#made with the concept of its visual novel aspects as core to the story

[colourful-void]

THATS NOT MY AKANE AND THATS NOT MY JUNPEI????!!!!!??

Oh that’s zero the second. Well that’s good. I mean I thought it was like. Okay well that works. Side note what the fuck and I miss my text scrawl button. Please put the visual novel back in the visual novel adventure game.

[confinedmadness]

[Game Review] 結合男子 -  Elements with Emotions

I’ve been wanting to play this game since finding out about it during the Tokyo Game Show 2022 in September last year. I admit, I was drawn to it purely based on the art. But, after knowing more about it, I realized it was a type of game I play often enough anyways.

Elements with Emotions is a visual novel-style game where in you pair up different characters to proceed to different story routes. At the moment, the game is only available in Japanese and can only be played with Nintendo Switch.

I bought and downloaded the game on release day, and after a day I’ve finished exactly 2 endings (1 proper ending, and 1 failed ending). Overall, the game was fun to play, with a rather simplistic story but a cast of varied lovable characters, and a repetitive leveling system but very interesting ability concept.

Story

Personally, the story is okay. “Dead matter” is overtaking the world and turning it into nothingness. We join the main characters as they fight against dead matter with elemental powers. It keeps you interested enough to keep going, with a few twists here and there, especially towards the end, but really nothing special. 

I think the story is burdened by a lot of terminology. While it does help create a completely different world, it also introduces a lot of complexity that I thought it didn’t really need. Sometimes, they just made the story harder to understand instead of making it interesting.

If you have the patience to immerse yourself in the world though, you will be rewarded because the worldbuilding was great. There’s even a lot to learn from reading the glossary of terms and the information packed into the descriptions / explanations.

Characters

I do love the characters in this game. Character design is amazing, and they thoroughly make use of this in the marketing of the game. Each character has their own twitter account (yes, the character) and you can see each of their personalities shine that way. I think this is only possible because each character was well thought out.

As with any visual novel, you don’t really get to know all the characters in a single playthrough. You get to know the most about someone in a route where they are the central character. And then you get to know extra information about them in the other routes where they serve a more minor role. 

However, considering I only really played through the entire story once (because the failed ending was really too early), I do think they did a great job of introducing the characters and giving you a chance to know each one a little bit. Enough for you to be interested in them.

Every in-game day, you have a chance to talk to a character or pair of characters and learn more about them (their personality, hobbies, what they do and where they go in their free time, etc).

I am personally really excited to buy Misora’s additional content so I can play his routes. Despite playing a relatively small role in the route I did, he definitely caught my attention.

Also, the game has a wonderful voice acting cast, which is always a really big point for me.

Game Play

At its core, this game works just like every other visual novel. You read the story and every now and then, you will be presented with choices that will affect dialogue, responses, and the story as a whole.

The unique aspect of this game, however, lies in its use of the elements. Every character has the power of a specific element. No, not the classical elements like earth, wind, water, fire. I’m talking about chemical elements-- hydrogen, lithium, carbon, etc.

Every in-game day, you’re able to train chosen characters. You can choose between 3 activities: (1) “link” two characters (elements) so their connection  becomes stronger, (2) train your whole team so their shared abilities become stronger, or (3) let them rest so their “happiness” is restored and their future training becomes more effective.

The abilities are my favorite thing in the game. Abilities are named after chemical compounds. And yes, you can only use abilities if you have all required atoms to form the compound. For example, to use the ability Carbon Dioxide (CO2), you need to have 1 carbon and 2 oxygen atoms available. These atoms are generated with every attack that the corresponding character makes.

I swear I had so much fun learning about these compounds (even though you don’t need to understand them to play the game) that if this game had existed when I was still in high school, I might have gotten a better grade in chemistry.

Finally, during a fight, once your “link gauge” has been filled, you can then “link” your chosen pair so that they are strengthened and can deliver a killing blow to the enemy. (So far, all enemies died once I’m able to link, but I’m unsure if it guarantees the end of a fight.)

All in all, had a lot of fun with it and looking forward to trying out different pairings and seeing the different stories. Also, excited to form more compounds with more characters as additional stories are released in the coming weeks.

[nsfwhiphop]

Part 2 - Incoming Text for Angelina Jolie (@angelinajolie) and Charlize Theron (@charlizeafrica) and Natalie Portman (@natalieportman): "An Idea Worth a Billion Dollars"

Question:

Here are the two questions clearly stated:

Is the movie "Jumper" based on a book?

What is the book that the movie "Jumper" is based on?

ChatGPT Answer:

#1 - Yes, "Jumper" is based on the 1992 science fiction novel of the same name by Steven Gould. The book follows a similar premise, focusing on a young man named David who discovers his ability to teleport. The novel delves into his experiences and the implications of his powers, including themes of isolation, freedom, and the struggle against those who seek to control or eliminate jumpers.

The film adaptation takes some liberties with the source material, introducing new characters and plot elements, but it retains the core concept of teleportation and the challenges faced by the protagonist. The book also has sequels, including "Reflex" and "Jumper: Griffin's Story," which further explore the universe and the lives of other jumpers.

#2 - "Jumper" is a science fiction action film released in 2008, directed by Doug Liman and based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Steven Gould. Here’s a summary of its key elements:

Plot

The story follows David Rice (played by Hayden Christensen), a young man who discovers he has the ability to teleport or "jump" anywhere in the world at will. After experiencing a traumatic event in his childhood, where he learns of his powers, David uses his ability to escape his troubled life and indulge in a lavish lifestyle. However, he soon finds himself hunted by a secret society known as "Paladins," who believe that jumpers are a threat to humanity. The organization, led by Roland Cox (played by Samuel L. Jackson), seeks to eliminate jumpers to maintain control.

Cast

Hayden Christensen as David Rice

Jamie Bell as Griffin, another jumper who assists David

Rachel Bilson as Millie, David's childhood love

Samuel L. Jackson as Roland Cox, the antagonist

Diane Lane as David's mother

Themes

The film explores themes of power, freedom, and the consequences of using one's abilities irresponsibly. It also delves into the complexities of personal relationships and the impact of choices made by individuals with extraordinary powers.

