A thought provoking day with many questions arising from the workshops...
I'm interested in the ways in which 3d game engines can provide a 'ready made,' low cost and low technicity navigable space for distributed, real time, co-creative performances.
I liked the subversive aspects of the ideas which were brainstormed in the morning session. With many popular games and game franchises (such as Unreal, Quake, FEAR etc) exisitng embedded within fictional worlds of patriarchal violence, extreme competition (survival of the fittest) and the quest for superhuman abilities, perhaps to compensate for underlying feelings of alienation and disenfranchisement from meatspace socio-political life, using these game engines to question the underlying ontologies at play, and examing ways that these tools can be re-purposed for collaborative, creative and humourous encouters seems an inteesting avenue to pursue.
From the afternoon sessions, the moments which i felt were most intersting were those which were scripted in advance - allowing coordination of the game engine and live performers. While this could be a way of creating an original, cut and paste aesthetic for scripted animation/film compositing, it removes the elements of spontaneity and play inherent in the games themselves. I also found the tendency to fix a location in the game engine problematic insofar as the elements of spatial navigation and exploration which seem so integral to many games disappeared and the scrolling 3d space was reduced to a photo frame for live action. The problem with movement often seemed to the lack of feedback that actors encounter while in front of the screen. Consequently actions did not correlate with the environment, distancing the actor from the background and highlighting the distance between them. The content which most interested me in the session was when the actors displayed a reflexive awareness of their disjunction from the 3d environment as this material seemed to provide more of an engagement with the situation. By exploring ideas around being lost and out of place the actors seemed to provide a context for their awkwardness within the environment.
I think considerations of what game engines are/might be useful has been very intersting for me. Unreal Tournament 2004 (which we played in the morning session) proved too fast paced for the live action to mesh with the frenetic actions of avatars. Second life, with its quirkily animated characters may prove more useful, as the pace of action is slower and may permit more interaction between the game engine and performers. The Half Life 2 mod we used was interesting due to the level of control afforded to the designer. Placing bodies, surreal objects and helium ballons appeared to allow the creation of detailed sets which could be utilised for scripted or improvised performances, but synchronising camera movement with performer actions requires further testing.