Korean language

Game and Visual Media : Yungbin Kwak, Shingyu Kang

The gamification of visual media today is narrowing the gap between reality and games. What is reality and what is a game? This was examined through film and broadcasting, which are the most main forms of modern media. To close the gap between game and reality by getting close to movies (videos), it was found in various works and changes in movies due to games, AR (augmented reality) movies, and videos. And in the case of broadcasting, we found the “transforming game as broadcasting,” which uses games as broadcasting materials, and “gamification of broadcasting,” which changes the experience of experience broadcasts by applying the logic of games to broadcasting. If the story of a traditional broadcast is presented continuously with a syntactic form, the story of a gamified broadcast is presented discontinuously and in a multi-play form. In other words, gamified broadcasting can be viewed as “text of player.”

The two media most used by modern people are film and broadcasting. In <Games and Visual Media>, we looked at the phenomenon of gamification in films and broadcasts, which are known as major visual media forms today. Games were one of the most distant media from reality, but the phenomenon of gamification of video media today shows that the gap between reality and games is closing. What is reality and what is a game? We examined this through film and broadcasting, the most representative modern media.

By examining various examples that show the implications of the gap between game and reality in film, Yungbin Kwak analyzed the status of the relationship between film and game today in this lecture. And through this, Kwak raised the question of how to define the relationship with game and reality.

First, how are the changes in the movie due to the game? The one-take action sequence, or the opening scene of the movie “The Villainess,” (2017) recreated the format of the FPS game in the movie “Hardcore Henry” (2014) in reality. This is a great example of “movie as a game.” “Hardcore Henry” incorporated a new concept action blockbuster movie as it used a first-person angle for a full-time movie. This film, which showed a new attempt, was made by referencing the script of the game. The opening scene of the movie “The Villainess” also provides the audience with the experience of playing an FPS game like “Hardcore Henry” did. This unique genre of film derived from games is both a game and a film, and a film and a game.

<The Villainess>, 2017

<Hardcore Henry>, 2014

Second, we examined “movies as AR (augmented reality).”Last year, the first VR category was created at the Venice Film Festival, and Korean director Jin Ah Kim won the Best Screenplay Award for a short film, “Dongducheon.” “Dongducheon” received positive reviews as a movie made by implementing 360-degree VR technology (Oculus Rift) well. What is the difference between these VR movies and games created for VR? The first is that the existing movie theaters as we know would no longer be needed. By directly interacting with the VR device, the audience can experience the movie differently from the traditional movie that they sat through. Now, you can immerse yourself in a movie anywhere, just by wearing the device without any limitations to the physical space. Audiences can enjoy these VR movies like games.As another example, we experienced the movie “Son of Saul” in VR for a preview in Seoul. What these two films have in common is that they provide an opportunity for viewers to experience the story and trauma of the main character in the movie more directly, unlike traditional movies, through VR devices. But can we call these interactive films utilizing the form of games, true movies? Or can we call them games? Based on these technological foundations, we have moved away from simply watching movies, and experienced movies in a new way in an environment where we can feel as if we have experienced them in person. When a film becomes possible to interact with the audience like this on the technical support and the development of form and style similar to games, what are games becoming into?

<Dongducheon>, 2017

<Son of Saul>, 2015

Other than films, we also examined media and video works that used the form and style of games. <DEMO (2018)> by Woong Yong Kim, currently at the Seoul Museum of Art, is a three-channel video work featuring two gamers that uses 3D videos and actual footage of a plane hijacking. In this work, actual footage for the news featuring a Japanese Red Army plane hijacking in the midst of Demo, student movement in Japan in the 1970s and a game simulation at an airport are used in the artwork.Created based on the imagination of a real world, this work crosses between reality and virtual reality, virtual reality and reality, and even reflects reality as virtual in the game. In particular, it emphasizes that all of this is done with one finger pulling the trigger. Just as how it is operated in a game with a mouse and keyboard, it tells the fact that devastating results can happen in reality with just a flick of a finger. It is like a real game, but it does not provide a joystick or an actual device that implements the gameplay. It shows that reality can be reproduced and implemented in the form and form of a game.