Reception

"Jumper" received mixed reviews from critics, with some praising the concept and action sequences, while others criticized the plot and character development. Despite its lukewarm reception, the film has garnered a cult following over the years.

Box Office

The film was a moderate box office success, grossing over $222 million worldwide against a budget of around $85 million.

Sequels and Related Media

Although there were discussions about a sequel, it has not materialized. The film's unique premise and visual effects have led to ongoing interest in the concept of teleportation in popular media.

If you’re interested in specific aspects, like character analysis or particular scenes, feel free to ask!

[vflyorion-24]

The Intersection of AI and Human Creativity: Can Machines Innovate?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become one of the most transformative technologies of the 21st century, influencing everything from healthcare and finance to entertainment and manufacturing. But as AI continues to evolve, one of the most intriguing questions being asked is whether machines can truly innovate and be creative. Creativity, often seen as a uniquely human trait, involves the ability to generate original ideas, think outside the box, and push the boundaries of knowledge and culture. The concept of machines, driven by algorithms and data, being able to perform these tasks challenges traditional notions of creativity. Yet, as we delve deeper into the capabilities of AI, the line between human creativity and machine-driven innovation is becoming increasingly blurred. This raises important questions about the nature of creativity, the role of AI in fostering new ideas, and the potential collaboration between humans and machines in the creative process.

AI has already made significant strides in creative fields, from generating music and art to writing poetry and developing marketing strategies. For instance, AI-powered systems like OpenAI’s GPT series can write coherent and sophisticated essays, stories, and poems. Google’s DeepMind has created AI systems that can generate entirely new musical compositions. In visual arts, programs like DALL·E, a neural network developed by OpenAI, can create original images based on textual descriptions. These achievements, while impressive, prompt us to ask: Are these examples of true innovation, or are they merely the result of complex algorithms synthesizing vast amounts of existing data?

To understand whether AI can truly innovate, we first need to examine what innovation means. At its core, innovation is about creating something new, whether it’s a novel idea, a unique product, or an inventive solution to a problem. Human creativity draws from emotion, intuition, and lived experiences, often involving a deep understanding of the nuances of culture, society, and individual perspective. On the other hand, AI, as it exists today, functions based on patterns and data that it is trained on. It analyzes enormous datasets, recognizes patterns, and generates outputs that are novel but typically derived from existing information. In this sense, AI’s creativity is more about recombination than true innovation—it excels at blending and remixing existing ideas rather than originating something entirely new.

A key aspect of human creativity is the ability to draw from seemingly unrelated fields to solve complex problems in innovative ways. For example, Leonardo da Vinci’s deep knowledge of both art and science allowed him to create inventions far ahead of his time. Can AI achieve this level of interdisciplinary thinking? While AI can certainly process and analyze information from multiple domains, it lacks the personal, emotional, and experiential knowledge that often drives humans to make creative leaps. This limitation raises questions about whether AI can ever truly match the creativity of the human mind.

However, it would be shortsighted to dismiss AI’s role in the creative process. In many ways, AI acts as a powerful tool that can enhance human creativity. Instead of viewing AI as a competitor to human innovation, we should consider it a collaborator. By automating repetitive tasks, generating ideas, and analyzing vast amounts of information quickly, AI can free up humans to focus on more abstract, conceptual, and emotionally driven aspects of creativity. For example, AI can help a musician experiment with different sound patterns or assist a designer in exploring new visual styles. In these cases, AI isn’t replacing human creativity but augmenting it, enabling artists, writers, and creators to push their boundaries further than they might have on their own.

Yet, there remains a lingering question: Can AI ever reach a point where it can independently innovate without human input? Some researchers believe that as AI continues to evolve, it may develop more sophisticated forms of intelligence that allow for greater autonomy in the creative process. With the development of neural networks that mimic the human brain and advances in machine learning, there’s potential for AI to learn in ways that more closely resemble human cognitive processes. However, even the most advanced AI systems are still far from replicating the full depth and complexity of human thought, emotion, and intuition. Without these qualities, true innovation, as humans understand it, may remain elusive for AI.

Conclusion:

AI has shown remarkable potential in areas traditionally dominated by human creativity, it is not yet capable of true innovation in the way humans understand it. AI can analyze data, recognize patterns, and generate novel combinations of existing ideas, but it lacks the personal experience, intuition, and emotional depth that drive human creativity. However, this doesn’t mean that AI doesn’t have a place in the creative process. Instead, AI should be seen as a powerful tool that enhances human creativity, enabling creators to explore new possibilities and push their boundaries. As AI technology continues to evolve, the collaboration between humans and machines may lead to a new era of innovation, where the strengths of both are combined to create something truly extraordinary.

[joshfmpyeartwo]

Evaluation

AO1

My reasoning for citing my project in this specialism is that I want to be able to grow my ability and techniques in game art. I’m not only better in my specialism but I also enjoy it more. To back this I have also researched 3 practitioners from my specialism on my blog. 

Creating a dating simulator creates the need for a lot of ethical considerations because of the controversial nature of dating in video games.

The roots of my project dig into the rich culture of ancient Greece and its explanation of life through Gods and Goddesses.

I do not think considering sustainability would be applicable to my project.

AO2

I decided to pursue this concept because I think it gives me a chance to show off my skill set extremely well. I think it compliments my strengths,and is a really fun concept to work on.

I researched a multitude of visual novels and dating simulators on their story and character design as well as research into stories and characters from Greek mythology.

Although the general concept hasn’t changed, after writing the synopsis and gaining a broader understanding of the idea, a lot of my plans for the narrative and art changed course to accommodate it. All to create a finished visual novel, I created the art and story for.

AO3

For my primary research I have played and reviewed five different visual novels that I think represent the core aspects of my concept. Identifying what makes them engaging and fun to play, what makes the characters likeable or dislikeable and how to use that to my advantage in the script writing. My secondary research consisted of games closer to my own concept, visual novels that use pixel art and use mythos. Researching these gave me broader understanding on visual novel presentation and representation. Both primary and secondary research helped me to understand how to write an effective story and draw compelling art and can be seen on my blog.

