The Body in Video Game Experience

DOI Web Site

Bibliographic Information

Other Title
  • テレビゲーム体験における身体
  • テレビゲーム体験における身体--M.メルロ=ポンティによる時間性と空間性に関する議論を手がかりに
  • テレビゲーム タイケン ニ オケル シンタイ M メルロ ポンティ ニ ヨル ジカンセイ ト クウカンセイ ニ カンスル ギロン オ テガカリ ニ
  • From the Point of View of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Discussion on Temporality and Spatiality
  • M.メルロ＝ポンティによる時間性と空間性に関する議論を手がかりに

Search this article

Abstract

This paper suggests how M.Merleau Ponty’s arguments show us a new way to look at video games. He argues that ‘anchorage’ and ‘point of anchorage’ are important notions when we locate ourselves in unfamiliar spaces. Anchorage is accomplished not by ‘a constitutive spirit’ but by the body which settle in the space, making use of some objects in the space as the point of anchorage. However, both an anchorage and the point of anchorage are not objects as such but fields. Due to the standards of space, we can’t experience different spaces at the same time.<br> The video game player identifies the body of him/herself with the body of the character in the video game from an external viewpoint, which is generally called ‘an objective viewpoint’. In this viewpoint, the body of the player and the body of the character move simultaneously; this is called ‘synchronization’. Thus in video games, people always experience ‘synchronization’ because one cannot experience ‘non-synchronization’ between the two spaces while playing. This view presupposes that we can experience different spaces simultaneously yet still exist as physical bodies. We must therefore think of the body as ‘a virtual body’ like Merleau-Ponty insists．<br> The argument of depth shows that the objects are not in parallel relation, but in intervening correlation, which he calls ‘implication’. Similarly, the object and the subject are also in implication. With understanding this concept from the notion of anchorage, the body of the player is implicated in the body of the character. And temporality is also related to implication, where we experience the past and the future together in the present. This argument also shows that the video game experience is never independent of ‘non-reflective subjectivity’. I argue that the video game playing experience should be understood as such an implication.

Journal

Keywords

Details 詳細情報について

Report a problem

Back to top