Материал: disser_arhipov
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viewers and authors. The game does not need them, it will be a game without them. The player himself does not see his game as a whole, does not have its holistic aesthetic image. A work of art always depicts something, and the game does not depict anything, but only imagines”.209 Accordingly, the game becomes an art, “just as dramatic action”, when “an indifferent participant – the viewer” appears,210 which is what we see in modern sociocultural practices surrounding computer games. At the same time, “game and art... have in common that they are not real life. However, their “invalidity” is different: the game imagines life and art depicts it”.211 We emphasize that in the conditions of digital turn such a line between the imagination and the depiction is erased. Moreover, both in the case of the imagination and in the case of the depiction, we see the presence of a simulation in a special sense of this study. Note, however, that for culturology and its related disciplines, the question of whether game practices have undergone qualitative changes in the context of the medial turn is different from the question of whether any changes in the nature of the practice itself, which are characteristic of such conditions and which are related to play in human society, have consequences for law. In the context of this study, the latter question is related to the notion of simulation as a phenomenon that excludes the possibility of a reasonable application of law. In any case, the game turn in culture is certainly not only and not so much related to computer games themselves, mediated by technological virtual reality, but to the overall understanding of culture from the game point of view – with this approach, M.M. Bakhtin’s own works should be regarded as evidence of the game turn in the XXth century.
In light of these considerations, the statements and leaders of the industry itself are very much in character. In the preface to the book by R. Koster, a key developer of
209Demidov A.B. Phenomena of Human Existence. Minsk, 1999 [Electronic resource] / PSYLIB. - [Site]. - URL: http://psylib.org.ua/books/demid01/txt04.htm (accessed: 09.09.2019).
210See: Bakhtin M.M. Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity // Bakhtin M.M. Aesthetics of Verbal Creativity. M.: Publishing house “Art”, 1979. – PP. 67–68.
211Demidov A.B. Phenomena of Human Existence. Minsk, 1999 [Electronic resource] / PSYLIB. - [Site]. - URL: http://psylib.org.ua/books/demid01/txt04.htm (accessed: 09.09.2019).
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multiplayer online role-playing game Ultima Online, another authoritative game-designer Will Wright212 writes:
«For the first few decades of interactive game design we were able to blithely ignore many of the larger meta-questions surrounding our craft while we slowly, painfully learned to walk. Now for the first time we are starting to see serious interest in what we do from the academic side. This is forcing those of us in the games industry to stop and consider, “What is this new medium that we’re working in?” The academic interest seems twofold: First is the recognition that video games probably represent an emerging new media, a new design field, and possibly a new art form. All of these are worthy of study. Second, there are an increasing number of motivated students that grew up playing these games and now find themselves inspired to work in the field one day… Games (both video and traditional) are tricky to study because they are so multidimensional. There are so many different ways you can approach them. The design and production of games involves aspects of cognitive psychology, computer science, environmental design, and storytelling just to name a few. To really understand what games are, you need to see them from all these points of view».213
With the spread of computer games, it has become necessary to analyze them not only from the point of view of the craft (or sometimes art) of game development, but also as an artifact of social reality, and as a subject of legal regulation in the broad sense of the word – the analysis of computer games from the point of view of intellectual property rights, rather, belongs to the first direction. We are more interested in the relationship between users mediated by computer games and in defining the fine line where the relationship becomes so real and serious that the law can no longer ignore it.
The relevance and representativeness of computer games and the significance of the game rotation itself are not only related to the “light side” of the methodological potential of the study of game relations as such. V.V. Savchuk, coming very close to the legal plane, notes that,
212 Will Wright (born in 1960) is a co-founder of Maxis, who later worked for Electronic Arts, a developer of the famous SimCity games, The Sims and others. “Before Wright, computer simulation was the domain of the military, scientific research, and academics. He brought it to everyone”. See: Lifetime Achievement [Electronic resource] // PC Magazine. December 22, 2004. – [Site]. – URL: https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1744159,00.asp (accessed: 23.01.2019); Will Wright [Electronic resource] // MobyGames. – [Site]. – URL: https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,4217/ (accessed: 23.01.2019).
213 Koster R. A Theory of Fun for Game Design (in Russian). Moscow: DMK Press, 2018.. – PP. x-xi.
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«…in view of the fact that computer games are becoming increasingly popular and improved, the latter require close attention and monitoring, including monitoring of the emergence of pornography and the propaganda of drugs and racial and ethnic hatred, which are the flip side of the media landscape in general and computer games in particular. This phenomenon is giving rise to new phenomena, penetrating into the cinema, the media and education (training and education of specialists, etc.). One should not forget such an important aspect as the possibility of using computer games as a means of manipulating public consciousness. The ability to make transformations in reality far exceeds the awareness of theorists and game practitioners. The game “plays a role” as a catalyst for social cohesion and regulates its moral and ethical behavior. It is necessary to notice, for example, the need to deconstruct the methods of ideological influence on the formation of the American version of the Second World War, the attitude towards Islamic countries, Russia, the third world in specific games».214
It should be noted that this observation already contains a potential “clue” to the direction in which to look for the cases in which relations related to the content of computer games, the formation of such content, as well as relations within the virtual reality may suddenly become subject to legal regulation. This quote also brings us back to the question of the limits of law, not only in the special semantic sense that is being developed within the scope of this work, but also in part of the question on “moral limits of law” which will be discussed in § 1 Chapter 2.
