ARTHI 3878 / VCS 3001
Professor David Getsy
Department of Art History, Theory, and
Criticism
cross-listed with Department of Visual and
Critical Studies
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Spring 2006 undergraduate lecture course
Wednesdays 6-9pm
MC 707
office: MC 710
e-mail: [email protected]
office hours by appointment
Yves Tanguy, Man Ray, Max Morise, and André Breton, cadavre exquis, 1928, AIC
Games, Play, and 20th/21st-Century Art
Course description
The intense period of experimentation in which modernist art developed has often been
characterized as serious and earnest research. By contrast, this seminar will investigate the
ways that games, play, and non-seriousness factored into the development of modern art. We
will explore the emerging literature on game studies, discuss the challenges of game design, and
investigate key moments in the history of 20th and 21st century art when games became part of
art practice or models for writing about art. Our focus will be on the conceptual issues that
arise in the attempts to define and develop games, as well as how to incite play. In addition, we
will examine a range of methods used to study games as representational activities, from
Surrealist art to computer and online gaming strategies.
Course structure
This is a participatory, discussion, and project-based course. Students are expected to engage
fully in collaborative work, involving both the design of games and the study of their arthistorical precedents. Classes will be devoted to discussions and applications of readings and
concepts. Independent work on class projects is essential to participation in this course, and the range
and quality of collaborative and individual projects will be the primary criteria for evaluation. In
particular, a major resource for the class will be the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago,
especially the strong holdings in Surrealist art, and students should expect to devote out-of-class
time to self-directed museum visits. There is one required book for the course: Katie Salen
and Eric Zimmerman, Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004). All
other readings will be made available through the Docutek system. Students should refer to the
syllabus, rather than the Docutek system, for page numbers of reading assignments.
2
Evaluation
1. Attendance and participation
All students are expected to attend class meetings prepared to discuss the required readings.
This is a discussion-based class, and all students should regularly and productively
contribute to class discussions. Attendance at all class meetings is essential. More than
two missed classes may be grounds for a “no credit.”
2.
Weekly written summaries of required readings
For each class, students must submit a typed summary of each non-textbook reading,
consisting of
a. An overview of the thesis and argument of the reading (one to two paragraphs)
b. Three (3) questions for class discussion. Questions should be about the ideas or
implications of the readings rather than merely factual.
In order to receive credit for the course, all reading summaries must have been
submitted by 26 April.
3.
Collaborative projects
The class will be divided into student teams who will each be responsible for a
collaborative group project in the form of a game about the Art Institute of Chicago.
Applying the principles from Salen and Zimmerman’s book, students will be expected to
create a game that will introduce its player to some aspect of the collections of the
museum. Students are responsible for fully researching the art objects included in the
game, of which there should be at least six. A research and project development day
has been provided early in the semester to allow students extra time to formulate their
game and research its contents. The final project will be presented to the class,
including all documentation and materials, midway through the semester. For this
project students will be evaluated according to three major criteria
a.
Application of game and rule design principles: The game should reflect an
understanding of the challenges of game design, as outlined in Rules of Play, and
students should strive to create an engaging game that is neither overly complex
nor overly simple.
b. Content: The content of the game will be the individual histories of the objects
and artists chosen to represent the Art Institute’s collections. The game should
introduce players to basic information about artists and artworks to an adultlevel audience. Research must be documented. While this is not as extensive as
a research paper, it is expected that the game will convey knowledge useful to
introducing a lay viewer to art and the museum.
c.
Project materials: On the day of their presentation, each group should submit a
highly-finished and fully-realized game ready to be played. This must include:
i. A set of rules, fully articulated
ii. All materials required to play the game (gameboards, performance
instructions, game pieces, etc.)
iii. An introductory statement explaining the purpose of the game, the
priorities of the designers, and the way it should ideally be played.
iv. A bibliography covering all artworks and artists used in the game design.
v. For each student: a 2-page statement, handed in individually, discussing
your own contribution to the design and content of the game, what you
like best about it, and what you disagree with in terms of its design and
content.
3
Students are encouraged to think expansively about what and how to constitute a game.
Those students with skills in new media should feel free to develop computer and/or
web-based games, though this is by no means required. The technology level of the
game design will not be a criterion for evaluation, though the overall level of execution
(at any tech level) will be.
4.
Take home examination
Instead of a research paper, students will be given an open-book, take home
examination that will test comprehension of core concepts and historical issues covered
in the class. It will be expected that students will make use of the Flaxman and Ryerson
libraries in completing the examination. Further details TBA. The tests will be
distributed on 26 April and are due at the beginning of class on 10 May. All exams must
be typed, and double-spaced. No late exams will be accepted, but students who wish to
hand in their exam early may do so.
Differently-abled students
Any students with exceptional needs or concerns (including 'invisible' difficulties such as chronic
diseases, learning disabilities, or psychiatric complications) are encouraged to make an
appointment with the professor to discuss these issues by the end of the second week of the
term so that appropriate accommodations can be arranged. Any student in need of academic
adjustments or accommodations should first contact Services for Students with Disabilities
(SSD). SSD can be reached by phone at 312.345.9478 or by sending an email to Sara Baum,
Coordinator of Services for Students with Disabilities ([email protected]).