AO4

During this project I put a heavy focus on art, stepping well out of my comfort zone to finish the project. Before I started, I had little experience with creating concept art and sketching in photoshop, and although I have previous experience with creative writing, I had never tried writing a script for a game. Creating the concept art and writing the synopsis gave me a lot of knowledge and practice for the specialist practices I needed to finish the art and story. I was most interested in developing my digital art skills, specifically illustrations and sketching because I want to get better at art as soon as possible.

AO5

My project has come with failures and successes. Collaborating with someone else, using practices I’ve never tried before, was a lot of work. The project has come out incredibly and I learnt a lot of new techniques that have made me a better artist, but this was only possible by learning from my mistakes. My first editions of the synopsis and script lacked engagement, but rewriting allowed me to make that script interesting. All my concept art needed planning that would require redraws and redesigns almost every minute, but it helped me create concept art suitable to build off of. All these processes are shown in detail on my blog.

AO6

All my methods to produce my final outcomes all have roots in Greek mythology and my researched visual novels. I used moodboards and research of similar games to provide my reasoning on my blog. 

I created an elevator pitch and got my peers to review it and take a survey to show how it relates to my audience.  Throughout most of my development I would always get my peers to have a look at my art and writing to get a different perspective. It helped me to think outside the box and review things in a different light, It’s all on my blog.

AO7

Finding a way to present all my work in a concise and thematic way was a challenge. I decided on adding all my research, planning and outcomes to the presentation slides to submit, using a fitting theme based on ancient Greece. I used a blue/white colour scheme with traditional ancient Greek pattern as a border, using the same colour for text colours and boxes for congruence. All my art was uploaded to the website ArtStation as a way to present it. Doing this gave me insight on how to build a portfolio. This has worked incredibly well to communicate my ideas and outcomes.

AO8

At the beginning of this project, I set out to create the narrative and art for the game up to the first date. I set this as my minimum viable product, in my project proposal. By the end of this project, I’m happy to say that I achieved what I wanted for myself and it looks better than I could’ve ever expected. At the beginning of this project I had no experience writing scripts or drawing concept art but I have grown and cultivated both skill sets. Although I had to remove a background and the final minigame, It came out how I wanted and I couldn't be more proud.

[abigailnussbaum]

The Watch 1x01 - 1x02

The first two episodes of BBC America’s The Watch aired this weekend, and I’ve seen basically zero discussion of them on my twitter and tumblr feeds. Which I assume is because most of the people I follow are Pratchett fans who have been horrified by the press releases and the trailer (or, for that matter, the lackluster reviews) and decided to write the show off before it even started airing. To be clear, this is an entirely reasonable approach, but there’s nothing else on right now and I was bored.

Quick verdict? It’s not dire, but also not so interesting that you’d feel compelled to keep going with it. In fact, my most powerful reaction after the first two episodes is puzzlement - I can’t understand who the intended audience for this show is. The thinking seems to have been “everyone will be interested in a brash, in your face, rudely comedic fantasy cop show!” And maybe that’s true, but The Watch isn’t particularly brash, in your face, or even that comedic, so what’s left are fans of the genre(s), who are reasonably spoiled for choice right now (the show The Watch most closely resembles is Carnival Row, which is not amazing but still has a greater depth of emotion and a more interesting world). Why anyone would go out of their way to watch a show that seems to be working so hard to stamp out anything original about itself is a question the creators don’t seem to have asked themselves.

More thoughts below the cut.

First, something positive: I quite like the look of the show. There was obviously a lot of pressure from previous adaptations, not to mention the famous illustrations associated with the books, to strike out in an original direction, and I think the show really found one. Instead of fantasized-medieval-through-Victorian, The Watch’s Ankh Morpork combines those period and genre elements with modern ones. So The Mended Drum is now a seedy nightclub with DJ lighting and an open mike stage, and the city’s walls are covered with graffiti tags. The more distinctive settings - the Patrician’s palace, the Unseen University library - are not as interesting, possibly because the budget wouldn’t stretch to make them look really spectacular. But the core approach of the series, that Ankh Morpork is an old but modern city where there are also a lot of fantasy elements, is a fun and refreshing one.

Second, despite all the prevarication and spin in the run-up to the show, this is a Pratchett adaptation. It isn’t merely “inspired by” Pratchett’s novels, as the show’s title screen insists. It isn’t taking Pratchett’s ideas and making its own things with them. I can only assume that these claims were made in response to the backlash against stuff like “Sybil Ramkin, young, hot vigilante”. But despite changes like that, this is actually a fairly straightforward adaptation of Guards! Guards!, which also incorporates elements from Night Watch, plus some rather deep cuts from the rest of the Discworld corpus (the second episode, for example, implies that the ultimate villains of the series are the Auditors of Reality). So yeah, The Watch doesn’t have the excuse of being its own thing. It is a Discworld adaptation, but a bad one, that fails to understand a lot of fundamental thing about the world and the characters.

Third, I think the thing that most strikes about the show is how low-energy it feels. Despite billing itself as something outrageous, and despite some work on the visual front (and in Richard Dormer’s Jack Sparrow-esque performance as Vimes), the show itself feels almost bland. You see this in particular when it comes to the humor. It’s not that The Watch isn’t trying to be funny. There are jokes, and a few of them - mostly the ones original to the series - are mildly amusing. But when it comes to Pratchett’s own humor, the show simply has the actors deliver the gags and references in the most low-key way, and unsurprisingly the result is that hardly any of it lands.

Now, to be fair, this has been a problem with Pratchett adaptations since the 90s. Most of Pratchett’s humor is based in what his third-person narrator tells us about the world, and is hard to convey in a dramatic presentation (Good Omens tried to solve this problem by putting a lot of Pratchett’s narration in its voiceover, with only limited success). But even the dialogue-based jokes are so arch and stagey, that to deliver them successfully would require committing to a lot of very specific, demanding choices from the actors and writers (off the top of my head, the only show that even comes close to that kind of humor is Brooklyn Nine-Nine). It would have to be a high-concept, meticulously executed sitcom, whereas most Pratchett adaptations have been fantasy dramas with jokes. 

