david surman

New school

2009-04-20T06:52:00.001-07:00

Sitting in the Eugene Lang building at new school before my meet with mister w. Weird place. Definitely a university, possibly something else.

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Cheese!

2009-04-13T08:00:00.001-07:00

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Painting...

2009-04-12T18:01:00.001-07:00

Downtime from writing is painting...

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I'm a cyborg and it's ok

2009-04-11T14:53:00.001-07:00

Actually managed to get through the film and totally loved it. Definitely one to show the students :)

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Bibliophilia...

2009-04-11T08:16:00.001-07:00

My Amazon bill is like a tax on enthusiasm and curiosity. Check out mechademia, edited by frenchy lunning. Totally awesome anime studies.

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Indoors...

2009-04-11T08:07:00.000-07:00

It's a beautiful welsh day today and I am indoors working on my new essay. New York next week and then a few days when I get back before the last stretch of teaching kicks in.

-- Post From My iPhone

2009-04-11T07:54:00.001-07:00

Slowly getting to grips with this iPhone malarkey and actually loving it, especially the insidious predictive texting !

-- Post From My iPhone

2009-04-11T01:49:00.001-07:00

Crazy! Synched to my iphone and everything. New technology is nuts!

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My Paper Proposal for S.A.S. 2009, Savannah, Georgia

2009-01-08T07:36:00.000-08:00

High Definition Images, Moderate Scholarly Definitions and Low Level Analysis

David Surman

It makes sense that, in the wake of high definition content production and delivery, we would be sensitised to the affordances of lesser definitions. The contemporary question of definition is less contingent on an exploration of the dialectic between digital and analogue image cultures. Instead it presumes a post-digital analogue; analogue textuality performed and curatorially conditioned by a ubiquitous digital infrastructure.

The pixel doesn’t hold the immediacy of signifying digital visual culture that it once did since, come what may, historical iterations of pixellated imagery sit in an everyday context of conversely analogue forms -- cathode ray tubes, Polaroid film, CMYK magazine print. The previously potent pixel is now concomitant with the anticipation of the digital rather than its arrival. Its intervention is softened and naturalised by the reception and positioning of its encompassing image and sound production modes.

From the false monad of the pixel, we now zoom out to the polygon as candidate for stable signifier of digital processes. The polygon, the basic component of the constructed static meshes used to create computer generated imagery. The pixel is subsumed within the polygon, and ceases to signify other than in moments of shearing and microanalysis. Discernable pixels seek only to evoke the trajectory and contour of line, deferring to their cognition as polygons.

Wherein lies the significance of the polygon, when naturally the endeavour of producing higher image definition seeks to erase the trace of the component from the sensate surface of the screen? In the post-polygon digital image, tropes of the analogue are retrieved, in the form of perceptual cues and intellectual caveats. Lens flare, shaking camera, focal depth defer to the authority of the cinematic analogue, but highlight the intellectually and creatively precarious nature of the digital image which, like the roman mosaic, cannibalises the material terms of its own image to remain contemporaneous with its referent culture.

POUTINE, ZINES, AND EATING YOUR GREENS

2008-10-06T13:11:00.000-07:00

I am on my way back from Canada now. I have had an amazing time over the past few days. The meetings in Ottawa went very well and I think I made a good impression on the group.

We went for lunch on the Saturday and I ordered nachos. The quantity that turned up was absurd, and made me a little grumpy. Quality over quantity please! I guess it was our fault for having lunch in a sports bar :)

Yesterday I went to Montreal to meet up with Josh and Elizabeth. Sometime earlier in the week I had caught a nasty cough and cold (I'm currently blaming Angela) and so I wasn't on best form during the morning.

