Looking at the map of Zork that I posted the other day, I have been thinking a lot about imaginary geographies. Spaces that we create in our mind, and the inherent properties of these spaces, as geographies performed, contested or created.
Fictional maps or illustrative maps have long been printed in the appendices or as extra additions to books and works of fiction. I remember two particular cases from when I was a child of maps that fascinated me. I owned a copy of Lord Of the Rings, which had printed within its first few pages a map of the whole of Middle Earth. This seems to serve a similar purpose to those reference guides of characters that you get in dense Russian novels, both are harbingers of the impending scale of the book you are about to enter, and a sort of crib sheet of immersion that you can check back on to contextualise the story.
This Map of Middle Earth was almost my favourite part of the book. The map was a promise of a large narrative world, and although looking at it at the beginning before reading the book itself revealed relatively little, once the story of LotR got going returning the map you could annotate it in your head, as it became a narrative space that was gradually given meaning, and also when it all gets a bit confusing come the third book , you sort of need it to make sense of everything, and I remember writing on it the events as they happened, the giant spider here, the castle of Saruman there, slowly building my own legend and meaning onto the map.
The second that I remember clearly was the Bible. The single page map of a geographical region called the Holy Land. These stories also unfold in clear geographical terms, and a copy of the illustrated Bible that I owned as a child had its own set of annotations of key places, Jerusalem ect…
Aside from the fact that Tolkien’s work is self admittedly a Christian allegory, there are connections in the role of space within the two books. The role of contested space and travel across vast geographical areas are central to stories’ narratives, and the maps therefore remind us of the scale we are dealing with, and allows for the reader to track and place the narratives within geographical contexts. It is only now that I am older that the significance of the map of the Holy Land becomes truly apparent. The Holy Land of the map is probably one of the most globally of contested spaces now, as centuries of conflict over the meaning of the land that was in the flysheet of my childhood bible have endowed it with a whole new series of meaning that were not marked on the map’s legend that I used to read. And even though Christianity has largely eschewed its geoculture origins (despite talk of a modern crusade although I think its probably oil rather than spiritual riches that prompted this incursion) politics, geography and religion have scarred that land much more permanently than the innapropriately old world map showed, and although far more inappropriate for a child's first bible, this map might shed a clearer insight into the role religion, and ethnicity and history has played in the region.
Tolkien’s world is invented, using our reference points of feudal agricultural Europe and tales of King Arthur to create its geography in our minds, its topography informed by the maps drawn by Tolkien himself and his son Christopher. LotR is a story of contested geography, the evil Sauron lurks at the edge in an almost non-space, behind horrific gates that are waiting to open to flood his monsters into the tangible world of our heroes. A majority of the books are spent in transit, the films are endlessly populated with helicopter shots of the diversely proportioned Fellowship of the Ring running across New Zealand. The land of Middle Earth and its implied backstory and genealogy becoming as performative in the story as the characters themselves, the lavishly detailed maps allowing for the geography to become an active participant in the story itself.
So returning again to Zork, a world that is never graphically represented within the game world itself but that has been navigated by thousands and can still be explored online here doing this and comparing your progress with the map is interesting, as the map’s creator states that he has left off the obstacles and some of the conflicts that you encounter, so although the map is the visualisation of an active space that you explore and unlock naratively during play, it is an incomplete picture of the game world, but a complete picture of the game’s geography. The geography on its own being similar to the map of Middle Earth for someone who is yet to read the book. In Zork, much like in a book, you navigate the predetermined geography by reading or typing the correct commands which gradually reveal the land to you, and in the process of actually navigating the geography embed it with meaning. In both you are blind, and by activating the textual worlds by playing the game and by reading the book, the world is gradually revealed and drawn for you.
So returning again to Zork, a world that is never graphically represented within the game world itself but that has been navigated by thousands and can still be explored online here doing this and comparing your progress with the map is interesting, as the map’s creator states that he has left off the obstacles and some of the conflicts that you encounter, so although the map is the visualisation of an active space that you explore and unlock naratively during play, it is an incomplete picture of the game world, but a complete picture of the game’s geography. The geography on its own being similar to the map of Middle Earth for someone who is yet to read the book. In Zork, much like in a book, you navigate the predetermined geography by reading or typing the correct commands which gradually reveal the land to you, and in the process of actually navigating the geography embed it with meaning. In both you are blind, and by activating the textual worlds by playing the game and by reading the book, the world is gradually revealed and drawn for you.
In games experiences that are seemingly the opposite to Zork, photorealistic 3 dimensional game worlds such as Morrowind in Oblivion are complex and lavishly created environments for players to experience.
