www.dichtung-digital.de/Theorie/index-e.htm - I 18 I + | new The Elements of Simulation in Digital Games [English] Aki Jarvinen's article on computer and video games presents a generic model of the elements that co-operate in producing a simulation that is also a game. The model is applied into practice with a case study that focuses on Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Rockstar Games, 2002) that frames its gameplay by simulating certain traits of popular culture in the 1980s. http://www.dichtung-digital.org/2003/4-jaervinen.htm Paradigms of Interaction. Conceptions and Misconceptions of the Field Today [English] Lisbeth Klastrup gives a selective overview of the use of interaction as a concept in computer game and literary theory in the last decades and (re)defines and refines the concept, arguing that we need to approach from a more stringent perspective how interaction concretely functions in both single-user and multi-user "text" forms. She discusses the scope of interaction in various genres, outlining three basic interactive" text" types: static, pseudo-dynamic and dynamic. http://www.dichtung-digital.org/2003/4-klastrup.htm Is There a Place for Digital Literature in the Information Society? [English] In Finland and other Nordic countries, the infrastructure is there, the literary culture and literacy is there, and public access to literature, both print and digital, is well organized. Ideal circumstances. Does the (almost) non-existence of digital literature in these countries seriously undermine the belief in the digital literature in general? Or is it rather, that too strong a literary culture is foremost an obstacle for the development of digital literature? Raine Koskimaa discusses if there is, indeed, a place for literature in the information society, and if there is, where it is, and how that literature would look like. http://www.dichtung-digital.org/2003/4-koskimaa.htm The Geography of a Non-place [English] In role-playing MUDs only the administrators have power to access the information directly, all others need to follow some path, which creates an illusion of space and particularly of place. However, the metaphors of physical movement are powerful and enduring, to the point that Sherry Turkle suggests that online is its own place. But is the "place" I am accessing when I log on to the net so alien compared to physical places? Torill Mortensen discusses this on the background of Mark Auge's concept of a non-place. http://www.dichtung-digital.org/2003/4-mortensen.htm Writing Through the Data Banks: Notes on Poetry and Technology in the Swedish 1960s [English] Jesper Olsson's essay deals with literary experiments from the Swedish 1960s that elaborate and differentiate the interface of poetry through the use of various media (book, performance, gramophone, etc). He challenges the traditionally assigned roles of writers and readers and articulates a threshold between a 'culture of expression' and a 'culture of information', where the forms of poetry are shaped by an attempt to write through the databanks that inform and form (ideological) ensembles of knowledge at a certain historical juncture rather than by the search for the perfect expression of an experience. http://www.dichtung-digital.org/2003/4-olsson.htm Defining a Tubmud Ludology [English] Ragnhild Tronstad examines the adventure oriented Multi-User Dungeon Tubmud in the light of various theories on play and games, in order to define a methodology suitable to capture the specific game-like aspects of the MUD. As it turns out Tubmud is too diverse a phenomenon to be conceptualised as one kind of game but is rather a game environment comprising different kinds of games, which all needs to be examined separately. http://www.dichtung-digital.org/2003/4-tronstad.htm