participants handled? While playing as a German, I do not want to willingly engage in combat against my own people. And should I be a child, how would I comprehend the history of the war? In any case,I am merely looking for a fun way to spend my afternoon while Mum makes the dinner. Yet these stereotypes are not easily forgotten. With overwhelming evidence of African American, Latino and Asian participation in the war, there should be no reason to exclude them from featuring as characters in the game , but we see this in the game. This leads me to question the authenticity and motives involved since we have proof of interracial participation in World War II and mixed combat units in the marines, navy and army today. Indeed this is a silent way to perpetuate the idealized notion of white western dominance. This is a perpetuation of a racialized world, what the manufacturers would consider ideal.
Having analyzed some of the stereotypes that are heavily incorporated in digitized destruction, I hope to illuminate some of the ways in which they lead to an idealized world that is deceptive and that does not exist. My starting point of investigation has been the intentional release of the game, America's Army on the forth July 2002, the independence day right after the September 11th attack. The game was intended to harness the widespread apprehension, fear, desire for revenge, patriotism and nationalism that characterized the atmosphere then. The hegemonic view of the game is constantly reinforced. The message that is sent out it that the violence in which we engage in is warranted and paramount for a “democratic” world. An illusion of the legitimacy of warfare only when practiced by the United States and to promote the principles of this country; yet this is the very opposite of democracy. The false illusion created breeds a kind of aggressive entitlement and sabotages any room for consensus. In the games, characters do not engage in any kind of dialogue to attempt to solve conflict; the need for violence is emphasized repeatedly. Since our values are superior and our lives more important, surely it must be our duty to enforce this mindset at whatever cost, or so the games seem to communicate. We are entitled to what we fight for and the only way to achieve that is through war, is the concept that the games reinforce. Those who engage in these games, both children and adults, fail to see the harm that war has on all people, so the inhumane actions of the any army, particularly of the United States are endorsed, celebrated, taken pride in and rewarded. However in this case the “we” is very specific. “We” is almost always characterized by the ideal Caucasian male figure who emerges as the hero. Even in games that mirror actual events that took place in real life like Conflict Desert Storm, still gamers have to adopt a forced identity in their choice of characters. I question why games have a limited number of characters closely related to the census application form or any other application where individuals have to check the “ethnicity” box. Similar to the lingering question most of us have that quickly gets drowned by the futility of asking, why can't it simply be “fill in the blank”, I question why games could not just allow gamers to craft their characters in a very specific form so much that the character ends up simply being a replica of the gamer. The impact of forced identity is similar to the glorification of certain people that is in the media. Unconsciously, we are tempted to think that certain people are smarter, braver, more likely to succeed, more likely to be leaders and others are more likely to only follow orders. When we subconsciously take in these prejudices, we accept them as truths and expect the world to meet that criteria. We have an apprehension and suspicion towards certain people that we cannot fully explain but when we think critically, we trace their origins to concepts introduced and reinforced through digitized destruction games.
Partial information that is embedded in the games omits vital information that creates a false illusion. Take for example the lack of civilian life that is in the games. There are no regular people walking around the streets so gamers do not see any similarity between the game environment and their own towns and cities. The game does not allow players to see their own family members suffering the impact of the violence that they enact. The missiles that they throw,the nuclear weapons that they release and the bombs that are exploded seem to have no impact except destruction of buildings and structures. Yet even being responsible for so much constant death has a psychological impact on soldiers who rarely have a peaceful mindset from the memories of fallen comrades, dead corpses all lying all over and the chocking smell that follows soon after. Violence is the source of thrill and excitement engrained in digitized destruction: and gamers become so accustomed to it that they fall prey to an illusion. Paul Virilio calls this “ technical illusionism” and the “strategy of deception”(pg 1-2) The demarcation between what goes on in digitized destruction and in everyday life becomes a thin line that constantly shift. We don't realize when we stop playing just a game and start propagating stereotypes or just being kids. This is a silent preparation for war in which the gamer becomes so immersed in that after repeated engagement in it, he or she starts to consider it as simply part of life. In addition to experiencing this violence in digitized destruction, the concept of entitlement is furthered by the increased warfare that the United States has embarked on which “further demarcat[es] the ambiguous division between the virtual (warfare) and the real (warfare)”.(Virilio, 9-11)
Works cited:
-Leonard, David. "Unsettling the Military Entertainment Complex: Video Games and a Pedagogy of Peace." Studies in Media & Information Literacy Education 4.4 (2004).
http://www.utpress.utoronto.ca/journal/ejournals/simile (April 8 2010).