So it’s not entirely The Watch’s fault that it isn’t managing to convey the zany energy of Pratchett’s novels, but at the same time, it also clearly isn’t trying to. Its attitude seems to be that simply the existence of things like troll cops or assassins’ guilds who leave a receipt are funny in their own right. And sure, even in a media landscape in which fantasy has been mainstreamed by Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings movies, and Game of Thrones, not a lot of fantasy settings have an orangutan librarian who only says “ook”. But what makes The Librarian funny isn’t that he’s a librarian who is an orangutan. It’s that he’s a librarian who is an orangutan who still behaves exactly like a librarian (while also doing ape things like swinging from the bookshelves and eating bananas), and that “ook” can convey almost any concept in existence. The Watch doesn’t seem to realize this. It seems to be assuming that just putting that stuff on screen, or parroting Pratchett’s lines, will be hilarious in and of itself, while leaving out a lot of the specificity of setting, character, and tone that made the books sing.

You see this also in how it handles its characters. Everyone fixated on Lady Sybil when the promos came out, because that’s the most egregious misreading of the original (and rooted in the most boring assumptions about what audiences want and will respond to). But it’s everywhere. Take Carrot, for example. In the books, Carrot is fascinating because he’s never entirely what you take him for. He’s innocent, but not naive. Principled, but not a zealot. A goody-two-shoes, but not a prig. He’s always a lot smarter than you think he is, and most importantly, he genuinely likes and is interested in people. 

The Watch delivers none of this, and instead makes Carrot your basic hothead rookie who just wants to take down bad guys and sees the more seasoned, cynical officers who keep trying to slow him down as hopelessly corrupted. There’s none of Carrot’s openness, or his genuine love of the city, in this character. Instead he’s sullen and judgmental. And look, we could have a long conversation about which one of these characters is more useful to us and our ongoing conversation about policing (as well as a much shorter conversation about which one of them is truer to the ideas Pratchett was trying to convey about policing). But what feels more important to me, when coming to evaluate a new series that is trying to make an argument for why you should keep watching it, is the simple fact that there are a million places where you could find a character like The Watch’s Carrot, and hardly anywhere where you could find one like Pratchett’s. 

Again and again, it feels as if, in the pursuit of what it thinks of as outrageous, risk-taking storytelling, The Watch jettisons the unique characters from the books and replaces them with ones that we’ve seen a million times before. Angua in the books is kind of neurotic, and extremely thoughtful about the way her condition can incline her to see other people as objects to be used and consumed (which Pratchett later develops into an aspect of his theme of monsters-as-aristocrats). In the show, she’s obsessed with how her lycanthropy makes her “the real monster”. Oh boy, I’ve never seen a werewolf worry about being a monster before! I’ve never seen a scene where they send their friends away just as they’re about to transform! This is cutting edge stuff, I tell you. And while we’re on the subject, it gives me no pleasure to report that Anna Chancellor as Patrician Vetinari is thoroughly meh, because no effort has been taken to convey the character’s intelligence, near-omniscience, and constant scheming. Vimes is intimidated by her because she’s his boss and she’s posh, not because of anything specific to her. She feels almost identical to a million other posh rulers whose job it is to infodump to and threaten scrappy, working class heroes.

Which brings me back to my original observation: that I do not get who this show is for. It’s not for Pratchett fans, because it deliberately drops a great deal of what made his writing and characters special in favor of the most generic, predictable choices. But I can’t help but feel that anyone who is into this sort of extremely familiar cop story will be put off by the dragons and the wizards and the orangutan librarian, not to mention Dormer’s gurning performance. The whole thing is almost fascinating to watch - a work that clearly believes itself to be boundary-pushing and different, when really it’s just dull but with dragons.

[mendelpalace]

GamePro’s SNES Criterion Collection

Back in 2011, the now-defunct GamePro published a piece including Criterion Collection-style covers for a handful of SNES titles, along with descriptions of the hypothetical bonus materials that would come with such deluxe rereleases. Though the cover images are still floating around online, a bunch of the descriptions are probably lost, including those for games like Street Fighter II, Donkey Kong Country, U.N. Squadron, Desert Strike, and Chrono Trigger. 

A few can still be accessed via the Wayback Machine though, so I decided to repost the ones I can still get to:

An old enemy brings bounty hunter Samus Aran back to Zebes, where she discovers that the Space Pirate threat is greater than ever -- and thus begins one of the most evocative games ever made. Thanks to its simple but powerful storytelling; outstanding soundtrack; and massive, lonely world, Super Metroid, created by Nintendo's well-known R&D1; team, is a masterpiece of design that has come to represent the Super Nintendo at its pinnacle.

SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES

DISC ONE

All-new 16:9 transfer optimized for high-definition televisions

Video introduction by writer/director Yoshio Sakamoto

Two Interactive Audio Commentaries: one by Yoshio Sakamoto, Satoru Iwata, and Shigeru Miyamoto; and one by producer Makoto Kano

New Leaderboards: Test your sequence-breaking skills against the best speedrunners in the world

DISC TWO

Return to Zebes (2011): A 90-minute feature documentary on the making of the game

From Zebes to the Bottle Ship (2011): A 30 minute documentary about the history of the Metroid franchise

Deep Red: Scenes from the film that helped to inspire Super Metroid

Sequence Breaking: Noted speedrunners offer a guided tour of sequence breaking in Super Metroid

Into Tourian Base: An interactive map of Zebes with developer commentary and notes

Play the complete, original Metroid for the NES

Illustrated production history with rare behind-the-scenes photos, original press kit, and the U.S., European, and Japanese trailers

PLUS: Complete OST featuring original and remastered tracks from Super Metroid

A party of four child prodigies must band together to fend off a mysterious, malevolent alien force in this cult-classic role-playing game, scripted by influential Japanese copywriter and author, Shigesato Itoi. Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo embark on a fantastic adventure that spans a quirky, contemporary world, with a charming sense of lighthearted humor that shines through to the engrossing story’s awe-inspiring ending.

SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES

DISC ONE

Fully animated opening and ending cinematics from Studio Ghibli.

