TYPE OF PROPOSAL: Paper TITLE: More than Words: Astonishment and Special Effect in Multimedia KEYWORDS: computer games, multimedia AUTHOR: Dr. Andrew Mactavish AFFILIATION: McMaster University E-MAIL: mactavis@mcmaster.ca CONTACT ADDRESS: 1280 Main St. West School of Art, Drama & Music McMaster University Hamilton, ON CANADA L8S 4M2 FAX NUMBER: (905) 577-6930 PHONE NUMBER: (905) 525-9140 EXT. 23503 ---------------------- More than Words: Astonishment and Special Effect in Multimedia In this paper, I contend that current approaches to multimedia privilege language and narrative over visual and auditory effect, and that such privileging maintains Enlightenment hierarchical arrangements of word above image, of mind above body, and of intellect above emotion. Important areas in humanities computing have operated within these binaries to their academic benefit. Yet, while a focus on language and narrative has helped some lines of humanities computing gain academic legitimacy, it has also had the effect of sustaining linguistics-based and narrative-based critical approaches to multimedia that ultimately prove inadequate to understanding works based substantially upon visual and auditory elements. If we are to understand the complexities of how we experience multimedia, then we need to look more closely at how visual and aural elements function within interactive environments. This is a key critical task for humanities computing scholars who are now working more and more with new media elements such as image, animation, video, and audio. I focus on the multimedia genre of computer games to demonstrate that the attraction to computer games and, by implication, other genres of rich multimedia, is not based so much upon linguistic and narrative meaning, as some have argued.[1] Rather, a significant component of the appeal of computer games is our astonishment at special effects and, importantly, at our participation in their technological performance. In this respect, analysis of multimedia may benefit from special effects film theory, in which technological astonishment is key to understanding our fascination with spectacular, special-effects driven film. In short, some film theorists argue that when we watch special-effects film we oscillate between a willing suspension of disbelief and our astonishment at the technological cinematic display.[2] Our enjoyment of playing computer games is driven by a similar oscillation between willing immersion and technological awe with the added ingredient of our participation in the technological performance. The major parts of this paper are: 1. Linguistic bias in the humanities and humanities computing 1.1. Humanities 1.2. Humanities Computing 1.3. Hypertext Theory 2. Narrative bias in major studies of multimedia art and entertainment 3. Special effects, astonishment, and film theory 4. Performing astonishment in multimedia 5. Conclusion: Humanities computing and computer games 1. Linguistic bias of humanities and humanities computing Until recently, the primary object of humanities computing research has been linguistic forms of text. The word has taken precedence over image and sound, and humanities computing research has chiefly focused on the problems of linguistic text. There are several reasons for this logocentrism: 1.1 The systemic privileging of the written word in the humanities: Even with the substantial growth of academic areas such as film studies, cultural studies, pop culture, and visual culture, written text remains the privileged form of intellectual expression, both in the works we study and in the works we produce. 1.2 The disputable assumption that word-based computational research is easier to perform than image- or audio-based computational research: Words may seem easier to analyze computationally because alpha-numeric characters are discrete and definable units, whereas image and sound may seem more difficult to reduce to the finite level of individual units for computational analysis. 1.3 The academic success of hypertext theory: As one of the most widely-accepted areas of humanities computing, hypertext theory has enjoyed success for its intersections with the most influential critical theories in humanities scholarship--post-structuralism and its derivatives--which are built substantially upon linguistics-based conceptions of meaning. A linguistic focus may be suitable for studying written works, but multimedia works normally include a mixture of word, image, and sound, or they may even rely upon image and sound alone. As such, multimedia should be understood within a framework where the qualities of image and sound that are different from written text can be recognized and understood as different. This seems especially important for multimedia theorists to remember, for one of the defining features of multimedia is the combination of different media types. Oddly, the "multi" in multimedia is too often neglected. 