-Halter, Ed. 2006.From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games. New York. Print
-Virilio, Paul. (2000). Strategy of deception. New York: Verso
-Power, Marcus. 2007. Digitized Virtuosity:Video War Games and Post-9/11 Cyber-Deterrence. Oslo. Sage Publishers. Print
-Giroux Henry A. 2004. War on Terror: The Militarising of Public Space and Culture in the U.S. Print
Conflict Desert Storm 2: Back to Baghdad
America's Army
CAD (Computer Aided Debate):
The Poetry of Digital Design
Jonathan Izen
Architecture is a form of poetry in space, translating, conveying, and moving something without altering or modifying it. By the Greek definition, poetics is simply defined as “to make.” This could range from the poetics of art, music, writing, and architecture, or in other words making the art, music, writing, and architecture. Returning to the more modern definition, these fields of interest are all connected in the sense that they are constructed with a certain grace and carefulness so that their final product of their idea can be perceived. The inception of thought or idea of architect on a piece of paper across which the sense of words or drawings is translated from one medium to the next can be broken or lost along the way. As technology changes, digital technology has aided architectural designs to create new forms considered impossible and unimaginable, such as the works of Frank Gehry by means of expanding these forms and their “spectacle and presence” (Sanders 9). In Kenneth Frampton’s Introduction in the Harvard Design Magazine Reader he poses the question, “where is the anachronistic culture of architecture to situate itself in the face of all this digitally dematerialized representation and misrepresentation?” (Frampton xvii). This is more about the debate between whether or not the human imaginative capacity should be limited or expanded to conform to the architectural practices of the past or if it should utilize these innovations in the digital economy for expansion. New computer technology coming into the design world creates in terms of design “with so many differences and possibilities, meaning are open to interpretation, though connections can be recognized” (McClure 166). With more possibilities from these digital processes, architects must take the task to design not only what is, but also the relationships and context. In the past decade, technology has removed the appreciation of context from a design, causing the actual spaces created to represent more of the virtual world created on a digital screen.
It is by human nature to adjust and modify our world, to organize perceptually what is present to our senses. A way to begin to adapt is created as the environment itself to the perceptual pattern. To heighten the vividness of the urban environment requires the viewer to simplify its visual identification. These are the main guidelines in differentiating objects and spaces, especially confronted with new forms of architecture and urban forms. Because spaces take longer to realize, perceive, and image, than an image, by the time the whole of the place can be perceived there is a whole new level of detail, of intricacies that may imply a feeling or emotion of the whole but never the total complete details in the space. Above all, spaces deal with the relationships of elements with the conception of the dimensional aspect as a total visible form. Increasing the observer’s attention of the whole space and enhancing their experience, is one of the most important values that these forms can achieve. It is here where computer technologies can be implemented to increase the effectiveness of these experiences.
When designing traditionally by hand, you empathize with the medium in a way that technology cannot. So much design exists today in a world far from this type of integrated thought and drawing process. Professionals who could quickly express design concepts are usually the ones who execute the designs. Great designers have the ability to swiftly and magically visualize the client’s intentions right before their eyes. The gestural drawings of Frank Gehry demonstrate these very qualities. With the quick stroke of a pen on paper he is able to grasp the vision of a building without spending the time manipulating it on a computer until this form loses its true character of the initial vision. Thomas Frank’s essay “Rocking for the Clampdown,” published in the Harvard Design Magazine, suggests that these is more than a causal link in the new economy and digital technology and Frank Gehry’s “cacophonic rendering” (Frank 60) of Paul Allen’s Experience Music Project in Seattle. It is however, a building for music and Frank put aside the ego in the design to create a physical space that related to the emotional qualities of music.