In-game commentary from director/producer/writer Shigesato Itoi, designer Akihiko Miura, and composers Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka.

Live recording of the “Earthbound Orchestral Experience.”

Excerpts from the new translation of Saori Kumi’s Earthbound novelization, read by the author.

DISC TWO

The Man that Fell to Earthbound – Retrospective Q&A; with Shigesato Itoi about Earthbound’s critical and commercial reception.

It Hurts -- documentary feature chronicling the troubled production of Earthbound 64.

Outgrowing Onett - A short film from director Mamoru Hosoda (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars) that bridges the gap between Earthbound and Mother 3.

Brand new trailer of “Mother 3DS,” the highly anticipated, “definitive” edition of Mother 3.

All-new localization effort overseen by acclaimed director and screenwriter Brad Bird (The Incredibles, The Iron Giant).

Complete HD reimagining of the original Mother.

PLUS: Concept art gallery, and interviews with the game’s development staff.

In a galaxy far, far away, join Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, and even Wicket the Ewok as they wage intergalactic war against the evil Empire and the sinister Sith lord, Darth Vader. In this ultimate HD edition of Super Star Wars trilogy, you’ll experience the entire saga, including racing a landspeeder through Tatooine’s wastelands in A New Hope, battling colossal AT-ATs storming Hoth’s rebel base in The Empire Strikes Back, flying the Millennium Falcon through the Death Star’s core in Return of the Jedi, and many more memorable adventures from the classic sci-fi trilogy.

SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES DISC ONE

All three Super Nintendo classics in their original form: Super Star Wars, Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, and Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

Remastered 16-bit visuals and crystal clear audio optimized for high-definition televisions.

New inventory management menu allows you to hang on to your weapons and powerups through all three games.

Save system lets you save your progress at any time.

New beginner-friendly “Apprentice Mode” eases newcomers into some of the most challenging Super NES games ever mad

DISC TWO

Deleted Levels: Two new playable missions previously cut from the games including R2-D2’s battle through Jabba’s palace.

A History of Sculpted Software: A 15-minute documentary chronicling the developer’s daunting task of reenvisioning George Lucas’ epic science-fiction series for the Super Nintendo.

From Giant Scorpions to Frog Dogs: An all-new 10 minute documentary examining the genesis of Super Star Wars trilogy’s most bizarre enemies.

Digital Strategy Guides: Digital versions of the original strategy guides to help you master what are considered some of the toughest video games on the Super NES.

Ladies and gentlemen: Start your engines, and prepare to challenge some of Nintendo’s most famous gaming characters in a high-speed battle of skill, wits...and luck! A huge critical and commercial success, Super Mario Kart is a seminal race-combat game from the 16-bit heyday of the early 90s that is so well loved, it continues to rank highly on “Best Game Ever” lists almost 20 years since its first release. Its key to success is its finely tuned, beautifully balanced multiplayer battle system that feels as fresh and fun as it did nearly two decades ago. Now’s your chance to rediscover the multiplayer magic of one of the best Super Nintendo games in three different forms, including an all-new Director's Cut!

SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES

DISC ONE

Director’s Cut: Featuring all-new polygonal graphics, the characters and courses are completely reimagined for a stunning, cutting-edge visual experience.

Enhanced Edition: A digitally remastered 16-bit version, with 1080p sprite-graphics taken from the original release, and authentic original gameplay

The First Cut: The completely untouched original version of the 1992 Super Nintendo release

Battle On!: Watch as the game’s original creators challenge one another in multiplayer combat and talk about their favorite weapons and characters

The Kart Legacy: A documentary on the legacy of Super Mario Kart, its numerous sequels and ports through the generations, and how it spawned an entirely new genre of racing games.

DISC TWO

Beyond F-Zero. The Making of a Two-player Racer: An in-depth interview with creator Shigeru Miyamoto about Super Mario Kart’s multiplayer design philosophies.

Unlocking Mode 7: Tadashi Sugiyama and Hideki Konno talk about the technical aspects of using Super Nintendo’s Mode 7 to deliver a great gaming experience.

Digitally remastered music by composer Soyo Oka

Bios and gameography of each Super Mario Kart character: Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Bowser, Donkey Kong Jr., Koopa Troopa, and Toad.

Cities are living, breathing things -- just as much as the inhabitants that walk their streets -- and nowhere is this more apparent than in Will Wright's masterpiece. Providing one of the earliest examples of free-form emergent gameplay, Sim City for the Super Nintendo is a seminal work, grounded in reality but limited only by the player's imagination.

SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES

DISC ONE

Two editions of the game: The original Super NES classic and SimCity+, a specially optimized widescreen edition for modern high-definition televisions.

Social Play: Connect your cities to those of your friends around the world.

Video introduction by Will Wright and Jeff Braun.

Fully voiced tutorial and advice featuring Nolan North as the voice of Dr. Wright.

DISC TWO

Af Wubbas Do (2011): A 60-minute feature documentary chronicling the history of the entire Sim series, from City through Copter to The Sims.

Urban Canvas (2011): A 30-minute exposé of the radical computer artists who use the SimCity series' landscaping and planning tools to produce works of visual art.

The Full, Uncut Raid on Bungeling Bay for Commodore 64: The game that inspired SimCity's creation.

Interactive gallery of real-life cities modeled in the game.

Original press materials and trailers.

Digital copy of "Street Music," an album featuring music from and inspired by the series.

Years ahead of its time, Actraiser was one of the most loved games released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Genre-bending civilization-building simulation with side-scrolling action, the game didn’t continue as a decades-long franchise like some of its other contemporaries, but it was never forgotten. Stepping into the omnipotent shoes of “The Master” to save the land and its people from the evil Tanzra and his six lieutenants is not only many gamers’ first memory of playing a “god game,” for some it is also their fondest memory from the entire 16-bit era.

SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES

DISC ONE

All-new 16:9 remastered transfer optimized for high-definition televisions

Switch between the original 2D art assets and the all-new polygonal art with the push of a button.

Video introduction by director Masaya Hashimoto and writer Tomoyoshi Miyazaki.