2. Narrative bias in major studies of computer games In this section, I will quickly summarize dominant approaches to studying computer games. Although few significant humanities-based studies of computer games have been published, those that exist, for all their strengths, tend to prioritize narrative over other element. Drawing from Espen Aarseth’s Cybertext and Janet Murray’s Hamlet on the Holodeck, I demonstrate that even when these studies try to build new frameworks for studying computer games as interactive narratives, they emphasize narrative over special effects, which are cast as empty and secondary to the potential for computer games to move beyond the superficial. 3. Special effects, astonishment, and film theory As a step to thinking about special effects in multimedia, I introduce neo-formalist film approaches to special effects. Using Tom Gunning’s "Cinema of Attractions" as a springboard, some film theorists argue that special effects film should be analyzed not within the context of narrative, an approach drawn from literary studies and applied to written and oral works substantially different from film. Instead, special effects film should be analyzed from the perspective of the viewer’s astonishment at the special effects, and especially at the technology that produces them. 4. Performing astonishment in multimedia In the final section of this paper, I look directly at astonishment in computer games. In general, as players progress through today’s computer games from level to level, the special effects tend to get more dazzling, as if the prize for solving puzzles or beating opponents is the chance to test their game play in a more difficult, but more visually and aurally stunning environment. In first-person shooters like Doom, Quake, and Half-Life, monsters and opponents get bigger and more fantastical; in strategy games like Age of Empires II, buildings, communities, soldiers and war machinery get larger and more visually detailed; similarly, in simulation games like the SimCity series, buildings and transportation systems grow in size and become more visually prominent and futuristic looking; and in puzzle-adventure games like the remarkably rich Eve from Peter Gabriel's Real World Multimedia, mudflats become Edenic gardens and music studios become populated with music samples and animated image sequences for the user to assemble into interactive music videos. In all cases, players are given more astonishing special effects as they progress through the game, suggesting that our experience of computer games is structured in significant part by the increasing intensity of special effects. Narrative is not absent from these computer games, but it is not the primary reason for their appeal, nor would the games necessarily be any better if narrative were strengthened. It is the technological spectacle and the user ’s participation in performing the effects that makes computer games fun. If there is a narrative at work in computer games greater than a frame upon which to display technological magic, then it is the narrative of the special effects technology itself. Indeed, magazine and user reviews of computer games frequently contextualize a game within the history of special effects software and hardware. In this way, the astonishment of computer games not only includes our awe at performing the special effects technology, but also our awe at having access to the technology at all. This final point is important to emphasize, for it suggests that part of the enjoyment of multimedia, whether computer game, home encyclopedia, scholarly resource, or e-commerce web site, is our amazement at our access. 5. Conclusion: Humanities computing and computer games In the conclusion to this paper, I connect the place of astonishment in computer games with the academic goals of humanities computing by posing and providing provisional answers to a series of related questions: What is a special effect and can the treatment of a special effect make it more serious and less sensational? How do we account for the role of astonishment over computer technology’s ever-increasing power to handle and manipulate word, image, and sound? Should we avoid the temptation to incorporate special effects in our academic computer productions, and thereby avoid tainting the seriousness of our work? Or do we treat astonishment seriously and re-evaluate the role of emotional response in building intellectual understanding? As humanities computing scholars deal more and more with non-linguistic elements in their work, these questions may be fruitfully considered within the context of computer games and other forms of multimedia art and entertainment. Notes: [1] See Aarseth and Murray. [2] See Gunning, Landon, and Ndalianis. Works Cited: Aarseth, Espen. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1997. Gunning, Tom. "The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde." Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative. Eds. Thomas Elsaesser with Adam Barker. London: BFI, 1990, pp. 56 - 62. Landon, Brooks. The Aesthetics of Ambivalence: Rethinking Science Fiction Film in the Age of Electronic (Re)production. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood P., 1992. Murray, Janet. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997. Ndalianis, Angela. "Special Effects, Morphing Magic, and the 1990s Cinema of Attractions." Meta-Morphing: Visual Transformation and the Culture of Quick Change." Ed. Vivian Sobchack. Minneapolis, MN: U Minnesota P., 2000, pp. 251 - 71.