“Ritual Co-Location: Play, Consciousness, and Reality in Artificial Environments” by Dan Pinchbeck and Brett Stevens
Despite its outrageously long title and seemingly difficult premise, it turned out to be okay. Of course, it was filled with terms and ideas that I was completely unfamiliar with, but it was very interesting, and that was what kept me going. So, the conscious of all of us is a linear thing. It goes one way. It is also, nothing and everything. There is nothing physical to it, and yet we are defined by it and are nothing without it. We created this artist understanding of it by giving it these characteristics. This thing that defines us can be easily tricked however, by virtual reality. Virtual reality uses artificial environments to trick our conscious into familiarizing itself with the environment, and then we feel involved. Our artistic version of our consciousness is a virtual state of being, which is very similar to virtual reality. Both allow for rule breaking and defining, as well as the feeling of control. We would like to believe we are in control of our minds, but our minds control us. We would like to think that we control the video-games we play, but the games are actually leading us.
They are also similar in the matter of time. Both function on a linear pattern, according to the article. What about games involved in time travel? Is that still considered linear? I’d like to think time is more of a set of loops. We can loop around, and sometimes go back or revert, but we still keep going forward despite the small setbacks. I suppose this is what they were thinking too. Our mind, in its progression through time, goes through the phases of ritual. This section was all about our readings for this week. Video-games pull us through the same phases of ritual. In a sense, our minds are video-games. Weird.
