Essay: Envisioning Jon Rafman
Titled PLAY THE AESTHETICS, the latest issue of academic journal COMUNICAZIONI SOCIALI (Social Communications, published by University of the Sacred Heart's imprint, Vita & Pensiero in Italy) features several contributions of Italian scholars focusing on the interplay between art and digital games. My essay - "Machinima As the Art of Envisioning: Jon Rafman" - provides a critical reading of Code of Honor (2011) using conceptual frameworks developed by Vilem Flusser.
Here's the abstract:
This essay provides a critical reading of Codes of Honor ‒ a narrative-based machinima on arcade culture produced by Jon Rafman (b. 1981) in 2011 ‒ through the lenses of Vilém Flusser (1920-1991) and William Gibson (b. 1948). Specifically, Bittanti suggests that the Canadian artist exemplifies what media philosopher Flusser called an “envisioneer”, a “non-spectacular revolutionary”, and homo ludens in his seminal work Into the Universe of Technical Images (1985). According to Flusser, in the emergent telematic society, a new generation of artists ‒ envisioneers ‒ will create novel images in unexpected ways through playful, global dialogue. Likewise, in his 1984 novel Neuromancer, Gibson described a new kind of subject that manipulates images in a rhizome-like electronic universe, subsequently revealing that the inspiration came from watching arcade gamers. The essay investigates the surprising affinities between narrative and theory, videogames and Game Art. In this context, Code of Honor is considereed as a paradigmatic text in which these threads create a meta-dialogue.
Submitted by Matteo Bittanti