The curving walls of the Music Experience are not plainly metal, but colored in luminous and vibrant purples and blues, creating harsh reflections on their stainless steel surfaces. As one walks through the space, the same way the electric guitars, drums, and sounds of Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin affect people, the spaces translate these same emotional qualities in their design. The Music Experience really is a total experience with music because it is the combination of music and architecture, composed out of Gehry’s mind, which make it so successful. In this harmonic combination, the experience as a whole is amplified and augmented to make the most out of visitors’ experiences. This might seem odd at first that physical forms can relate to and have the same affective attributions as music but with the care spent in the design off the computer combined with the computers ability to create the exterior forms, Gehry was able to achieve this structure. Although new methods of design in the project allotted many of his ideas a broader range of freedom, a strong faculty in visual perception is not abandoned in these designs because of a new infatuation with technology, creating an affective quality and embrace with space.
In Sydney Pollock’s documentary, The Sketches of Frank Gehry, he asks Gehry whether he is seduced by computer-aided graphics, but digital media has not eclipsed his ideas. In Gehry’s work, "everything begins with the models. The problem is the world runs on paper. [Gehry’s firm] had to devise ways of automating drawings so [they] can continue to feed building departments, and inspectors and contracts and the legal system that are all aligned against doing it this way" (Pollack Sony).
Model of Disney Concert Hall
What they have done is elaborate on a number of ways of scanning or digitizing on these models to bring them into the computer so that they can go directly from the three dimensional physical model to two dimensional models. What this did was embolden Gehry in his creations. His designs could actually be “more sculptural with more confidence and with a great deal of accuracy” (Pollack). What was critical was to bring the technology to Frank in a way that didn't change him or his process.
Using techniques and advancements in computer aided design technology, Gehry and his associates were able to use the computer to digitize his models without losing the integrity of the forms and shapes created in the model. In this case, it created a smooth transition between the design process and the construction of the building. “Both design and construction, and crucially the transfer of design information to manufacture, depended on a computer program originally developed for the French aerospace industry. With the required precision necessary in the fabrication of airplane wings, this allowed for the same accuracy in Gehry’s designs, taking on the exact forms of his sketches and models.
CATIA, or Computer Aided Three-Dimensional Interactive Application, as the program is called, produced wireframe diagrams which could be translated into two-dimensional drawings” (Brawne 58). In addition, during construction, each piece could be treated as a modular unit that is identified with a bar code, eliminating complicated measurements in the construction process. These modular units are integrated with laser surveying techniques, ensuring the greatest accuracy and exact coordinates of the design as defined by the computer model.
Not only has this software given rise to these unique forms, it has connected with the entire experience of the building and structure. The Bilbao Guggenheim, designed by Gehry in this same manner, affects viewers on their experience with the museum. Continuing the curved forms and unique structure of the building it connects with what the museum has to offer. In particular, Richard Serra created an interactive sculpture out of curving rusted steel for the museum that directly connects to the same forms found on the exterior of the building.
Richard Serra Sculpture in Bilbao
In a long gallery “the sinuous surfaces of architecture are reinforced by equally sinuous surfaces of rusting steel” (60). This piece of artwork similarly enables museum visitors to interact with the artwork, as does the actual place it is housed. Where the surfaces of the exterior are navigable and experienced in their complex beauty, the same sculpture allow viewers walk through the two rusted panels, ensuing some of the same affective qualities as the actual building.
Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain
It is only with the addition of Gehry’s adopted CATIA software that these forms share the same qualities as such artwork found inside the galleries. Gehry has been claimed to be a huge fan of Baroque architecture, “but no baroque architect could have drawn or built the shapes which exist in Bilbao” (60). Paying careful attention to the design concept and what the space will entail in the viewers experience, Gehry “approach[es] each building as a sculptural object, a special container, a space within light and air […]” (Gehry 65) which not only creates these similar forms, but creates an affective physical space one can navigate. This is possible because the technology used in the creation of the building was treated as an art form in itself and in this art of technology, the tools embolden the design to an experience much like that of the initial concepts.