The large world of Morrowwind is obviously influenced by the work of Tolkien, as a feudal fantasy world. The game is a large 3dimensional computer role playing game allowing for an open sandbox style world that the player can explore at will, participating as much or as little as they choose with the game’s central narrative, spending their time instead training as one of the world’s many professions, or simply rampaging around killing monsters and stealing their stuff. The game is accompanied by a large and crucial ingame map:
The large world of Morrowwind is obviously influenced by the work of Tolkien, as a feudal fantasy world. The game is a large 3dimensional computer role playing game allowing for an open sandbox style world that the player can explore at will, participating as much or as little as they choose with the game’s central narrative, spending their time instead training as one of the world’s many professions, or simply rampaging around killing monsters and stealing their stuff. The game is accompanied by a large and crucial ingame map:
And below is an annotated version, which contains all of the information from the game, dungeons, monsters events ect…
The two images reveal both the potential and the actual narrative of the world, to a person literate in the topography of the game the second map especially makes for interesting reading. It invariably demands a comparative analysis to one’s own inworld experience, did I go there? Did I kill that and steal its stuff?
the act of playing Oblivion and other 3dimensional open world games becomes a form of interpretive geography, the land mass and sites predetermined by the designers, typically as contested space that the game demands the player occupy, whether in Morrowind as an adventurer by uncovering them on the map and experiencing them, or like in Call of Duty by travelling through and killing the enemy NpCs.
There are two types of game geographies that I specifically want to dwell on: the fantasy and the uncanny. The fantasy spaces are artificial worlds, those of Morrowind pictured above or Half Life,
a dystopic future world of alien invasion. These worlds create geographies and rules that are unique to their fictional universe much like works of literature or television such as Star Wars or the books of Terry Pratchett. The role of space within these games is often a combination of exploration and embedded anthropological play. A game like Oblivion contains over 100 books littered about the land in bookshelves that can simply be read to learn about the customs and history of the land of the game.
Land is generally contested and resolved through conflict, building or trade. For linear games such as Half Life where the character moves through levels killing bad guys, the character and story function like a narrative tidal wave sweeping forward, leaving dead bodies behind and a land changed to the player’s advantage, there is rarely a sense of the world behind continuing. Larger sandbox worlds however present contested space in a more complex none linear manner, space gained often has to be maintained, money spent on upkeep or fighting to keep enemies at bay. The act of travelling across space in a multidimensional manner, so not just forward but with the use of a map North South East and West allows for narratives to develop in a star shape as well, not just on a linear plane.
a dystopic future world of alien invasion. These worlds create geographies and rules that are unique to their fictional universe much like works of literature or television such as Star Wars or the books of Terry Pratchett. The role of space within these games is often a combination of exploration and embedded anthropological play. A game like Oblivion contains over 100 books littered about the land in bookshelves that can simply be read to learn about the customs and history of the land of the game.
Land is generally contested and resolved through conflict, building or trade. For linear games such as Half Life where the character moves through levels killing bad guys, the character and story function like a narrative tidal wave sweeping forward, leaving dead bodies behind and a land changed to the player’s advantage, there is rarely a sense of the world behind continuing. Larger sandbox worlds however present contested space in a more complex none linear manner, space gained often has to be maintained, money spent on upkeep or fighting to keep enemies at bay. The act of travelling across space in a multidimensional manner, so not just forward but with the use of a map North South East and West allows for narratives to develop in a star shape as well, not just on a linear plane.
The second type of play space, the Uncanny becomes a contested geography not just in game but also in the border between game and reality. Crysis 2 a soon be released game is set in a faithfully recreated Manhattan and the already existing succesful game Fallout 3 is set in a post nuclear holocaust Wshington DC.
In describing an urban based piece by his company Forced Entertainment, Tim Etchells describes how on entering the last space of the piece the audience find themselves walking on a giant list of all the street names of their city. He notes how all the audience emmbers go to find their street and stand on it, or old houses where they used to live, looking to recreate their own personal geography.
Likewise I don’t know of a single person (myself included) who upon being showed Google Earth didn’t as their first instinct zoom to their own house, then sites that they know, trying to reconstruct their personal sense of place within this vast nonspace of satellite imagery. And what of uncanny geographies? A reviewer of Fallout 3 talked about the chilling experience of visiting his own street in the game’s apocalyptic landscape, a vision of our own dark future which although unlikely is not impossible.
There are now countless horror and disaster movies that show us frighteningly realistic renderings of cities and landscapes that we know and love destroyed.