Plagiarism
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago prohibits “dishonesty such as cheating, plagiarism, or
knowingly furnishing false information to the School.” See Students’ Rights and Responsibilities,
Student Handbook: www.artic.edu/saic/life/studenthandbook/rights.pdf. One plagiarizes when one
presents another’s work as one’s own. It is a form of intellectual theft. Plagiarism need not always
be intentional. One can plagiarize even if one does not intend to. The penalty for plagiarizing
ranges from a failing grade on the plagiarized assignment to not earning credit for the course.
This may also result in some loss of some types of financial aid (for example, a No Credit in a
course can lead to a loss of the Presidential Scholarship), and in cases of regular offenses can lead
to expulsion from the School. The Faculty Senate Student Life Subcommittee has prepared a 28page handbook entitled Plagiarism: How to Recognize It and Avoid It. The document is available
online on at http://www.artic.edu/saic/programs/resources/library/plagiarism_packet.pdf
Course calendar
1 February
Introduction
8 February
Fundamentals
Required reading
SALEN and ZIMMERMAN, pp. 31-83 + 101-105
Screening
The Twilight Zone #64: “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up!” (1961)
4
Further reference
Järvinen, Aki. “A Meaningful Read: Rules of Play reviewed.” Game Studies 4,
no. 1 (November 2004). http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/jarvinen/
15 February
Rules
Required readings
SALEN and ZIMMERMAN, pp. 119-39 + 151-201
Caillois, Roger. “The Definition of Play,” “The Classification of Games: I.
Fundamental Categories,” and “The Social Function of Games” In
Man, Play, and Games, 3-26, 36-41. Translated by Meyer Barash.
Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1961.
Further reference
Huizinga, J. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1949.
Sutton-Smith, Brian. The Ambiguity of Play. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1997.
Avedon, Elliott M., and Brian Sutton-Smith, eds. The Study of Games. New
York: John Wiley & Sons, 1971.
22 February
Project Development and Group Meeting Time
NO REGULAR CLASS SESSION
Required reading
SALEN and ZIMMERMAN, 266-83 + 461-87
1 March
Play
Required readings
SALEN and ZIMMERMAN, 301-74
Winnicott, D. W. “Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena”
[1953]. In Playing and Reality, 1-25. London and New York: Routledge,
1971. (excerpt, 1-6)
Winnicott, D. W. “The Location of Cultural Experience” [1967]. In Playing
and Reality, 95-103. London and New York: Routledge, 1971.
Further reference
Sutton-Smith, Brian. The Ambiguity of Play. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1997.
Pellegrini, Anthony, ed. The Future of Play Theory: A Multidisciplinary Inquiry
into the Contributions of Brian Sutton-Smith. Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1995.
Apter, Michael. Reversal Theory: Motivation, Emotion, and Personality. London
and New York: Routledge, 1989.
Spariosu, Mihai. Dionysus Reborn: Play and the Aesthetic Dimension in Modern
Philosophical and Scientific Discourse. Ithaca and London: Cornell
University Press, 1989.
5
8 March
Surrealism: Exquisite Corpses and Gameboards
Required readings
Chipp, Herschel. “Introduction: Dada and Surrealism.” In Theories of
Modern Art: A Sourcebook by Artists and Critics, edited by Herschel B.
Chipp, 366-75. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968.
Breton, André. “What is Surrealism? [1934].” Excerpted in Theories of
Modern Art: A Sourcebook by Artists and Critics, edited by Herschel B.
Chipp, 410-17.
Breton, André. “The Exquisite Corpse.” In Surrealism, ed. Patrick
Waldberg, 93-95. New York and Toronto: McGraw-Hill Book
Company, 1966.
Caws, Mary Ann. “Exquisite Essentials.” In The Return of the Cadavre
Exquis, 33-40. New York: The Drawing Center, 1993.
Marcoci, Roxana. “Perceptions at Play: Giacometti through Contemporary
Eyes.” Art Journal 64, no. 4 (Winter 2005): 7-25.
Further reference
Laxton, Susan. "The Guarantor of Chance: Surrealism's Ludic Practices."
Papers of Surrealism, no. 1 (2003).
http://www.surrealismcentre.ac.uk/publications/papers/journal1/acrob
at_files/laxton.pdf
Breton, André. "Genesis and Perspective of Surrealism in the Plastic Arts."
In What Is Surrealism?: André Breton, Selected Writings, edited by Franklin
Rosemont, 217-29. New York: Monad, 1978.
Krauss, Rosalind. "No More Play [1984]." In The Originality of the AvantGarde and Other Modernist Myths, 42-85. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985.
15 March
Games as/or Art: Duchamp (and Chess) and Cornell
Required readings
Cabanne, Pierre. Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp, 15-19. Translated by
Ron Padgett. New York: Viking Press, 1971.
List, Larry. "The Imagery of Chess Revisited." In The Imagery of Chess
Revisited, edited by Larry List, 15-136. New York: Isamu Noguchi
Foundation and Garden Museum, 2005. (excerpt, re: Duchamp, pp.
