Interface[s] Montréal

Gaming

Bart Simon

Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University

The Material Imaginary of the Wii: Bodies, Spaces and the not-at-all Virtually Real

View the presentation [In English]

The Nintendo Wii is part of a trend in home digital entertainment that takes play away from a direct engagement with the screen and places it in the interactions of the bodies and spaces of the players. What is happening to players' relationship to the primarily screen-based visual medium of digital games? Does this take us further in our fantasies of virtual reality or further away? Through a discussion of Wii Sports, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Sockball, Barts Simon will consider the idea of the material imagination of players on the new frontiers of gaming.

Bart Simon holds a PhD in Sociology and Science and Technology Studies and is a specialist in the areas of the sociology of knowledge, technoculture, surveillance, and game studies. He is director of the Montreal GameCODE project and sits on the editorial boards of Games and Culture and Game Studies. He has been the principle investigator for SSHRC and FQRSC funded projects on “the social worlds of digital games” and has recent articles on case modding and LAN parties, the biographies of players in MMOGs, and interacting with AI in games.