Josh introduced me to the hallucinatory world of unregulated cough syrups (the kind you cant get in the UK), and I was suddenly feeling 120%. Montreal seems like a city that has a lot going on, and each area feels like a little village in its own right. I was feeling a little hungry, so Josh took me to a local poutine restaurant. Poutine is a Canadian delicacy comprising chips (fries) gravy and cheese. Sound familiar people of wales? Well the Canadians have institutionalised this treat, and added all manner of heart stopping extras to it. I was too chicken to go for Poutine T Rex, so I went for Poutine Poulet et Pois :)

After the poutine incident we met up with Elisabeth and went to shop for 'zines and clothes and all the other cute things Montreal had to offer. It was at this point my cameraphone battery died (goddamn N95) so I don't have pictures to reinforce just how awesome an afternoon I had. In the comic publishers store we even got to see a copy of Elisabeth's latest book, a compilation of the zines she has published over the past few years. She is v v modest and lovely, and I think it is one of the best book-format illustration works I have seen in a long time...

BRISTOL TO NEW YORK TO CANADA, A DRAMA TOLD IN MEDIOCRE CAMERAPHONE PICTURES

2008-10-02T13:16:00.000-07:00

THE GREAT CANADIAN ADVENTURE

2008-10-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

So I am stuck here in Newark, waiting for my connecting flight to Ottawa, which has been delayed by two hours. Things seem to have chilled out in US airports since I was last over. Love American people so much ^-^

Mad Monster Party, Need I Say More

2007-10-22T12:43:00.001-07:00

Long Time Overdue Update

2007-09-29T02:27:00.000-07:00

It's been absolutely ages since I updated this blog regularly, and I am going to make the effort to do so. Over the past few months I have been utterly busy with work commitments. We have a new first year of computer games design students who need lots of special care and attention, and I am working on my second book for Quarto. I have lots of things to update here. ;)

One of the most special and amazing People I know, Laura Powderham, has started a new blog, Porcelaine Priss, where she is talking with the utmost intensity and clarity about her figure mania. I love love love it!

After doing a substantial amount of work on my academic papers and presentations, I am consciously slowing down to spend more time on my drawing, illustration and character design. This will no doubt lead to more writing on these subjects, but it's all good. I had been getting so exhausted and stressed by the teaching and research, and it suddenly clicked one evening about a week ago when I had a few girlfriends over and we were scribbling and drinking wine, I hadn't drawn in months! It has always relaxed me massively to sit and draw for a few hours, and I am now most definitely working that into my routine as an essential moment. All the better since I am teaching character design, interaction design and pre-dev. this year.

I delivered my paper on 'Single Female Intruders' at the Brunel PG Games Conference, which seemed to go down well. People were really positive in the plenary and I received some nice compliments regarding the clarity of my writing and delivery. Nice to hear after a gruelling summer of word tennis with new articles on Takashi Murakami, Otaku Culture, Female Robot Imagery, Meiko Kaji and Rikyu all coming out later this year and early in 2008. I have overdone it in the writing department, and I hope it hasn't impacted on the quality of what I have produced ;)

I will post some drawings as a separate entry, I need some breakfast!
Itadakimasu!

Loco Roco 2 Trailer

2007-07-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

http://kotaku.com/gaming/clip/loco-roco-2-trailer-283581.php

SuperFlat Video Game GET

Kisho Kurokawa's architecture...

2007-07-18T12:54:00.000-07:00

...is fascinating me so much right now.

New Keita Takahashi Game

2007-07-17T04:26:00.000-07:00

Keita Takahashi has released the first images for Nobi Nobi Boy, a ps3 release. Nobi means 'to stretch'.

I have been away for f'kin ages working on new projects. The Videogames Handbook is out soon, and I have just started work on my second book, which will explore games design practices and connect them to processes found in other media. I recently finished a large essay on Keita Takahashi, 'Murakami on Takahashi: Katamari as Super Flat Videogame?' which should be out before the end of the year.

Posting Old Papers FYI: From Animated Film to Videogame, and Back Again: Contemporary Aesthetics and Media Convergence

2007-05-14T09:10:00.000-07:00

From Animated Film to Videogame, and Back Again: Contemporary Aesthetics and Media Convergence

David Surman, NFT 2005

This presentation focuses on the relationship between videogames and other media, in particular animation, and demonstrates through examples the ways in which contemporary gameworlds employ textual strategies derived from animated film and live-action cinema to create an experience of illusion and immersion. At the present time, massively multiplayer online games represent a revolution in videogames culture, in which the internet mediates large scale play between anywhere from two to two-hundred thousand players at any one time. Such gameworlds require a substantial time investment in order to achieve a degree of achievement distinguishable from other players, as well as soliciting a monthly play fee in the case of certain role-play games; and so the question arises—how do games construct a legitimate world space? We can look at the textual strategies of videogames as a methodology for understanding the plausibility of the gameworld?

