(Ufrgs 2015)The study of game 13aesthetics is a ve
(Ufrgs 2015)
The study of game 13aesthetics is a very recent practice, spanning less than two 7decades. Unlike game studies in 4mathematics or the social sciences, 1_________ are much older, games became subject to humanistic study only after computer and video games became popular. This lack of persistent interest might seem 15odd, but only if we see traditional games and computer games as intrinsically similar, 2_________ 19they are not. We might try to explain this lack by noting that games are usually seen as trivial and 16lowbrow by the aesthetic and theoretical elites 3__________ cultivate the 5analysis of artistic 14media objects: literature, the visual arts, theatre, music, etc. But this does not explain the fact that aesthetic studies of games are now not only possible, but even encouraged and supported with funding. What happened to cause this change?
A possible explanation could be that digital games, unlike traditional games or sports, consist of non-ephemeral content (stored words, sounds and images), which 8places them much closer to the ideal object of the 9Humanities, the work of art. Thus, they become visible and textualizable for 29the aesthetic observer, in a way the 6previous 10phenomena were not.
However, 21this sudden visibility, probably also caused by the tremendous economic and cultural 12success of computer games, produces 26certain blind spots in the aesthetic observer, especially if 18he/she is trained in textual/visual analysis, as is usually the case. Instead of treating 22the new phenomena carefully, and as 24objects of 30a study for which no methodology yet exists, they are analyzed with tools that happen to be at hand, such as 27film or narrative theories. Therefore 28we need to outline and promote 23a methodology for 25the aesthetic study of games, 20which, 31given the current 17nascent state of the field, 32will doubtlessly give way to more sophisticated 11approaches in the years to come.
Adapted from: Aarseth, Espen. Playing Research: Methodological approaches to game analysis. Available at: <http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/dac/ papers/Aarseth.pdf>. Accessed on July 26th, 2014.
Select the alternative that adequately fills in the blanks in references 1, 2 and 3.
which – which – who
which – whose – that
what – which – who
that – what – that
that – which – whose