While sites like this have affected the public consciousness and gained attention as vital tourist attractions in support of the local economy, these buildings are not entirely different than past forms of architecture. Frank Gehry said Pollack’s documentary, “everything has been done before” (Pollack Sony), but what is new is how one does it. In vague terms, this is a concept of reinterpreting the past, and improving on something or modifying it to create this “new” entity. Concerning the architectural structures seen in the latter works of Gehry, his concepts of these incredible forms are reinterpretations with reliance to pre-existing models. It is not to say that this incredible rendering and creation is not something entirely different, because of the unimaginable and unique masses and voids such works as Bilbao create. During the inebriation of the design, Gehry analyzed cutouts of the Matisse and studied how casually cutout they were, praising their awkwardness. While these cutouts are hardly the latest technological advancement, their idea and conception is augmented into the same forms made of steel and metal, found in Gehry’s works. It is often seen that “the tools available tend to test and communicate architectural thought, enlarg[ing] the range of solutions in the same way that materials can increase the spectrum of the possible” (Brawne 124). Even though the idea or conception of the design goes back to a previous or more out of date model, the technology imposed in enabling this design is used as a tool to get these shapes and cutout like forms that Gehry wanted.
In another example, Gehry’s rendition of the Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles culturally changed the city and its image. Using the same techniques in building modular sections of the building and having the building assembled it was able to represent much of Gehry’s initial idea. The concept behind the Disney Concert Hall was to go along with the theme of sailing. The exterior of the building comprised of several curving stainless steel walls, mimicked the shapes and forms of sailcloth.
Many of the curved forms were even designed to relate to other nearby buildings, so not to loose the context of the space. As visitors walk through the space these forms completely obscure the overall appearance of the city of Los Angeles and create an entirely different entity in itself. It has become an iconic symbol of the downtown and created a new and flourishing image of the previously privatized area of the city. With the help of the computer to create these forms for the building, it has affected the space culturally as well as physically.
Within the discipline of architecture, the impact of digital designs are very well marked in Neil Leach’s Designing for a Digital World, where he creates the idea of digital tectonics. This term is defines “architecture as a question of building,” (Leach 9) according to this viewpoint, as forms generated on a computer screen are simply fantasies and simulations unless they conform to the requirements of the real world. This new language of architectural design has created a new paradigm where “it is no longer a question of the digital versus the material, but of the digital in service of the material” (9). On the contrary, the use of digital media has underscored the necessity of acquiring proficiency in traditional methods. Being distracted by the technology of representation can result in a built landscape that ends up looking more like a simulation than the real thing. More importantly, technology does not free the design and does not “open up to the human truth [and] therefore constitutes a form of resistance or challenge that blocks our access to the truth” (22). This truth is what is concealed in the designs that are aided to the point where the architect or designer does less of the work and manipulates the volumes and voids of a space to the point where it disappears into a mass of the neglected harmony between the landscape and the urban forms.
Integrating traditional techniques with digital media enhances the visual experience of the architectural form and enriches one’s environmental sensibilities. In traditional techniques, when a building is trying to be documented in two dimensions with a plan, section, and elevation, the understanding and way to describe the building is very limited. When a contractor or builder tries to put these drawings together there is an element of interpretation in the construction. Whereas with the process of digitizing models, the level of precision allows the designer more flexibility to explore the shapes, forms, and geometry of the buildings. A model would then be sent to the contractor and then the information would be extracted into a computer file and sent straight to the manufacturer without the use of paper. Often designers find that technology is divided “into that which feels natural and that which doesn’t” (Thayer 94). In this natural way, there is more of the intuitive nature of drawing that is combined with technology, remnant of primordial outlooks. Using the natural feeling in design is the most fluid way of translating in a way that does not create a chaotic simulation through advanced technologies. A computer-aided-design of a building creates a simulation that “abdicate[s] authority” (Leach 35). Simulations of buildings are not just objects for thinking about the real world, but show how the real world itself has become a simulation.