In a conversation about the “dark side” of contemporary socio-cultural transformation, the following observation may provide some (and perhaps ironic) explanation of the perspective of the actual socio-cultural context – that of the information society of the postmodern era – which is interesting in the present work. Further mentioned in the pages of this study (in § 1 of Chapter 2) by J. Feinberg in the book “Offense to Others”215 offered a thought experiment to the reader. The point of the experiment is that you are late for an important meeting, get on the bus (and so there is a closed space) and
214Savchuk V.V. Mediaphilosophy – Rush of the Reality. P. 141.
215An exact translation of “offense” as a concept different from the infringement itself and from “harm” in the Mill’s sense is hardly possible into Russian. J. Feinberg, we believe, means something that combines abuse, insult and delinquency at the same time. But much less intense than the “harm” of J. Mill.
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before your eyes other passengers begin to carry out actions that do not correspond to the notion of harm in the terminology of J. Mill, the author of the fundamental postulates for the moral theories of the Western world, but which you just obviously do not like. Moreover, you do not like it so much that you will be ready to consider the possibility of establishing a criminal law restriction on such actions.
H. Dalton, a strict reviewer for J. Feinberg’s book and author of a review entitled «“Disgust” and Punishment»,216 suggested certain examples from which we will select few of those where, given the high standards of the Russian academic style, we will probably not risk completely citing any of them, limiting ourselves to just a general abstract description, and will further emphasize that the purpose of referring to these examples in this work is in no way to offend anybody’s feelings. The most “vivid” examples of J. Feinberg begin with the sixth story, in which you witness the absorption of your neighbors’ “food”, which is conventionally disgusting. In the seventh, lunch grows into a feast with Roman proportions, but with modification: neighbors absorb not only fresh food, but also partly digested. In the eighth one, there is a variety of products of people’s life activity absorbed by neighbors. In the eleventh story to the opposite of you (it is assumed that you are a good Christian) sits a young man in a T-shirt, with an evil caricature of the central personality of the doctrine. In the twenty-third, an act of zoophilia is committed next to you.217 The meaning of J. Feinberg’s thought experiment is to convince the reader by means of a lively emotional reaction that the Millevian principle of harm is not the only reason for possible state coercion. In the author’s opinion, a civilized society should protect its members, including by interfering with the freedom of others, not only from harm per se, but also from “offense”,218 which cannot be unequivocally
216Dalton H.L. “Disgust” and Punishment // The Yale Law Journal. – 1986-1987. – Vol. 96. – PP. 881–913.
217Ibid. P. 884.
218There were some difficulties in translation into Russian here, because in the original version the author operates with subtle semantic differences in individual English words, which correspond to the varying degrees of public danger of crime.
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interpreted as harm. However, this kind of reasoning is relevant primarily for Western moral and philosophical discourse, which is largely based on the utilitarian tradition and inevitably includes criticism or rethinking of J. Mill’s writings in virtually any discussion of the moral dimensions of law.
In the context of this paragraph of this study on the transformation of society in today’s environment, we are interested in something else – in addition to the previously discussed examples related to the emergence of new phenomena and practices of information culture related to digital technologies directly, such as multiplayer computer games and computer sports, there are some cultural practices, presumably not without elements of the impact of the same processes of liberalization of production and dissemination of information. Whether or not there is such an impact is a separate subject of sociology and cultural studies, but we can in any case postulate the correlation of these processes, as this is a matter of fact. The main perspective for this study is that some of the abstract examples of abusive behavior described above by J. Feinberg, proposed by the author more as a product of the imagination, have found their indirect expression in actionism in recent decades,219 often interpreted as art-related practice.220 This cultural
219 In the present study, the term “actionism” is used in a narrow sense, in which it describes the activities of P. Pavlensky and Pussy Riot, with an obligatory element of interaction with socially significant subjects of social relations and, as a consequence, with the inevitable transition of communication into the legal plane. There are also alternative, broader interpretations. As V.O. Petrov notes, for example, “the aim of the authors of the actions, including musical ones, is to create artistic samples (not fully fixed in the space of opuses), which are the free realization of a concrete idea. Sometimes it turned out that the only significant task of the artists and all the people who took part in the realization of the action was the generation of ideas and concepts. The author's text is a kind of ‘instructions for use’. It is implemented in the musical art by performers. Conceptual objects (in most cases, with an abundance of author’s comments) in a musical work can be graphs, schemes, diagrams, formulas, verbal explanations and drawings, as well as objects that do not have a certain functional purpose. In a word, as a rule, it turned out to be a stratum of ideas that does not have a concrete implementation. Sometimes, part of the verbal expression of the idea of the action was also an indication of the environment in which the conceptual object itself could be demonstrated. Actions could be held everywhere - on the street, on the road, in the field, in the woods, near the mountain, in a particular locality, gallery, concert hall. The conceptual idea of the author is rather chaotic, while the task of the performers is to bring the chaos into harmony”. See: 119. Petrov O.V. Actionism and Its Manifestation in the Vocal–Instrumental Compositions of John Cage // Problems of Science. 2018. No. 5 (125). P. 103–104. This interpretation focuses on the spontaneous transmission of the idea, but does not go any further in restricting the term “actionism” in the case of direct introduction of the aesthetic object of “external referents of value” into the material (in the terminology of S. Abrutyn).
220 It should be noted at once that it is possible to refer actionism to art in usual, classical interpretations of the latter only if we consider both terms in the key of Wittgenstein’s language games, according to which there is seldom a direct and hierarchical logical connection between the meanings of words in the real practice of the language, but there is more frequent