Woong Yong Kim, <DEMO>, 2018

If some of the works we have looked at thus far show that the existing game existed as a medium far from reality, it shows that it can still recreate reality in a different form through game and interact with them. In other words, they were examples that closed the gap between the film or video to close the gap between game and reality. Then, what are some examples that are opposite to them?

As a representative example, we looked at “drone” as an industrialized program designed for assassination.In fact, there was an attempt to recruit good players as pilots at a game competition held in Norway. The cost of training pilots is staggeringly high. However, if you recruit those who have been exposed to the game at an early age, you can save the process and cost, and these talents could be on the battlefield with minimal supervision. And this recruitment was done as an important strategy under these circumstances.In other words, they focused on the fact that the interface of the game is not much different from the structure of controlling drones and airplanes. And they were able to strategize by letting players enjoy it as a game and play, and to quickly kill real people. The players who participated in this game were actually controlling the drone and enjoying it simply in terms of gameplay without realizing that they were actually killing people.

<NOT A BUG SPLAT>, designed to commemorate the bombing casualties caused by CIA drones, was a work that exposes the reality how Pakistani citizens and children were brought into the production process and that American engineers commit murders with drones and joysticks. When pilots bombard with drones, humans appear only as tiny dots, or worms. Because of this, they are able to commit without any hesitation as if. They are playing the game. In fact, even when it comes to whether or not to bomb children, it is left to the drone pilots to decide. <NOT A BUG SPLAT>, which was started to inform this reality, actually hangs a large picture of a young child in a field and asks the question whether to bombard over it.In fact, the United States treats all players as indirect contributors to their military business. These drone pilots show that the sacrifices and courage of the soldiers are no longer needed. This changed the pattern of warfare that existed before the 19th century. Now, war has become a game and has been reduced to a simple form of entertainment. The death of billions of people is treated like a game, and the reality is that war has become a game show and that war will continue unabated.

If play becomes war, most people will feel that the war does not need to end. We have come to perceive the space of reality with the interface of the game. When our experience of recognizing reality is replaced by an interface experience that expands and maximizes playful possibilities, what can we say is reality and what is a game? The dichotomy between the context of reality and games no longer exists. The moments of disguise slowly paralyze us as we play.

Shingyu Kang, under the theme of <Transforming of Games as Broadcasting, Gamification of Broadcasting>, uses games as broadcast materials to change the gameplay experience, along with the phenomenon of “Transforming of Games as Broadcasting” and the recent relationship between broadcasting and games. We looked at the phenomenon of “gamification.” This can be seen as a change from programs that talk and show games (game reports, e-sports broadcasts, etc.) to programs that fully use it as the form of games (game entertainment, Internet personal broadcasting, etc.). Seeing the transformation of games as broadcasting and the gamification of broadcasting and what does this change of our times mean?

Broadcasting and games started from the industrial purpose and came to be the highlight of popular culture. Today’s broadcasting media includes the Internet beyond traditional television media. With the widespread use of the Internet, even personal broadcasting can be included. The category of the media, called broadcasting, is expanding. How is the relationship with the game changing under these circumstances? We first looked at the change in the relationship between broadcasting and games.First is the transformation of games as broadcasting, in terms of becoming a material of the broadcasting media. Players started enjoying the game in a new way by watching the game broadcast and applying it to what they were playing. In this way, it shows that the broadcast, which used to “talk” about the game, has expanded to “showing” the game.The second is the gamification of broadcasting. We began to see “broadcasting” that “talks and shows games” in the form of broadcasting that uses the form of games. It can be said that the broadcast program itself follows the logic of the game. A notable example of this is MBC”s “My Little Television.”

MBC, <My Little Television>, 2015-2017

If we call games closely related to daily life and media in everyday life as “gamification,” broadcasting has taken on a hybrid position through gamification.Then, why does broadcasting use the form of games? This is to induce the immersion of viewers who seek more enjoyment. However, they only used the form and structure of the game as a tool, without seeing the essence of the game.To use it better, we need to minimize the concept of “gamification.” To do this, the concept was newly conceptualized as “digital gamification” and combined with a specific target. In other words, the process of broadcasting becoming like a digital game was examined.