One of the flexibilities this new computer software offers is the ability to alter or change a design in the process of the conception. Frank Gehry is widely known for continuously changing and reshaping his designs along the process. With these continuous changes, the computer allows for slight modifications on the computer versus what could be done on paper or on models. This is not to say that many of the models that Gehry’s firm produce have not been changed along the process. When a design changes it could take so much time that the constraints to make a design work are increasingly limited. Using the computer interface, a design can be altered, without having to scrap the necessary documents for construction. This forgoes the traditional techniques of manually altering the design, allowing for more changes and improvements along the way.
This flexibility in changing a design ultimately allows for many more studies and a full understanding of materials used in the final building. Many of the materials used in Frank’s designs are extremely unique, often times regarded as unusable. On some of his designs he has even used chain-link fencing, which would be considered one of the most unflattering forms. Architects are able to manipulate the material into a design where it became part of the architecture and not part of the material itself. Since Gehry uses so many uncommon and experimental materials, it is increasingly important to work with the materials in the process. Simply having the material depicted on the computer screen does not fully express how the material will look in real life. The texture, color, and light coming off the material in the actual world are far different from that of a virtual simulation. In the end, the final design can meet the expectations that it lived up to in the conceptualization process without forgoing a majority of the work initially put into the design.
There are however, several cases against this method and techniques, especially those of Frank Gehry, which seem to classify him as only creating sublime spaces that can circulate around the media as his own brand. He was even portrayed on the famous cartoon television show, The Simpsons, for creating his ideas from random forms such as a crumpled up piece of paper.
Gehry on The Simpsons
There is a fine line in this commercial world with what can be accepted in terms of designs and the courage that an architect can have to take their style to the next level. Regarding the computer designs, these new forms after becoming widely known after the creation of the Guggenheim Bilbao put a kind of ego on top of Gehry and his methodologies. Although the slight modifications of a design allows for a higher workflow of creations and greater ease and convenience, Gehry employs a completely different position regarding the altering of a design. His perception of the process is almost the reverse of what would be expected. If he is criticized negatively on a design, he usually will completely start over on the entire design. With such a large ego this may be surprising, but it is known to Gehry about the process that “when he starts a second time he does [the design] from a higher plane of knowledge. It’s a second opportunity to do [the design]” (Pollack Sony). With so much competition in the field of architecture, this quality could be debated as necessary for the newest forms to take shape. It takes a high degree of ambition to completely start over, especially with the help of technology to aid along the process, but it is truly noteworthy to take the leap no matter what the consequences to achieve the greatest work possible.
This brings about another debate that classifies the position regarding the computer in architectural design into two categories. As developed in Algorithmic Architecture, Kostas Terzidis brings about the notion that for many designers “the computer is just an advanced tool running programs that enable them to produce sophisticated forms and to control better their realization” (Terzidis vii). Since the computer is often treated as a direct medium and not a tool for the better of the project, many architects fall into this category, creating complex forms without the inner design process in mind. Now there is another group of designers, utilizing the computer to make the most of scripting techniques to creatively use the computer in this process. This negates Gehry’s traditional views and opens the case for every design to be something completely new and unseen before. In this method, there is a certain beauty in combining complex computer vectors and algorithms to create shapes and renderings that possibly extend outside of the human ability to conceptualize the design. With the computer creating these forms and using careful procedures as not to become overly present in the computer screen, unimaginable forms and visions have started to revolutionize many new renderings of architecture.
So what’s next for architectural designs and the implements computer technology has on current designs? One of the latest technologies found in the architectural design community is the use of three-dimensional printers to create models of forms using integral and layering techniques to build up models of what is designed on the computer. This brings about even more questions about how virtual designs affects the actual design because instead of translating from the physical to the virtual in the design process, this allows a virtual to actual translation before the final design is completed. In this way, architects can see their design in a model that would be extremely difficult to build the exact forms seen on the computer. There are, however, still some flaws in this process. First, the layering technique only offers an approximation for the volume that is being created because the printers layer a plastic powder in several thin layers that leave lines and traces of the process in the final model. They are often also only found in a translucent white color, giving off a computer-generated appearance. While this new technology offers the ability to create the complex computer forms before the final structure is built, it has several drawbacks in which the previous techniques are often ignored. Having the computer doing the work of actually building the model and printing it out also reduces the designers’ idea of how it will actually be put together in the actual scale. It has not yet fully replaced the traditional techniques of building architectural models by hand but at the same time reduces the connection between designer and built form. In addition, the context of the design is often reduced, eliminated by the computer, which does not factor in how it may culturally alter a physical space.
