1. Corporeal Space: The experience of videogame spatiality and the body
Peter Bayliss
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2. Based on final and summarising chapter of my doctoral research.
Corporeal Space
Background
Based on final and summarising chapter of my doctoral research.
Broadly, addressing the disembodied occularism derived from an uncritical acceptance of Cartesian Dualism that informed many of the assumptions of the field of study, and videogame discourses more generally.
Importance of space in videogames.
So a lot to cover in 10 minutes!
E.g. discourses around new media and computers more generally – virtual reality – Gibson and ‘meat-space’, insistent prevalence of Cartesian dualism
Videogame space – generally regarded as one of the key aspects of videogames as a medium. E.g. Aarseth – how games implement space a key question. 2

3. Corporeal Space The key question:
How can videogame players experience a sense of ‘presence’ within videogame worlds?
Limited representation and feedback through visual, aural, and haptic channels.
Yet, experienced as spaces that players can act and move within, explore, and in a sense inhabit.
Experiencing a ‘world’ beyond the screen, i.e. the sense that the game-world exists ‘behind’ me when I look at a screen.
Question of represented space, rather than representations of space. E.g. visual representations of g-force effects in flight and driving sims.
Often also described as ‘immersion’ which has emerged as a key point of contestation within the field of study.
i.e. What is it? How does it work? How is related to aspects of game design? How is it similar or different to other forms of engagement with media texts. Getting beyond the idea of ‘suspension of disbelief.’

4. Corporeal Space Embodied Interaction
Paul Dourish (2001) “Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction.”
Draws heavily on Merleau-Ponty’s “Phenomenology of Perception,” & Heidegger’s phenomenology of tool/equipment use in “Being and Time.”
Development of embodied cognition within the field of cognitive science.
Dourish quote – what is embodied interaction
Merleau-Ponty: complex blending of perception, intentionality, and action – phenomenologically a gestalt. Centrality of the body in experience.
Heidegger: Zuhanden and Vorhanden, equipment as something ‘in-order-to’, focus on the work itself, rather than the implement that affords that work.

5. Interfaces and the Body
Corporeal Space
Interfaces and the Body
Videogame interfaces are more than just the technological devices we use to interact with computing.
Interfaces as a relational concept, bringing into connection the player and the game.
Merleau-Ponty: The ability of the body to incorporate instruments into the bodily schema, and thus to extend the body.
Leino and Wirman – an umbilical cord
Make possible the relation between the corporeal and the digital
M-P and blind person’s cane. – quote re: a point of sensitivity
Example of car body and experience of space. 5

6. The experience of videogame space
Corporeal Space
The experience of videogame space
Videogames draw upon our already existing experience of everyday space, both immediate physical experience as well as cultural knowledges and understandings.
Importance of the capacity to ‘move’ through videogame space.
The affective work of playing videogames – bridging the ‘gap’ between the representation of videogame spaces and the experience of those spaces.
Mylov – up/down, front/back] cf Tetris – why do they move from the top to bottom of the screen. Cultural – cf camera lens flare
Movement as giving solidity and consistency to the game space
The affective gap: the engagement and effort required by the player is what makes game-worlds worlds – not a suspension of disbelief, rather an active and engaged willingness to draw upon bodily experience to overcome the representation limitations of videogame spaces, to experience ‘as if’ they are spaces, rather than representations of spaces.
Not a ‘sensory illusion’, rather a bodily engagement with videogames, through the interface, involving perception, action and intentionality. Experience is synaesthetic rather than discreet sense experience.

7. Corporeal Space: The experience of videogame spatiality and the body
Peter Bayliss
Limitations of videogames in representing space not a ‘problem’ to be remedied by ever increasing visimiltude, rather a central aspect in the experience of those representions as spaces, as they call upon the player to bridge the affective gap, and call upon the flexibility and adaptability of bodily being of the player to achieve that.
Not just 3d spaces – example of experience from Aces of the Deep 7