New discursive and technological modalities in contemporary politicsPatrick J. Coppock, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Department of Social, Cognitive and Quantitative Sciences. patrick.coppock@unimore.it

http://game.unimore.it

Politics in Transworld, Transmedia Gameplay Space

Premise1: Political discouse is essentially relational, in character - a question of building and maintaining affective and strategic alliances with non co-present others.

Premise 2: Transworld, transmedia ludic and social media are designed to remediate enactive experience of engagement with non co-present tangible (people, places, things) and intangible otherness (possible worlds, cultural practices)

Premise 3: An important component of this enactive experience is amodal perception that creates a sense of “Presence in Absence” Noë (2004, 2009)

“Presence in Abscence”

Amodal Perception (Noë)

“Perceptual experience has an uneliminable amodal component” “We routinely experience aspects of the physical world as

present for us, though some of its empirical details may be hidden from view”.

“it seems as if you are aware, in a perceptual modality, of something that is plainly out of view”

“in seeing what is visible, you have a sense – a visual sense – of the presence of the [thing] as a whole”

Amodal Perception (Noë)

Phenomenologically speaking, nearby environmental detail is experienced as “presence in absence” – it is “available”, but never holistically represented: “the world as given to perception is available” “there is no such thing as seeing all the detail at once” “perceivers know how to gain access”

Enactive Experience (Noë)

We are aware that our embodied agency allows us to explore, and meaningfully “fill out”, “missing” details of our immediate environment: “experience isn’t something that happens to us, it is

something we do” “enacting perceptual content” [is] “making contact with

the world through skillful exercise” ”we have practical knowledge of how to bring […]

unperceived items into view by movements of the body”

Enactive Experience (Noë)

Environmental detail is “present” for us in the sense that it is constantly available through skillful “probing” of the world “the world is given to perception as available” “perceptual experience is a temporally extended activity

of skillful probing” “directed looking” [is] “the visual equivalent of touching” “what mediates our perceptual relation with he world is

only our exploration of the world” “perceiving is not a way of representing, it is a way of

gathering or assembling content”

Enactive Experience (Noë)

Our phenomenological experience of the world, and the meanings we attach to this obtain conceptual or other “content” through our exercise of refined sensorimotor skills. “perceptual awareness of objects, for enactive direct

realism, is an achievement of sensorimotor understanding” “the world is present – not in our minds – but as available

to our inspection” “the world is present in experience virtually thanks to our

online dynamic access to it”

“perceptual experience is virtual all the way in”

Glocal – Transworld, Transmedia – Identities

Premise 4: Transworld, transmedia gameplay genius loci act as ‘open’ worlds that may facilitate growth of ‘glocal’ political identities through cooperititive engagement with non co-present forms of otherness

Premise 5: ‘Glocal’ political identities develop as enactive experiences of ‘global’ and ‘local’ actual and possible worlds – and the past, present and future identites these worlds construct – entangle with one another in non-linear, non-predictiable ways

Actual and Possible Worlds

Wp1

Wp2

Wp4

Wp3

WaWp5

Wpn

Past Present Future

Local Cinematographic Playspace

Local Videogameplay Space

Ludic & Social Media

Blending Cooperation & Competition in Cooperition

Cooperation + Competition ≅ Cooperiton User Generated Content (UGC)

In (e.g.) videogames, virtual worlds & social networks : Avatar Styling, Speed-Runs, Modding, Level Design Island & Property Development, Shops, Services YouTube, facebook Links, Videos, Photos, Apps for Facebook/Twitter/iPhone

Open Source Code development and sharing Wiki, Wave – collective forms of at-a-distance authorship Creative Commons = new conceptions of rights of use

From Consumption to Prosumption

Production / Consumption Model Production + Governance

‘Top-Down’

Consumption + Delegation

Cooperition / Prosumption Model Cooperition + Peer-to-Peer

‘Bottom-Up’

Prosumption + Engagement

Transworld, Transmedia Gamespace (Twinity)

Transworld Transmedia Gamespace (Twinity)

Transworld Transmedia Gamespace (Second Life)

Antonio Di Pietro in Real Life

Antonio Di Pietro in Second Life

Transworld Relational Gameplay Space - Facebook

Barack Obama Fan Page

White House Fan Page

Jens Stoltenberg Fan Page

Silvio Berlusconi Fan Page

‘Uccidoiamo Berlusconi’ Page

Dario Franceschini Fan Page

Transworld Semantic Gameplay Space -Twitter

Iran Post-Election Protests

Remediation of Cultural Memory & Trauma

Theme 1: Remediating cultural memory of trauma Can transworld, transmedia remediations of cultural

trauma help us engage with painful memories that blend aspects of past, present and future actual and possible worlds in potentially meaningful ways?

Theme: 2 Remediating cultural memory of pain/suffering

Can transworld, transmedia depictions of real or ‘virtual’ pain and suffering play a constructive role in re-enganging and re-elaborating cultural memory of trauma?