It appears that the question is whether or not the architecture seems to fit in the context of physical space without being diminished by this computer software. Such architects as Frank Gehry used a deconstructivist approach, which “includes an attempt to deconstruct the elements of architecture, treating buildings as philosophers did texts” (McClure 166). With these techniques he is able to express feeling in three-dimensional objects. Often these elements of architecture alter their function and meaning, to provide an innovative three-dimensional spatial experience. The famed architect Louis Kahn wrote, “The poet is one who goes from the seat of the unmeasurable and travels toward the measurable but keeps the force of the unmeasurable with him all the time disdaining almost to write a word, which is the means” (Kahn 96). Only when this technology is approached with care for the initial inception of the design, as with Frank Gehry’s work, can the truth behind the design be translated from the conception of the form to the final building in its site.
References
Brawne, Michael Architectural Thought: The Design Process and the Expectant Eye
Elsevier Architectural Press. Burlington, MA 2003
Kahn, Louis 1973: “Brooklyn, New York” Perspecta 19 MIT Press Journals
Leach, Neil, Editor, et al. Designing For A Digital World, Wiley-Academy, Produced in
Association with RIBA Future Studies, West Sussex 2002
McClure, Wendy R., Bartuska, Tom J., et al. The Built Environment: A Collaborative Inquiry
into Designing and Planning, John Wiley & Sons Inc. New Jersey 2007
Saunders, William S. Editor et al, Commodification and Spectacle in Architecture: A Harvard
Design Magazine Reader, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 2005
Pollack, Sydney The Sketches of Frank Gehry by Sydney Pollock Sony Pictures, August 2006
Terzidis, Kostas Algorithmic Architecture, Elsevier Architectural Press,
Burlington, MA 2006
Photo Credit
http://mesmertron.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/serra1-783534.jpg
http://dianhasan.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/place-branding_guggenheim-bilbao.jpg
http://www.hypebeast.com/image/2009/09/frank-o-gehry-since-1997-1.jpg
http://transmaterialasia.files.wordpress.com/2006/11/simpson_frank_gehry_concert_hall_41.jpg
Conclusion
The interface between the realms of virtual and physical space have certain implications in both realms. In virtual space, the difference between a user's physical identity and a user's online identity creates an element of confusion or an atmosphere of deceit when this difference is not recognized. When the online identity is confused for the user, an expectation that the user will "live up" to the online standards is created. In digitized destruction, stereotypes that target specific people are embedded as well celebrating and rewarding violence in a partial and deceptive format. In virtual renderings of architectural forms, the virtual space created is often conveyed with some flaws or inacurracies between this transition with the actual space and these designs conform to the cultural context of the space. In addition to these implications, viewing subjects with different lenses can provide new insights.
The selection of a character in a video game can be thought of as choosing a virtual identity. Of course, this is not applicable to all games. Platform games like the Mario series do not allow strong connections between the player and the character compared to first-person shooters or role playing games. In these games, the character is the player's avatar in the virtual world. But this identity is often restricted. Many shooters have different classes, such as scout, rifleman, heavy weapons expert, etc, and the player must choose his or her avatar from this list. How the player acts with the avatar is dependent upon the player, but all players must build their identities through the same basic building blocks of class. Facebook users choose Pages to show their distinctions, but Pages are available for everyone. Although there are many more Pages than classes, Pages still form fundamental building blocks of identity creation. On Facebook and in shooter video games, what defines a player's virtual identity is less what he or she proclaims himself or herself to be, and more how he or she acts with a certain class or Pages.