Audio commentary track with the game’s designers.

DISC TWO

“The Creation Story” (2011), a forty-minute short documentary on the development of the game.

“Lightning in a Bottle” (2011), a roundtable discussion with Masaya Hashimoto, Tomoyoshi Miyazaki and Peter Molyneux about ActRaiser’s influence on game development and the “god games” genre.

The complete Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

An interactive gallery of over 100 never before seen sketches, concept art, and other design documents.

All that stands between a world’s freedom and its conquest by a ruthless tyrant is the intrepid pilot Fox McCloud and his dauntless friends of the Star Fox Team. Featuring the groundbreaking technology of the Super FX chip, Star Fox brought Nintendo into the world of 3D computer graphics. And flying through the sky and in space in the Arwing starship is perhaps the best way for Nintendo to bring polygons to its consoles.

SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES DISC ONE

Remastered audio and visuals, featuring Dolby Digital EX surround sound and a 16:7, HD presentation. Game’s original 1992 audio and visuals are also on the disc.

Two audio commentaries: One from the game’s executive producer, Hiroshi Yamauchi, and producer, Shigeru Miyamoto, and another with commentary from the point of view of Andross, the game’s villain.

Updated motion-comic version of the original Star Fox comic that ran in Nintendo Power from February 1993 to December 1993.

DISC TWO

“Defenders of Corneria”: a 90-minute documentary on the making of the original Star Fox.

“Fox Through the Ages”: A look at how Fox McCloud and the series has changed since their 1992 inception.

“Arwing Declassified”: A collection of other designs considered and rejected for the iconic Arwing starship.

“The Art of Star Fox”: Images of Fox McCloud, the Star Fox Team, and the memorable worlds from the franchise.

Original promotional ads from Japan, Europe, and North America.

PLUS: The Complete Original soundtrack.

[pamphletstoinspire]

What Is Pornography - Part 3 - PORN AND OUR SEXUALITY - Part 12

12. Women don’t struggle with porn.

Pornography is typically seen as something that men do: men create it; men watch it; men get addicted to it. Women are often seen as the victims of pornography. Pornography objectifies women; it abuses them and teaches men to abuse them. Those are the common story lines. Men are the aggressors, taught by a poor teacher, and women suffer because of it.

If a woman watches pornography, it is usually assumed that her boyfriend or husband wants her to watch it with him. A recent study of heterosexual women who used porn concluded: “This suggests that when heterosexual women consume pornography, they usually do it in the company of their partner.”

Some of these women watching porn may be doing so under pressure from their partners. What we often fail to discuss, however, is the fact that some women watch pornography of their own accord, and some of those women feel they simply cannot stop.

Lauren Dubinsky dabbled in porn use. She did not consider herself the type of person to become addicted to anything — smoking, alcohol, or porn — so she felt safe indulging in porn on occasion. Just the occasional indulgence changed her, however, and the shame of being a woman with this struggle made it that much more difficult. In her piece “What I Wish I’d Known before Watching Porn”, Lauren outlines several things that resulted from her watching pornography: she acquired a “victim mentality”, her intimate relationships suffered, and she was burdened with feelings of shame, guilt, and isolation. “I wish someone had talked about how women watch it too,” she writes, “so I wouldn’t have had to spend years living under the shame that comes with being ‘the only one’ and thinking there was something wrong with me.”

Audrey Assad grew up in a conservative religious home in New Jersey, and in her youth she became mired in pornography. The resulting guilt and confusion were compounded by misinformation — the often-repeated notion that porn was a “guy issue”. Believing this only isolated her further. Today as a contemporary musician, she has the opportunity to speak in front of crowds of young women. Whenever she shares her experiences in public, she says, she is astounded at the number of people who want to talk to her afterward — women who have felt isolated and alone in their struggles.

While pornography use among women is rarely discussed, it is on the rise. One study indicated that 50 percent of female adolescents have used pornography in the previous six months. Other studies indicate that 25 percent of women ages eighteen to thirty-four use pornography. Even 4 percent of women ages fifty to sixty-five admit to using pornography. These statistics include any type of porn use, from occasional to frequent. About 2 percent of women use pornography multiple times per week.

In contrast to those numbers, during a Pew Research Center study conducted in 2010, only 2 percent of the women surveyed admitted to watching pornography online. In 2013, that number jumped to 8 percent. If other studies are to be believed, that number is actually much higher.

One complication in such studies is the stigma associated with being a heterosexual woman compulsively viewing pornography. A Norwegian researcher commented, “I think heterosexual women still are influenced by the traditional conception of a proper woman being a pure woman, someone who doesn’t have sex unless its purpose is to express love or to have children. So consumption of pornography is still seen as something that is immoral or forbidden.” As such, pornography use among women is misunderstood and understudied.

While the research about pornography use among women varies, statistics from porn websites themselves don’t lie. According to statistics from 2014, gathered by one of the top-ranking porn sites in the world, 23 percent of their viewers are women, nearly one woman for every five men. In America, females currently make up 15 percent of the viewing population.

The common perception has been that men are more prone than women to watch pornography because they are more visually wired; therefore, they find sexual images more arousing. Women, on the other hand, have been assumed to be more emotionally and relationally wired and therefore less aroused by mere images. When women turn to sexual material, it has been thought, they are more likely to reach for a romance novel or erotica than for pornography. However, some studies have shown that women can be just as aroused by pornography as men are.

When compared with the stimulation from nonsexual images, pornographic images create two to three times the response in the brain — for men and women. In an MRI study, the brain activity of participants was measured while they were shown pornographic images. Both men and women had a heightened reaction to the stimuli, though the reactions in the male brains were in different locations from those in the female brains. Initially, researchers thought that this supported the idea that men are more moved by the images. When they interviewed the study subjects, however, they found otherwise. While the brain activity of the men would seem to indicate that they were more aroused, the women were the ones who said the images were more arousing.

Further study showed that women are just as visually stimulated as men and in nearly the same amount of time. However, the difference in how they were aroused depended on what part of the image they were looking at. Different aspects of the image were more arousing for one sex than for the other. Women were more aroused when the woman in the image was looking away, and they rated close-up genital images (i.e., hard-core pornography) as more arousing than men did.

