i made this. you play this. we are enemies.
Fresh on the heels of our discussing game, game, game and again game, Jason Nelson has released another work in a similar style. i made this. you play this. we are enemies appears to have some similar things going on, but I'm intrigued by the sense in which we as players/readers/critics/students are the game designer's "enemies." The comment in direction number 4, "stop trying to 'get it'" seems particularly targeted toward or relevant to our discussion of the game, especially since I made sure to set the game up by asking you to try and "get it" instead of "just" playing it.
So what do you think we should do with this? On the one hand, its energy seems somewhat more focused on playing with / mashing up specific online spaces, but I don't want to be a "shark with bees for hair" for saying so. Do you?
Comments
Getting it
Nelson has posted a comment on the other class's blog which gives some more context, but no, I don't think he has us specifically in mind. The way I read that is a response to the wide variety of responses to "game, game, game", which are easy to find with some googling. They run the gamut from calling it a brilliantly post-structural work of existentialist, to casting it off as incomprehensible pseudy BS.
For my part, I think one point to take away (there's that construct of apprehension again) is that we as critics/players/readers/writers are always the author/artist's adversary in a game of interpretation. So "i made this" just puts that right out there and literalizes it into the game's design.
Yes
Allow me to preface this by saying that I would love to be a shark with bees for hair. And now to discuss more relevant things, do you think that the comment about "trying to get it" was made with our group in mind? Which is to say, it is in reaction to your request that we analyze the meaning of the game beyond its face value? Just curious. In response to what we should do with it..I feel we should of course analyze it for meaning. "Getting it" sounds so pretentious. An artist really shouldn't have such an overinflated sense of self importance as to attempt to prohibit individuals from reading into a piece of art. Granted, one cannot always look at something analytically, so experience the game for its aesthetics first, and then proceed to analyze. Jason Nelson takes advantage in particular of the medium's ability to present mash-ups of multiple mediums. The textual element for example.