The theoretical use of ‘world’ in various media discourses is yoked to the creation of a foundational ‘reality’. To be in the ‘world’ of a novel, film or performance suggests an experience with strong continuities with aspects of our real-world experience; an experience that is immersive and all-encompassing, without the kinds of reflexive punctuation that would destroy its holistic effect. A fictional world, then, is on one level a realist discourse since it deals with the construction of a naturalised space to be disavowed, and which is ancillary to the noteworthy things that happen, and the events take place in that world. However, simultaneously one is able to look to the corners of that world and note that things are happening outside of the terms of a restricted narration, as part of a holistic ‘sphere of activity’.

Moreover, the fictional world is simultaneously a legitimating source to which discrete activity such as flora and fauna, cultures and societies connect; and yet the fictional world is itself a product of the overriding creative motivations and stylistic choices of the production team—it is both created and serves the role of creator. Fictional worlds are constructed, and are found primarily in the tradition of serialised or open fictions which rely on a core matrix of spaces, cultures, characters and places to unify them. Videogames are the most recent addition to this fictional mode.

In addition those role-playing videogames that are recognised for their immersive and expansive gameworlds (like the Square-Enix Final Fantasy and Nintendo Zelda franchises) rely heavily on serialisation, and a complex inter-textual knowledge base expanded as each new title is developed, played and contextualised by discerning fans. Most importantly, the gameworld is not only distributed between games in a particular series, but also extended and modified by the textual developments in comics, movies, fan fictions and art as well as other connected franchise texts.

Since its emergence as a viable film production tool, computer animation has been characterised by an effort to ensure a clear continuity with the success of traditional drawn animation, the first trend is characterised by the stylised cartoonal aesthetic common to the majority of character animation. Computer animation’s continuity with prior forms of popular animation is exemplified by the work of the Pixar studio, most notably in John Lasseter’s Toy Story (1995). These works demonstrate the kind of narrative structure, stylisation and characterisation familiar to audiences of the Disney, MGM, and Warner Bros. cartoons and feature animations. These are ‘full animations’ in the sense that all aspects of the misé-en-scene are artificially created and not captured photographically. The contemporary videogame shares this continuity as a form of computer animation.

This move toward photorealism (initiated in part by the convergence of live-action and animation) is most clearly expressed in the production of photoreal computer animations, such as Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within (Hironobu Sakaguchi, 2001). While photoreal computer-animated characters in contemporary blockbuster cinema are clearly popular (for instance in the contemporary superhero genre), photoreal computer-animated features have been severely criticised by both the general public and critics, and particularly by Western audiences. The differentiation between Japanese and North American cultural tastes is not a static phenomenon however, and the active migration of material from Japan into the popular American consciousness (primarily through digital television, DVD and videogames) has affected the beginnings of a shift in taste. While photorealism is criticised in the context of animation, in videogame development realism is held in higher regard, by both producers and consumers.

As a form of animation, the aesthetic development of videogames is characterised by the shift from two-dimensional digital imagery to the predominant use three-dimensional computer animated imagery. This is similar to the evolution of animated film from traditional drawn animation to computer animation. While the points I make today are readily applicable to older two-dimensional videogames modalities, I want to limit my discussion to computer animation, which entered the popular media as animation in live-action cinema during the early-to-mid eighties. Large computer systems were required to process the complex calculations and rendering processes needed to produce the three dimensional image. As such the means of production – computers reputed to fill entire corridors of rooms – were not readily available in the domestic sphere. The emergence of videogame hardware technology, like Sony’s playstation console, represents the historical point at which the hardware required to produce computer animation had been sufficiently miniaturised, and so could be place among our other familiar domestic technologies.
Videogame consoles had been present in the home since the late seventies, though their representational capacities were limited until 1995 to the two-dimensional field, apart from one or two isolated examples of innovation with the fundamentals of the technology that produced a basic three-dimensional space, such as Nintendo’s landmark Starfox. The most notable earliest computer animated videogame hardware capable of reproducing three-dimensional spaces were SEGA’s Saturn console, the SONY playstation, and the home personal computer. In the earliest gaming environments on these hardwares, a combination of texture, depth and perspective constructed the first interactive mass-media interactive virtual worlds as a consumer product intended for domestic use.