In his now almost compulsory study of space and the urban environment the Practice of Everyday Life, deCerteau begins his observations of the urban landscape from atop of the Trade Centre, but in a society where those towers no longer exist and are instead replaced by a large concrete scar in the landscape how de we redefine urban practice? Plenty has been written about skateboarding and the violation of the rules of ‘walking in the city’, by redefining the way in which we navigate an urban space we are committing an act of rebellion. But in an age where terrorism threatens to physically alter our geography and redefine our sense of spacial practice through violence and death, how does a game that lets us grab a futuristic machine gun and run around the streets of a photorealistic albeit fictional New York shooting aliens and blowing up buildings redefine spatial practice? Part of the unease felt by critics about Grand Theft Auto, can perhaps be pinned to the game being set in ‘Liberty City’ a nondescript American town that felt uncannily like New York. These uncanny play spaces allow us to re-perform our geographies and everyday sites, the contested site no longer being that of the game, but instead one of geographical narrative, to have run around central park chasing zombies is to never quite think of reality the same way.
A divergent practice of game play entirely focussed on geography is the creation of mod maps. Custom designed game spaces in which players compete head to head in death matches. It is not uncommon for users to create models of real life settings to play in; a Leeds based gallery created game map of itself, for players to run around in shooting each other, made available on the internet as an attempt to attract a young generation of gamers to the museum. But perhaps more controversial was a Half Life mod entitled 911 Survivor. It featured a replica of the twin towers burning which the players could explore.
It was removed following death threats and the usual outrage. Perhaps chasing down another player to shoot them dead suddenly seemed like a much more uncomfortable activity to be undertaking when confronted with a geography which is now synonymous of real mass murder. But more importantly by taking such a iconic and loaded psychogeographical site as the Twin Towers under attack and allowing players to explore this site of trauma both personal and global goes against our perceptions of site and untouchable narratives. In his book Second Lives Tim Guest talks of a therapist who in the online world Second Life, builds a replica of one of the Towers and survivors and others traumatised by 9/11 enter into it and experience the tower collapsing around their avatars, leaving them physically untouched, a catharsis of simulation. 911 Survivor makes us question again what we mean by the term game. By incorporating this narrative into a mechanic and framework of a game the mod allows us a new perspective on the event itself. It is not a simulation of the unfolding of the events of 911, the level is deserted apart from the players, but rather it allows for contemplation of a geography once so iconic and now disappeared. The space of narrative ownership of 9/11 is contested by the game, by violating it as a no go area, both as a space that can be navigated, and by resurrecting the Towers in their last moments the mod confronts to both fully engage with the event and to appropriate it into our own performed geographical experiences.
Likewise I don’t know of a single person (myself included) who upon being showed Google Earth didn’t as their first instinct zoom to their own house, then sites that they know, trying to reconstruct their personal sense of place within this vast nonspace of satellite imagery. And what of uncanny geographies? A reviewer of Fallout 3 talked about the chilling experience of visiting his own street in the game’s apocalyptic landscape, a vision of our own dark future which although unlikely is not impossible.
There are now countless horror and disaster movies that show us frighteningly realistic renderings of cities and landscapes that we know and love destroyed.
In his now almost compulsory study of space and the urban environment the Practice of Everyday Life, deCerteau begins his observations of the urban landscape from atop of the Trade Centre, but in a society where those towers no longer exist and are instead replaced by a large concrete scar in the landscape how de we redefine urban practice? Plenty has been written about skateboarding and the violation of the rules of ‘walking in the city’, by redefining the way in which we navigate an urban space we are committing an act of rebellion. But in an age where terrorism threatens to physically alter our geography and redefine our sense of spacial practice through violence and death, how does a game that lets us grab a futuristic machine gun and run around the streets of a photorealistic albeit fictional New York shooting aliens and blowing up buildings redefine spatial practice? Part of the unease felt by critics about Grand Theft Auto, can perhaps be pinned to the game being set in ‘Liberty City’ a nondescript American town that felt uncannily like New York. These uncanny play spaces allow us to re-perform our geographies and everyday sites, the contested site no longer being that of the game, but instead one of geographical narrative, to have run around central park chasing zombies is to never quite think of reality the same way.
A divergent practice of game play entirely focussed on geography is the creation of mod maps. Custom designed game spaces in which players compete head to head in death matches. It is not uncommon for users to create models of real life settings to play in; a Leeds based gallery created game map of itself, for players to run around in shooting each other, made available on the internet as an attempt to attract a young generation of gamers to the museum. But perhaps more controversial was a Half Life mod entitled 911 Survivor. It featured a replica of the twin towers burning which the players could explore.
