Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social Criticism

Technological Utopianism in American Culture.

For all the critical attention paid to dystopian landscapes in recent literature and film, a similar dystopian turn within gamespace has been largely overlooked. The authors contend that post-apoca...

A Man Chooses, A Slave Obeys: BioShock and the Dystopian Logic of Convergence:

Ubiquitous and pervasive games appeared in the beginning of the 21st century as a result of the combination between experimental game design, mobile digital technologies, wireless networking, location-based systems and ubiquitous and pervasive computing. In Brazil, the alternate reality games (ARGs) are the most relevant examples of games inscribed in those categories, being experimented in a growing scale since around absTRacT

Locative Media and Playful Appropriations or How Electronic Games Help to Redefine the Meaning of Space

A major symptom of postmodernity is the loss of utopian energy, of which the popularity of dystopian cultural production is evident.  The dystopian genre, however, is cautionary, and thus utopian.  Associated is the influence of technology on post-utopian culture—although it has been viewed pessimistically, technology allows for new ways of telling dystopian stories.  One such mode of telling dystopian stories is the Alternate Reality Game (ARG), a narrative, multi-media game, using several different technologies that puts the player in a fictional reality.  One ARG that exemplifies the idea of dystopia as having utopian energy is Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero , which shows that technology can have utopian energy, offering new ways of telling dystopian stories such as via the ARG, thus locating some utopian energy in postmodern culture through the form’s culturally critical structure and interactive nature, which equals a call to action against the dystopian nature of contemporary society.

http://www.eludamos.org/index.php/eludamos/article/download/vol3no1-8/112

Alexander Charles Oliver Hall

Papers

'I am Trying to Believe': Dystopia as Utopia in the Year Zero Alternate Reality Game