Dr. Mary Flanagan
School
University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins
Year
Keywords
play, feminism, reskinning, un-playing, everyday life
Thesis Title
Playculture: developing a feminist game design
Abstract
In this thesis, I define 'Playculture' as a primary portal through which 'everyday life' is experienced in the US and the UK. I then argue that online 'cultural structures' have begun, more and more frequently and for a variety of reasons, to take the form of games - games that are destabilised by female participants. 'Feminist' methods of various kinds, 'intervention disruption', and iterative game design are all modes and methodologies I have chosen to apply to the creation of the practical parts of the research. Examples discussed at length in these pages illustrate the tensions between everyday popular culture and interventionist working practices, highlighting a process informed by feminist scholarship of marginalised groups.
I argue that specific and identifiable historical play patterns and larger technological developments have been linked to gaming practices. If play has become an integral part of everyday life, then the history of 'banal' play - especially domestic play -- takes on new importance. Paper playhouses of the 19th Century reinforced the notion that the house was implicitly known as a gendered space, and I interrogate gender and play and girls' subversive resistance in this space.
I argue that it is both possible and useful to identify three main types of subversion in operation by women players: reskinning, un-playing, and re-writing. I use these types of subversion to design artist's computer games as practical work in [rootings] and [domestic], and in the design of a larger collaborative work RAPUNSEL.
I conclude the thesis by utilising my selected methodologies for a final feminist intervention and subversion, through a case study of the design and creation of the practical work [six. circles], which demonstrates how one might rework game goals and creating artists' games as a form of social activism.
I end with a summary of the significance of this body of research as well as a summary arguement outlining the potential contributions of this study to future researchers, scholars and practitioners.
Additional media forming part of this thesis can be obtained from the British Library at
http://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do
Media: Two web-based games ([roofings] and Works [six. circles]) and two documentation videos (RAPUNSEL and [domestic]) are included with the thesis, as well as a slideshow featuring images of RAPUNSEL.
Bio
Mary Flanagan investigates and exploits the seams between technology, play, and human experience to make the unseen perceptible. Interested in the ways systems and materials can adopt or represent hidden biases, make demarcations, and seize power, Flanagan uncovers the underpinnings of systems to make them apparent. Her approach involves drawing, painting, screen-based media, physical constructions, instructions, and actions. She has exhibited internationally at venues such as The Guggenheim New York, Tate Britain, Museu de Arte, Arquitectura e Tecnologia Lisbon, the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing, The Baltimore Museum of Art, NeMe Arts Center, Cyprus, LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Spain, Museum of Fine Arts Cologne, and the Whitney Biennial of American Art. Her work is featured in public and private collections, including The Whitney Museum and ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien Germany and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.
Flanagan won the Award of Distinction at Prix Ars Electronica in the Interactive art+ for her work [help me know the truth] and is the recipient of the American Council of Learned Societies Digital Innovation Fellowship, the Thoma Foundation Arts Writing Award in Digital Art, and has been awarded residencies with the Brown Foundation, MacDowell, Bogliasco, and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Flanagan has lectured widely including at Oxford, Cornell, Columbia, Harvard, and the Sorbonne. She was a John Paul Getty Museum Scholar, a Senior Scholar in Residence at the Cornell Society for the Humanities, and Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto. She received an Honorary Doctorate in Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology, which was founded in 1937 as the “New Bauhaus” by László Moholy-Nagy,
Her work has been supported by commissions and grants from various institutions, including the British Arts Council and US agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Justice, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Flanagan has been invited as a cultural leader at the World Economic Forum at Davos. She is also the Fairchild Distinguished Professor of Emerging Fields at Dartmouth College.