Stephen Prince has described the various visual effects produced in computer animation as perceptual cues. These are the iconic registers that simulate the perceptual and cognitive registers of our everyday vision in the computer environment. We can distinguish between the specific elements that constitute both a computer animated film and gameworld aesthetic.

First and foremost is the simulation of depth, though the projection of lines of perspective anchored to the point of view of the game character. In addition, hue, colour and contrast are readily used to create a differentiation between objects that appear near and far; the distant background appears washed out and translucent, gaining intensity of colour and solidity as the player approaches.

In more recent videogames, there has been a noticeable replication of the way in which a conventional live-action camera creates depth of field though the focal range of its lenses. Objects close by appear as crisply defined, whereas those in the distance appear blurry and indistinct. In addition to this simulated lens, are recurrent leitmotif is the ‘lens flare’ inserted into the gameworld when the player point of view is positioned toward the sun.

Little work has been done in Animation and Game Studies to theorise the complex principle of perceptual realism. Importantly, realist criticism in Film Studies cannot adequately account for the complex systems of cognition and belief solicited by these computer animations. My hope is that a reappraisal of realist theory in light of photo-real computer animation will open new critical avenues, and recuperate this important discourse.

Computer animation is found across a broad range of disciplines. The rapid integration of computer animation technology into domestic, industrial, scientific and recreational spheres is testament to both its versatility and disparity. To better understand its development we must jump between disciplines as diverse as military technology, sports science and videogame development—each with radically differing ideological and technological aims. Computer animation is comprised of multiple histories across a variety of disciplines. This Transdisciplinary image underpins the importance of computer animation to game and animation studies, since it highlights the need to move away from what Paul Ward describes as ‘false calls for recognition of yet another free-standing discipline’ (Ward, 2003: ), in which the specificity of videogames and animation are solely emphasised, without recognition of their growing convergence.

In the noticeable moves toward photorealism in the aesthetic of computer animation across two particular media—videogames and animated film—certain commonalities point to a new category of realism located within media convergence itself. Rather than locate realist imperatives in the formal qualities of discrete media, I call for an analysis of the textuality of media convergence itself which, I argue, has identifiable characteristics with which to re-contextualise developments in computer animation realism.

In the ongoing convergence of traditionally disparate media, the notion of realism prevails, as a buzzword for immersive and progressive media experiences. Economically speaking, the rationale for photo-realism in computer animation is clear. In both videogame and animation film contexts, greater and greater developments in photo-realism provide an efficient and consistent means of differentiating today’s product from that of yesterday. For instance, the development and refinement of progressively photo-realist videogame aesthetics has largely underpinned the aggressive marketing of contemporary videogame hardware consoles and PC graphics cards by companies such as NVIDIA and ATI. The coercive pressure upon consumers to remain abreast of developments in moving image technologies is inculcated with developments in realism.

As I have said, the notion of cinematic realism has historically suggested the rationalist singular reality evoked by live-action film-photography. Since its inception, animation has inherently and historically critiqued this singular hegemonic vision of reality; contesting Newtonian physics, the physical body and material causality. In opposition to a singular reality, animation tends toward a multiplicity of realities in its critique of photographic naturalism. Of course, the convergence of media reflects this multiple reality, or multiverse.
In a conscious shift from the notion of definitive realism to that of multiple realities and reality effects, how do we account for a multiverse of instances and effects constituting gameworlds, and the larger notion of animated realism? The dichotomous combination of ‘animated’ and ‘realism’ parallel the notion of ‘magic realism’ found in Literary Criticism. It is interesting to note the ways in which magic realism is defined relative to single and multiple realities. Lois Zamora and Wendy Faris write:

