%0 Journal Article 
%A Lehner, Alexander
%T Videogames as cultural ecology: "Flower" and "Shadow of the Colossus"

%D 2017
%@ 2171-9594
%U http://hdl.handle.net/10017/31326
%X In this paper, I discuss videogames as a form of cultural ecology using the examples of “Flower” (2013) and “Shadow of the Colossus” (2011). As foundation for this thesis I deploy Farca’s “Emancipated Player” as a player-type receptive for representational art and as a form of dialectic meaning-production between an actual player of this type and the implied player (the game’s design). This will be connected to Zapf’s notion of literature as a cultural ecology. Addressing similarities in function and differences in the mediality of literature and videogames and considering recent studies in game-theory and ecocriticism, I will demonstrate that emancipated play of aesthetically complex videogames can be considered a condition for videogames to function as a form of cultural ecology and thus also as a regenerative force in the larger cultural context akin to literature. The exemplary analyses consider especially the use of unnatural anti-conventions as a self-reflexive technique for reflections about videogames themselves, which are connected to reflections about the empirical reality. The games offer perspectives creating blanks for the player to be filled with her imagination and consequently unfold arguments about the aesthetic condition and conventions of videogames as a mirror of a neoliberal society without regard for the environment or the non-human. It becomes clear that representation or procedural rhetoric alone cannot be sufficient to describe the aesthetic effect of the videogame as a “Gesamtkunstwerk” (an all-embracing art form). They can only function as cultural ecology, if we consider them as multimedia artworks offering a degree of openness for the imaginative power of the player. To play videogames is not either to observe or to inhabit, it is the amalgamation of both which enables their creative force to influence the discourse as cultural ecology

%K Emancipated player
%K Cultural ecology
%K Videogames
%K Flower
%K Shadow of the Colossus
%K Jugador emancipado
%K Ecología cultural
%K Videojuegos
%K Literatura
%K Literature
%K Medio ambiente
%K Environmental science
%~ Biblioteca Universidad de Alcala