It was removed following death threats and the usual outrage. Perhaps chasing down another player to shoot them dead suddenly seemed like a much more uncomfortable activity to be undertaking when confronted with a geography which is now synonymous of real mass murder. But more importantly by taking such a iconic and loaded psychogeographical site as the Twin Towers under attack and allowing players to explore this site of trauma both personal and global goes against our perceptions of site and untouchable narratives. In his book Second Lives Tim Guest talks of a therapist who in the online world Second Life, builds a replica of one of the Towers and survivors and others traumatised by 9/11 enter into it and experience the tower collapsing around their avatars, leaving them physically untouched, a catharsis of simulation. 911 Survivor makes us question again what we mean by the term game. By incorporating this narrative into a mechanic and framework of a game the mod allows us a new perspective on the event itself. It is not a simulation of the unfolding of the events of 911, the level is deserted apart from the players, but rather it allows for contemplation of a geography once so iconic and now disappeared. The space of narrative ownership of 9/11 is contested by the game, by violating it as a no go area, both as a space that can be navigated, and by resurrecting the Towers in their last moments the mod confronts to both fully engage with the event and to appropriate it into our own performed geographical experiences.
This in part goes back to what I was talking about in my previous post about the line between a ‘generic’ contemporary war game and one specifically set in Fallujhah. The uncanny of Call of Duty for treads that difficult line,
which many deam 6 Days in Fallujah to cross, by representing a real space and a real geography and playing out a conflict within it frictions uncomfortably with reality. The contested space of play then becomes the place that the game holds in reality rather than just in fiction, and this becomes a game map:
which many deam 6 Days in Fallujah to cross, by representing a real space and a real geography and playing out a conflict within it frictions uncomfortably with reality. The contested space of play then becomes the place that the game holds in reality rather than just in fiction, and this becomes a game map:
What is the limit of a contested reality? is it the arrangement of the buildings, the imposition of labels and legends on a map that turn it from a series of blocks on a 2 dimensional page into a text to be read as a 3 dimensional space that exists both in and out of the game space? Is Geography not itself arbitrary, it is maps that endow a series of accidental and purposeful architectural and landscaping decisions into a text with meaning. In Train (discussed in my previous post) the destinations of the cargo are only given meaning when the game mechanic reveals a legend and its geography falls into place as a text to be read. Within the context of games, as players we not only read maps, we action them, alter them, and travel across them, redefining our own spatial practice and reading of their texts through the configurable action of play.
Pervasive game practice seeks to exist somewhere within these boundaries. Playing itself out within the contested space of the urban environment and the world of the game. Over at the connected blog Andy Field talks about a new wave of work that seeks to exist transformatively within the site of the activity itself,
...instead of trying to make a blank canvas, they write over what’s already there. Colour it, distort it, obscure it – but never totally efface it. Reality always shows through. It jolts back at unexpected moments. We reflect on where we are not from outside of it or above it, but from within it.
This is a theatre that is not asking us to consider the world as a thing happening outside, away from us – an object of fascination or pity. Instead it is asking us to think of the world as a thing that is happening, or more accurately a thing that is happening to us right now as we’re speaking.
And for me that way of thinking so spectacularly broadens the scope of what is possible in theatre. It suggests that live performance can do more than just comment on our experience of the world, but totally re-imagine it...
This is what is so important and prescient about new site based practices, theatre and performance that uses narratology to affect the manner in which we interact with site, performative game systems that redefine our practice of the urban environment, interactions between audience/player and site/performer that allow for us to not only anchor work in the now and the here but to redefine a site’s emotional geography and significance, putting our own legend to the map.
But these areas of play and performance are still contested spaces: the area between our imagination and reality, the metaphor of participation is a highly contested space.
The power of the act of participation in a geography altering activity is huge, and the political ramifications on the makers should not be underestimated. In the Uk in particular we live in a society where homogenized participation has rendered many of us politically impotent. As a society we are reliably informed by politicians that we are broken, we live in a society of fear and suspicion where we are caught on camera on average 300 times a day, our greatest acts of communal mass participation and protest fall on death ears, and recent acts of political transgression and non conformist urban practices in the forms of protests have led to brutality and violence from both the establishment and protesters. We make games and performance that question and reexamine space, and its important for me to not forget that it is a contested space, and this is the society in which we make it:
The power of the act of participation in a geography altering activity is huge, and the political ramifications on the makers should not be underestimated. In the Uk in particular we live in a society where homogenized participation has rendered many of us politically impotent. As a society we are reliably informed by politicians that we are broken, we live in a society of fear and suspicion where we are caught on camera on average 300 times a day, our greatest acts of communal mass participation and protest fall on death ears, and recent acts of political transgression and non conformist urban practices in the forms of protests have led to brutality and violence from both the establishment and protesters. We make games and performance that question and reexamine space, and its important for me to not forget that it is a contested space, and this is the society in which we make it:
lets transform this.
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