Architectural specific designs are engrained in video games to communicate certain ideas. A good illustration is, in the same way that we recognize New York City from the Empire State building or San Francisco from the Golden Gate bridge, architectural designs are embedded in video games so as to ensure that gamers are aware of the exact “real” location in the virtual world. The virtual world acts as a template for human ideas. In architecture, a pen and paper would be used to show a model of what the individual wanted to be made manifest in a structure or building. Today with the help of a digital atmosphere created through the help of computers, the individual uses a special digital pen to pinpoint different parts of a model and the three dimensional figure of the building is seen clearly in on a computer screen. In this case, virtual space acts as a template for and allows for accurate interpretation of human thought. Ideas move from the mind to virtual space and end up being manifest in a real building or structure. This is the same way that video games are created, except the ideas move in the reverse way. Ideas from the real world are reproduced in the virtual world but the structures, buildings and cities remain the the virtual world. However, stereotypes are emphasized and are carried our in the real world.
Whether virtual or actual, computers have also affected how people design their own image in their own creations. In all personal creations there is some degree of individuality, given one’s own personal style. This is evident when one’s work is ascribed to a particular person because of telling signs in their work. Whether they chose to create unique steel forms in architecture or portray their Facebook profile picture a certain way, it all plays a part in who is behind the medium of what is being portrayed. In Gehry’s architectural solutions, there often contain traces of his personal signature of work. However under much criticism, these forms are being broadened by means of technological advancements that give rise to a style that is being publicly shunned because of their chaotic appearance. Should this style be limited to conform to the public demands or should it be recognized as the characterized genius behind Gehry’s ideas? In the same manner, would it be just to have to conform to a certain way that a Facebook profile picture should appear? It often appears, as with architecture, critics in some parts of the public try to get a more anonymous building without one’s personal style. Where these two issues of identity may hold their own ground for a resolution, it appears that as technology expands to give rise to these new ways of showing an identity. With the aid of computers, architectural styles in unique and personally characteristic work as the portrayal of one individual on an social networking site based on their own view of themselves have been expanded. These new computer or virtual media solutions have given rise to how one’s personal can be altered by means of the computer. The added element of the physical connections with the virtual have once again pointed to how our own lives are becoming even more intertwined and confounded with the virtual world.
Having seen how different arenas of virtual space have manifested themselves in real life, we now finalize by amalgamating these arguments to show each of the arenas are intertwined to form multiple layers of virtual identity. As defined earlier, technology is not a term used for the current or newest technology. It is often misleading because when we hear the word technology, the word in itself suggests an advancement or progression. What this thought disregards are all the older technologies still in use such as a pen and paper. It is important not to be confounded by the association with the latest and newest advancement. When the next advancements in technology come forth, the same misunderstanding might be implied and there could be even more consequences in the future. As certain technologies become obsolete, unused, or surpassed by a newer, more improved one, they are often left behind. Even some of the newer technologies may not in fact be an improvement. For example, two individuals can interact face to face versus connecting online onto Facebook and chatting or sharing their information and photos. Board games or such older activities are being replaced by the virtual world and simulations that put the user into the computer or television scene. Pulling out a pen and paper as the traditional way of drafting and drawing in architecture are becoming replaced by complicated vectors and algorithms on the computer. It seems that none of these technologies, now becoming obsolete, should be disregarded and their counterparts, developed to accomplish many of the same tasks, should be used as tools for making the progress easier.
Unless this is accomplished, future technologies may increase so that these old methods, which all include the physical realm of space, are used less and thus we are left living within a virtual world. This is already happening, to some extent, with augmented reality. Augmented reality is the merger of the physical world and the virtual world. When physicality is augmented by virtuality, the result is a hybrid world in which we can live in the physical world, wandering the streets of a city, while exploring the virtual world, receiving reviews of nearby restaurants and status updates of nearby friends. In this hybrid world, a visit to the real estate agent's office or website is unnecessary, because one can simply pull out a smartphone with an augmented reality application like Layar, and walk around a neighborhood viewing available homes and information through the phone's screen. The virtual world is becoming more and more integrated into our lives, so the fields we have explored in this anthology will become more and more relevant to our everyday lives.
Appendix
An augmented reality application for smartphones
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