So much for the idea that women are not as stimulated by pornography as men are. It is not known how many women actually like pornography, but what is certain is that the number of women who view it is increasing. What accounts for this uptick?

Before the advent of the World Wide Web, pornography existed mostly in the pages of “dirty” magazines aimed at men. While wives and mothers were home tending to hearth and children, men would slink down to the corner newsstand and leave with a brown paper bag hiding their guilty pleasure. Then came the “adult” stores and the triple-X theaters on the seedy side of town — not the places one would find a “respectable” woman.

But the world has changed considerably. Not only has pornography itself changed, but the way it is transmitted has also changed. Porn films have proliferated, and what was available only in theaters is now available for free online. A woman can sit in the comfort and privacy of her own home and watch whatever she wants. A majority of women who look at porn report that they turn to it as a means of stress relief and escape from the demands of everyday life. The most paradoxical thing about women watching porn is that so much of what they watch is misogynist. While most of the porn genres women search for seem relatively mild, “rough sex” and “bondage” made the list of the top-sixteen searches by women in 2014. By comparison, neither of those terms made the top-sixteen searches by men.

So what does this type of porn do to the women who watch it? To start, it desensitizes them to what is acceptable behavior. Most women, if asked, would frown upon being slapped, spit on, or choked. Yet there are some who celebrate this kind of behavior as supportive of women. According to actress Joanna Angel, participating in pornography that is physically and verbally aggressive toward women can “still be feminist”. For some, it is still feminist so long as the woman involved is freely choosing to be treated in this manner.

A recent study published in the Psychology of Women Quarterly shows that watching pornography can make both men and women more sexist—against women. Many feminist groups are opposed to pornography for this very reason. Reporter Lauren Duca explains, “The fact that a woman who otherwise aligns with the feminist agenda may experience a reduction in the strength of her beliefs after watching sexist porn is especially upsetting.” So while the actress herself may find it liberating that she chose to be in the scene and had control over her choice, the fact is, the image she is presenting to other women is not one of choice, but of necessity. Masochism becomes not one of many choices but the choice a woman is supposed to make.

In response to the outcry for more “woman-friendly” porn, the industry has created a new category of pornography specifically designed for women. In femme porn, “women are depicted as objects of desire rather than merely a means for a guy to get off. They are slowly seduced and romanced into having sex with sincerity and smart conversation.” In 2007, femme-porn pioneer Candida Royale sold her videos at a rate of nearly ten thousand per month, presumably to women. That is not to say that women do not watch the more typical hard-core pornography, because they do. But femme porn is a growing niche in the porn industry, to say the least.

This new niche dovetails nicely with the growing number of women being introduced to porn by their sexual partners. In other words, porn is being used to seduce women. This phenomenon is one of the noted differences between how men and women view pornography. Women typically view it with their partner, while men view it mostly while alone.

With easy Internet access and special genres just for women, an increasing number of women are finding their release and escape in pornography. Some even watch to the point of making themselves vulnerable to addiction, though little, if any, research exists on female porn addicts.

Regardless, the days when pornography was only a man’s issue are far behind us.

[annabellevossen]

Playing the Player: The Stanley Parable and the Gamers’ Expectations

Bachelor Thesis - 2016

INTRODUCTION

Currently, video games are expected to provide interesting narratives as well as to fulfill traditions of gameplay. Regarding gameplay, video games follow a history of conventions, since games have been played before technological advance. In order to train their skills for future events, humans play games. In First-Person Espen Aarseth states that “it could even be argued that games are older than human culture, since even animals play games” (46). Therefore games are not a cultural phenomenon but rather driven by instinct, since for example dogs practice play-fighting in order to measure their strength without seriously hurting each other. However, games are not only played to prepare their skills but also for entertainment. They can be stimulating and a pleasant get away from the serious everyday routine. In the light of the amount of fun attributed to games, they are often regarded as childish.

Accompanying the progression in technology the possibilities of games have evolved. Smartphones, consoles and computers function as platforms to enable play. Since these technologies are still considered new to human history, people do not know what to expect from them. The devices on which video games are played have gained important value to humanity as tools to make life easier. These devices have not only simplified calculation or communication, but also changed input and ways of thinking. With the notabl existence of video games on TV consoles, PCs and smart devices comes the responsibility to use them productively. In order to know what video games contribute to society, it is important to understand what video games have in common. To understand video games they have often been analyzed to their narrative elements, since they adopt aspects of traditional narrative media, such as novels and film. In contrast to literature, which is a text based medium to activate the imagination, video games share actual visual representation with film. Yet there are also arguments that video games differ distinctly from narratives due to their entity as games.

Video games are a young medium and due to their audiovisual representation they share a lot with narrative media, such as film. Narratology deals with narrative elements in video games and primarily discusses what is presented (story) and how it is presented (discourse). Concerning video games it can be analyzed which events they transfer and how they organize them by keeping in mind the player’s possibilities of interaction. Therefore it discusses classical linear fiction, the chapter model and the method of branching. In addition to that narratology approaches on the stories existents, such the visual information that create an atmosphere within games as well as the characters and their functions towards the story.

The theory that defines video games as games is called ludology an deals with the analysis of the aspects that define gameplay. Essentially, it points out the fact that games are systems of rules that need a mutual agreement by its participants to not cheat in order to evaluate actions of play. Debating concepts of time within video games it is important to differentiate between the time o the events (event time) and the time of the player (user time) and whether the game is in control of pace (transient) or the player (intransient). In addition to that it deals with recurring events, since games provide a repetitive factor in contrast to narrative media.