The rhizome model shows well the form of multiple and distributed broadcasting. The gamified broadcasting has a textuality different from the existing broadcasting by accommodating these game attributes. If the story in the traditional broadcast is presented continuously while having a syntactic form, the story of the gamified broadcast is presented sequentially and multiple times like encyclopedia entries. It is left to the recipient to list these stories. Therefore, the gamified broadcast can be explained as a rhizome model.

If the producer’s acceptance in traditional broadcasting is located between the text created by the producer and the text imagined by the audience, in the case of Internet broadcasting, the text created by the producer does not exist, only the text that the audience creates does. Therefore, gamified broadcasting can be said to be the “text of the player.” The content of the story can also differ depending on which data is selected by viewers from among the databases creating this broadcast and how the selected data is combined.

How is this gamified broadcast accepted? A game scientist, James Newman looked at the acceptance of games from two perspectives. Players or viewers can accept it either actively, or interactively.Active acceptance does not entail substantial changes to the text, but can be understood from an exploratory point of view of “reaching out” with the text. Interactive acceptance means that the story entails immediate intervention and transformation. Viewers who accept gamified broadcasts are generally active and have the potential to participate interactively in certain situations. In other words, they are changing from sequential viewing to simultaneous and integrated participation.Through this activity and interactivity, the role of the audience becomes complex and multi-layered by changing from audience to players, through game participants in reality, and communicators. Through gamification, such broadcast acceptance is changing from “sequential activities consumed (at other places) after completion,” to “simultaneous activities completed through interactive consumption,” or “integrated experience of reacting and consuming simultaneously in the same environment.”

Games are not presented to the player as a complete story, nor is it necessarily associated with the story. Instead, it is delivered as an incomplete text to allow the player to create their own text in real time.Games, visual media, and mass media exist in an inseparable relationship. Visual media using games as a material shows our lives and reflects the reality of technology. This provides diverse ways to view reality in a new way, but at the same time, it paralyzes our perception along with the effects of mass media. Games, movies, and broadcasting not only exist as independent forms of media, but also create a different kind of enjoyment by crossing over each boundary. In this lecture, we went beyond examining games as a new medium that provides entertainment and provides messages on social issues, and ended by asking a question about the role of the audience in the gamified reality. How should we accommodate this in the midst of an avalanche of content and media?

Yungbin Kwak (Art Critic, Ph.D. in Film Studies)As an art critic, he received his Ph.D. from the Department of Film and Comparative Literature at the University of Iowa in the US with a thesis, “The Origin of Korean Tragedy.” He also received the 1st SeMA-Hana Criticism Award, a national and public art museum critique award. He has taught various subjects like film history, Buster Keaton, photographic theory and media aesthetics at Cornell College, Seoul National University, Hongik University, and K-ARTS’ School of Visual Art. With Tamás Waliczky and Li Juchuan, he served as a jury member of the 2016 Seoul International Experimental Film Festival, and in 2017 the 17th Songeun Art Awards and the 4th POSCO Art Museum for the new artist contest. Currently, he is a researcher at Sungkyunkwan University’s Institute of Comparative Culture, focusing on the intersection of contemporary art, audio-visual images, and (digital) media aesthetics.
Shingyu Kang (Video Culture Researcher, Ph.D. in Journalism)He has served as a senior researcher at Sogang University’s Media Culture Research Center and SBS”s audience evaluator. He is currently a member of the Humanities Cooperative, where he is the editorial board of the quarterly Culture/Science. His publications include Mario Born in 1981 (co-author, 2017), Who Controls Cultural Capital? (Co-author, 2015), Gamephobia (Co-author, 2013). For translation work, Video Game (Co-author, 2008), and his thesis include <The Transnational Desire of Manga: Focusing on the Works of Naoki Urasawa> (Co-author, 2014), <Game Realism of Television Real Variety Show Constructed with “Gamification”> (Co-author, 2013), and <A Study on E-Sports Fandom as a Cultural Performance> (co-author, 2011).

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