15-35).
Keene, Raymond. “Marcel Duchamp: The Chess Mind.” In
Duchamp:passim: A Marcel Duchamp Anthology, edited by Anthony Hill,
121-25. Singapore: Gordon and Breach Arts International, 1994.
Le Lionnais, François (interviewed by Ralph Rumney). “Marcel Duchamp
as a Chess Player and One or Two Related Matters.” In
Duchamp:passim: A Marcel Duchamp Anthology, edited by Anthony Hill,
127-28. Singapore: Gordon and Breach Arts International, 1994.
O’Doherty, Brian. “Innocence and Experience.” In Joseph Cornell:
Dovecotes, Hotels, and Other White Spaces, 5-12. New York: Pace
Gallery, 1989.
Dezeuze, Anna. “Unpacking Cornell: Consumption and Play in the Work
of Rauschenberg, Warhol and George Brecht.” Papers of Surrealism 2
(Summer 2004).
http://www.surrealismcentre.ac.uk/publications/papers/journal2/acroba
t_files/dezeuze_article.pdf
6
22 March
Games as historical method
Required readings
Damisch, Hubert. “Moves: Playing Chess and Cards with the Museum.” In
Moves: Playing Chess and Cards with the Museum, 73-95. Rotterdam:
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 1997.
Pollock, Griselda. Avant-Garde Gambits 1888-1893: Gender and the Color of
Art History, Walter Neurath Memorial Lectures. New York: Thames and
Hudson, 1992. (pages TBA)
SALEN and ZIMMERMAN, 233-46
Further reference
Küchler, Tilman. Postmodern Gaming: Heidegger, Duchamp, Derrida. New
York: Peter Lang, 1994.
Derrida, Jacques. “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the
Human Sciences.” In Writing and Difference, 278-93. Translated by
Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations, third ed. Translated by G.
E. M. Anscombe. New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1968.
Lindley, Craig. “The Semiotics of Time Structure in Ludic Space as a
Foundation for Analysis and Design.” Game Studies 5, no. 1 (October
2005). http://gamestudies.org/0501/lindley/
29 March
Collaborative project presentations I
5 April
Collaborative project presentations II
12 April
Contemporary Art, Internet Art, and Video Games
Required readings
Corey Arcangel, Super Mario
Clouds, 2002, game hack
SALEN and ZIMMERMAN, 505-69.
Paul, Christiane. “Gaming.” In Digital Art, 196-203. London: Thames and
Hudson, 2003.
Heon, Laura Steward. “Game Show.” In Game Show, curated by Laura
Sterward Heon, 9-20. North Adams, Massachusetts: Mass MoCA,
2001.
Hughes, Patricia K. “Breaking and Entering: A User’s
Guide.” In Breaking and Entering: Art and the Video
Game, 4-7. New York: PaceWildenstein, 2005.
Schleiner, Anne-Marie. “Cracking the Maze: Game
Plug-ins and Patches as Hacker Art.” 1999.
http://switch.sjsu.edu/CrackingtheMaze/note.html
7
19 April
Fluxus
Guest lecture by SIMON ANDERSON, Dept. of Art History, Theory, and Criticism, SAIC
readings TBA
26 April
Contemporary Art, Internet Art, and Video Games II
NOTE: Take-home final examination distributed
Required readings
Frasca, Gonzalo. “Simulation versus Narrative: Introduction to Ludology.”
In The Video Game Theory Reader, edited by Mark J. P. Wolf and
Bernard Perron, 221-35. New York and London: Routledge, 2003.
Stallabrass, Julian. “Just Gaming.” In Gargantua: Manufactured Mass Culture,
84-112. London: Verso, 1996.
Walther, Bo Kampmann. “Playing and Gaming: Reflections and
Classifications.” Game Studies 3, no. 1 (May 2003).
http://www.gamestudies.org/0301/walther/
Further reference
Polsky, Allyson. “Skins, Patches, and Plug-ins: Becoming Woman in the
New Gaming Culture.” Genders 34 (2001).
Woods, Stewart. “Loading the Dice: The Challenge of Serious
Videogames.” Game Studies4, no. 1 (November 2004).
http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/woods/
Eskelinen, Markku and Ragnhild Tronstad. “Video Games and
Configurative Performances.” In The Video Game Theory Reader, edited
by Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, 195-220. New York and
London: Routledge, 2003.
Friedman, T. (1999) "Civilization and its discontents: Simulation,
Subjectivity and Space" in Discovering Discs: Transforming Space and
Genre on CD-ROM, edited by Greg Smith (New York University Press).
http://www.duke.edu/~tlove/civ.htm
Wardrip-Fruin, Noah, and Pat Harrigan, eds. First Person: New Media as
Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004.
3 May
CRITIQUE WEEK: No class
10 May
Crying Wolf: Games, performance art, and ‘reality’ entertainment in popular
culture
NOTE: Final examination papers due.
Screenings
Series 7: The Contenders, dir. Daniel Minahan, 2001
The Yes Men, dir. Dan Ollman, Sarah Price, and Chris Smith, 2003 (excerpts)