An essential difference, then, between realism and magical realism involves the intentionality implicit in the conventions of the two modes […] realism intends its version of the world as a singular version, an objective (hence universal) representation of natural and social realities—in short, that realism functions ideologically and hegemonically. Magical realism also functions ideologically but […] less hegemonically, for its program is not centralizing but eccentric: it creates space for interactions and diversity. In magical realist texts ontological disruption serves the purpose of political and cultural disruption: magic is often given a cultural corrective, requiring readers to scrutinize accepted realistic conventions of causality, materiality motivation.
(Zamora and Faris. Eds. 1995: 3)

We need only substitute ‘magical’ for ‘animated’ in the above quote to understand the threat imposed by animated realism on the hegemony of photographic rationalism. Animated realism is indeed eccentric and creates space for interactions and diversity. Only in a multiverse can we comfortably proceed with the concept of animated realism and the believability of gameworlds, without recourse to the discourses of photographic reality; and only from the perspective of multiple realities and realities of convergence can we begin to locate the elusive processes through which these paradoxical realisms extend.

What does photo-real computer animation facilitate? As photo-realistic human physiognomy is achieved, so the distance between film and animation is lessened. As games strive for film-like photorealism, so a new avenue for movie stars is opened; lending voices to avatars wrapped in their digitally scanned image. Photo-realism facilitates the convergence of the dominant entertainment media, to the extent that the authenticity of the film’s world extends from the ability to exist in multiple media realities. Games often appear before the associated films hit the screen, priming audiences in some alternative aspect of the larger multiverse. Consider the Star Wars franchise, which has run its course for over twenty years. The fictional worldview presented by Star Wars was initially limited to the film alone, but soon the advent of merchandising, sequels, comic book adaptation, television serialisation and proactive fan cultures extended that fictional world indefinitely. Recalling Zamora and Faris, as we begin to consider how knowledge might be extended, codified and distributed in a multiverse we can see in the example of Star Wars the way in which the legitimating logic of this extended fictional worldview is ‘not centralizing but eccentric’, creating ‘space[s] for interaction and diversity’. Contemporary animated realism of the kind found in videogames, which is more felt than thought, extends in part from the inter-textual authentication solicited by computer animation’s role in media convergence.

In the first wave of computer animation theory what was contested was the degree to which computer animation nullified or modified live-action’s truth claim. In my argument I hope to have suggested that in the era of ‘full’ photo-realistic computer animation, gameworlds and convergent media it is the location of the unique realist dimension that is the issue.

While the digital revolution has sensitised audiences to subtle ontological differences in the make-up of our visual culture, it has had the far more radical effect in my view of shifting the location and distribution of the affective centres away from formal aspects of the misé-en-scene and into the continuities and discontinuities of an inter-textual Transdisciplinary media culture. This interconnected multiverse experience present in cinemas, games consoles, and televisions more accurately reflects our daily experience of ‘a universe of many universes that occupy the same space and time, not as an exotic excursion into the realms of science fiction, but as an everyday necessity that affects our social and economic interchange. Faced with such instability, the convenient way that this was managed was through an arbitrary division of labour that assigned the rational to the ‘real’ and the irrational to the ‘imagined’’ (Punt, 2003).

Perhaps the enduring mass-cultural appeal of gameworlds relates to the ease with which they bring together the opposing poles of fantasy and reality – magic and realism – to become, as Walt Disney noted of animated film, ‘the plausible impossible’.

illusive: Contemporary Illustration and its Context

2007-05-12T14:13:00.000-07:00

illusive: Contemporary Illustration and its Context

I ordered this book the other day and I thought it was worth a plug (edited by Robert Klanten and Hendrik Hellige; published 2005/2006).

I only have two complaints. First, I believe the book has been translated from German, and it shows. There are numerous grammatical errors and frequent awkward or vague wording, that unfortunately hamper the serious reader who really is interested in the theoretical stuff. Second, the text is set in 5 and 6pt.

Now, on to the good aspect, which is that there is a theoretical angle, and illustrator interviews, and dozens of good reproductions of stellar illustration from around the world. I am actually quite pleased on a personal level, because the book supports conclusions that I myself have reached in my research: that illo has been on the upswing, that the traditional definition of illustration as “a picture that accompanies text” is needing an update, and that we are returning to some sense of the handmade. The book itself is hardcover and bound in cloth, and it is well bound: it falls open the way a book should and feels good in the hands. Enjoy!

