I did the bulk of my connecting between Moby Dick and Digital Culture on this post, but for this section I want to throw out some more ideas and questions, and refine some existing ones from the last post. Which ones sound most interesting to you?
--Moby Dick can be read as a novel that is about never ending advancement. Ahab and the crew he drags along with him are seeking after the white whale, which is always metaphorically just out of reach. This is similar to the video game industry in the sense that progress and "the new" is the golden ideal, the white wale is the attainment of the best graphics, the most complex game, the best way to integrate the player into the experience. But at what loss? I know the "classic games" on NES and Super Nintendo had a certain charm for some people (including me) that newer games cannot replicate. What is the loss for those in the novel Moby dick? They are losing out on a relatively simpler life composed of chasing whales that are not so dangerous or exotic as Moby Dick. Yes this might be more boring in some ways but it would also be more comfortable, quainter. Is this good or bad. That is, ultimately in Moby Dick when they confront the white whale (the equivalent in the gaming industry would perhaps be achieving total immersion within a game...what is that called? I know there is a name for it, virtual reality?) they are destroyed. Perhaps that is what awaits the gaming industry if they do not go back to the simpler, quainter times of Yo!Noid, Battle Toads, Bubsy, and Earthworm Jim.
---OR, this same idea in Moby Dick could be applied to film. The way film is in a race to become more and more technologically advanced, which is perhaps sacrificing more traditional elements such as the quality of the story and character performances for flashy digital effects and animation. That is, they are trying to get viewers in a different way. Just as the pursuit for Moby Dick is a shift in how the crew go about there lives and how Ahab is going to interact with his crew.
--Finally, I might go off of one of my blog posts, where I talked about a certain chapter in Moby dick as representing an important struggle in the Digital World--the need to continually learn new things (and I could even tie in the creation of new things, bringing the previous film and video game ideas to play under this banner) and how it is never ending...there will always be something new, just as in the chapter there will always be another whale that needs catching.
All these ideas have to do with "the new" but in slightly different ways. The question is 1). Which idea or ideas are most interesting, and 2). which Moby Dick theme or scenerio goes best with it/them?
Yeah I like this direction of going after the new. Video games feel to me more relevant to digital culture than film, although even as I write that I am not sure if that is justified -- just feels that way to me. From an analytical standpoint, you might examine the drive itself -- what does the text/Ahab/Ishmael teach us, in a traditional sense, of the nature human craving for a goal. Then, thinking in terms of digital culture, it's also interesting to see how some websites have won the day by actually making things LESS flashy and complicated. I think back to how Google beat out Yahoo by having an almost empty home screen. And how Facebook beat out Myspace by having WAY fewer choices of what one could have on their personal pages. Of course, those are both examples from several years ago, and both websites HAVE become much more complex and "flashy" in the subsequent years, for whatever THAT's worth.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as a skeptical participant in Western culture, I am always trying to separate myself from the "progress myth" which tells me that everything is either getting better or worse all the time.
Nice thoughts! Looking forward to reading more.
I like your ideas, but I think you may need to develop your ideas about Moby Dick a little bit more and how that ties into video games. The white whale is the gaming industry. In class we talked about how Moby Dick was immortal, there wasn't ever a real beginning or an end to him in the novel. So is the gaming industry the same way? How so?
ReplyDeleteI think just making strong connections to the novel will help your paper. Great job so far, though.