Towards a Language for Artistic Realism

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Weichelt Sebastian
2020 DiGRA ’20 – Proceedings of the 2020 DiGRA International Conference: Play Everywhere

Realism has been a very vague and broad concept and term regarding videogames. While many related concepts are often subject of study, like representation, presence, historical accuracy, or immersion, there still is no language that can be used to talk about realism in a productive and precise manner. However, the term and concept have been discussed and analyzed in art theory and some language exists in that field. This paper reviews perspectives on realism in art theory and analyzes their applicability to videogames. The result is a concept of counterfeit realism, the quality of how well an artwork resists inquiry of its properties. The artwork can be said to be realistic to the degree to which the inquiry is unable to detect the artwork as a representation.

 

Playful Practices in Ancient Greek Philosophy

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Weichelt Sebastian
2020 DiGRA ’20 – Proceedings of the 2020 DiGRA International Conference: Play Everywhere

This paper examines the philosophical practices of ancient Greece for symptoms of play, namely Socratic dialogues, sophism, Aristotle's idea of the perfect life, and thought experiments to find connections between rationality and play. And indeed, these practices can be identified as playful in ways that challenge Huizinga's and Caillois' definitions of play and games and point to an understanding of play as a mental activity.