Poop Debate...

2007-05-09T10:30:00.000-07:00

...taking place at Christian's blog.

Cerise Magazine

2007-05-06T03:16:00.000-07:00

Christian has directed me to this brand, spanking new Games Magazine for women, Cerise. It has a really interesting line up of contributors, and the contents of the first issue really chime with the sentiments that arose from our recent Women in Games conference at Newport. Good stuff!

Youtube Poop: Koopa True Colors

2007-05-05T18:35:00.000-07:00

Youtube Poop at Slash 3: DMU Fanfiction day

2007-05-01T04:44:00.000-07:00

Good news, it looks like I will be presenting my work on youtube cut ups or 'poops' at De Montfort University's Slash 3 Fanfiction Day. The event is hosted Ian Hunter, who edited the awesome Trash Aesthetics collection.

Glitch In New SVC Vs. Capcom Game (o_o)

2007-05-01T00:03:00.000-07:00

Main story taken from GayGamer.net:

I never really got into the trading card versions of the SNK vs. Capcom franchise, mainly because card-battle games get boring for me quickly. However, word's surfaced that there's a serious problem in the recently-released SVC: Card Fighters DS that looks like it's going to be a major embarrassment for the publisher:

"It appears that when playing a New Game+, talking to a character named Card Battler John on the 9th floor of the Card Tower will cause the game to freeze. This is a very significant glitch, since talking to him is required to proceed to the next floor, and completion of the New Game+ is required to see the true ending of the game, and also to collect most of the A and S rank cards in the game. This glitch seems to affect all copies of the game."

Well, hell. That is a problem. Just a bit. I have no idea how they're going to fix this, but hopefully SNK Playmore won't leave their customers out to dry.

This is the latest problem in what, for me, has been the protracted and upsetting decline of both SNK AND Capcom's fighting game divisions. Over the past 5 years or so there has been a steady release of increasingly poorly put together franchise discs which fails to do justice to the original games that inspire them. Capcom Fighting Jam, Neo Geo Coliseum, King of Fighters Neo Wave, Samurai Showdown 5. There are more, but I dont want to over do it. When they get it right they REALLY get it right. Capcom versus SNK 1/2 are classics, SVC Chaos: Capcom versus SNK likewise. It's terrible to see such classic studios do such harm to their classic intellectual properties, and in the process jeopardise the commitment of fans by releasing buggy works like this. the multiverse was something fans always wanted -- Kyo squaring up to Ryu -- but its long term effect seems to have been one of massive dilution of the vivacity and richness of the respective SNK and Capcom franchises.

My Abstract: PostGraduate Conference: Digital Games Theory & Design @ Brunel

2007-04-30T09:53:00.000-07:00

Since my PhD is the property of Brunel University, I thought it only right to submit an abstract for their forthcoming postgraduate digital games theory and design conference. Here it is:

Abstract:
‘YouTube Poop! The Slash Game Moves to Web 2.0’

David Surman
University of Wales, Newport

The proliferation of media surrounding games culture simultaneously disseminates and intensifies the primacy of the play experience. Play possibilities are retained in some of the second order of games culture paraphernalia; board games, action figures, card games. Film adaptations of videogame stories remove play from the mode of engagement, and offer cinematographic scope as an attenuated substitute.

Television is perhaps the last vestige of the game text; serialisations based upon games produced externally, licensed but not monitored by the developers of the primary franchise. Such series’ are celebrated for their trash aesthetic and the liminal space they occupy outside mainstream games consumption. They are part of a collective memory of children’s television programming, but their poor production quality and obscurity have consigned them to a place in the archives.

Such paucity however makes them perfect anomaly for the contemporary cult media connoisseur. This paper examines how aggressive and surreal re-editing of these classic game cartoons by contemporary ‘fans’ — in what have been tentatively titled youtube ‘poops’ — create a new dynamic slash text which recuperates the playfulness lost in games movement to television and film. They also work against the grain of the sentiment of the original text: Sonic has AIDS, Mario takes acid, and Princess Zelda has period pains.