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Dionysiac machines: Videogames and the triumph of the simulacra

Giddings, Seth

Authors

Seth Giddings



Abstract

This article rethinks concepts of the simulational and the simulacral for popular digital culture. It plays concepts of the modern world as hyperreal against the more modest, pragmatic, but vital, insights of game studies into the literally simulational nature of computer media and videogames. Through a reading of Deleuze's essay Platonism and the Simulacrum, taking the GameBoy Advance game Advance Wars 2 as a case study, and proposing the significance of automata, it suggests ways of thinking about the artificial and simulacral character of contemporary technoculture and its devices, not as the implosion of reality, but of its production.

Citation

Giddings, S. (2007). Dionysiac machines: Videogames and the triumph of the simulacra. Convergence, 13(4), 417-431. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856507082204

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Dec 1, 2007
Journal Convergence
Print ISSN 1354-8565
Electronic ISSN 1748-7382
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 13
Issue 4
Pages 417-431
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856507082204
Keywords automata, computer games, cyberculture, Deleuze, game studies, simulacra, simulation, technoculture, videogames
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1023815
Publisher URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1354856507082204
Related Public URLs http://www.dcrc.org.uk/publications/dionysiac-machines-videogames-and-triumph-simulacra




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