This thesis concentrates principally on the game The Stanley Parable, because it questions conventional gameplay and therefore subverts gamers’ expectations. The Stanley Parable was released in 2013 by Galactic Cafe and >can be played on the computer only. The player experiences the game in the perspective of a man called Stanley, who pauses his job of pressing buttons and gets up to find his co-workers. It is a good example for learning about video game conventions, because it disillusions the players and therefore makes them think about their actions rather than just escape into an other world. In order to describe conventional gameplay, The Stanley Parable will be compared to >aspects of gameplay as well as the depiction of narrative in popular games of the last ten years, such as Portal, Portal 2, Minecraft, Life is Strange and Mass Effect. On the one hand, concerning the aspects of gameplay, The Stanley Parable will be analyzed with regards to its rules, since rules limit reality and create the world of game. Furthermore aspects of time will be differentiated, since narratology also deals with the depiction of time within media. Thirdly, narrative elements, such as characters will be defined in the context of video games. In addition to that the arrangement of events within game will be >opposed to classical linear fiction.

In Portal (2007) the player has to escape an abandoned research facility,

called Aperture Laboratories, which is testing a gun that can shoot two

connecting portals and therefore allows the user to overcome spatial obstacles. The gameplay of Portal constitutes of three-dimensional puzzles, which the player needs to solve. With the help of the “portal gun” players must think laterally since the puzzles’ solutions involve overcoming spatial distances. The AI of Aperture Laboratories, named GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System), seized power and claims to have killed everyone in the building apart from the player character, Chell, whom she condemned to endure portal tests until the end of her days. In Portal 2 (2009) however Chell and GLaDOS need to cooperate in order to kill Wheatley, a detached core of GLaDOS, who takes over power and destroys GLaDOS’s regime. After defeating Wheatley, GLaDOS rewards Chell with her long desired freedom. Minecraft (2011) is a world made out of cubes, which all have the same basic form, but different properties. The players find themselves in the middle of a randomly generated environment and have to harvest cubes in order to craft something new out of it. The simplicity of the design invites players to form complex structures and motivates a creative urge. During the night, the player is endangered by monsters, which explode and kill the player and furthermore destroy the environment near by. Players can also hunt creatures in order to gain more materials. Therefore the game is about player’s creativity and the protection of himself and his creation.

In Life is Strange (2015) the player witnesses the events in a town, named Arcadia Bay, through the character of Maxine Caulfield. Maxine is a student of photography and with the help of her photographs she can travel >back through time and change events. Gameplay therefore is defined by repetition of events and the player’s decisions to change them in order to prevent negative effects. Furthermore it deals with the gamers ability to preserve of memory and moments, since players need to remember specific details to investigate the case of a missing girl. Lastly, it demonstrates that every choice has devastating consequences.

The Mass Effect trilogy (2007-2012) is set in the year 2183 and deals with an extraterrestrial artificial intelligence, called Reapers, that threatens to extinguish every life form in the galaxy. In the perspective of the human Commander Shepard, the player can find a solution to save the galaxy or join the Reapers. As a special agent who has to defend himself and the galax against enemies with weapons, the game involves a lot of third-person shooting as well as quest completion. Since the player character Shepard is in control of his crew’s lives, players are facing difficult decisions concerning non-player characters.

WORKS CITED

PRIMARY SOURCES The Stanley Parable. Galactic Cafe. 2013. Video game. <https://www.stanleyparable.com/>

Minecraft. Mojang. 2009. Video game. <https://minecraft.net/en/> Portal. Valve. 2007. Video game. <http://www.valvesoftware.com/games/portal.html>

Portal 2. Valve. 2009. Video game. <http://www.thinkwithportals.com/>

Mass Effect Triology. BioWare, Edge of Reality. 2007-2012. Video game. <http://masseffect.bioware.com/agegate/?url=%2F>

Life is Strange. Dontnod Entertainment. 2015. Video game. <http://www.lifeisstrange.com/agegate.php>

SECONDARY SOURCES Aarseth, Espen. "Genre Trouble: Narrativism and the Art of Simulation". Wardrip-Fruin, Noah, and Pat Harrigan. First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2004. 45-55. Print.

[theblackshit]

This spring, Kunstverein München presents Pati Hill’s first posthumous institutional solo exhibition in Europe. Hill (b. 1921 in Ashland, Kentucky, USA; d. 2014 in Sens, France) left behind an artistic output spanning roughly 60 years and encompassing various disciplines. Untrained as an artist, she began to use the photocopier as an artistic tool in the early 1970s and continued to do so until her death, leaving behind an extensive oeuvre that explores the relationship between image and text. In addition to this comprehensive body of xerographic work, she published four novels, a memoir, several short stories, artist’s books, and poetry. Drawing also became an essential part of her practice.  

The multidimensionality of Hill’s motifs and the stark lighting that seems to emanate from the photocopier’s depths distinguish her work from iconographic examples of Pop Art and offer another historical reading of that era. In addition to the primary works that Hill conceived for exhibitions during her lifetime, the presentation at Kunstverein München also encompasses a large portion of works that have never been shown before.  

By using the copier—a machine that was stereotypically linked to secretarial work and thus to feminized labor—to trace everyday objects such as a comb, a carefully folded pair of men’s trousers, or a child’s toy, Hill developed an artistic practice that programmatically translated invisible domestic labor into a visual and public language. Through her use of this reproductive apparatus, she created a model of artistic production that critically opposes the convention of individual expression as well as the supposed neutrality of technologically produced images.  

For example, the series Informational Art that Hill began in 1962 took printed diagrams and instructions from product packaging as their subject matter. Whether it was through detailed illustrations that showed housewives how to carve meat or instructions about how to make a doll dance, Hill was interested in arranging quasi-narrative sequences and the subsequent juxtapositions and coincidences of text and image that emerged. In 1975, Hill published the book Slave Days with financial support from the poet James Merrill. The book is comprised of 29 poems thematizing the partly fictionalized everyday lives of housewives, which were then juxtaposed with 31 xerographs. Slave Days was Hill’s first work to combine her xerographs with her own texts, which also described the production site of the works with a sinister humor. In one poem she notes that “Heaven’s door is open to us like a big vacuum cleaner,” thus resignedly outlining the limits of her own spaces of agency. Here, Hill doesn’t use the xerographs as material for a collage or the starting point for further production, but rather presents them alongside her texts as independent works. She thus had a sense of production and reception being equally important parts of her practice. Even though she mostly worked outside of an institutional context and exhibited irregularly, she also wrote about the process of publishing: “I have always thought publishing should be like taking your clothes to the laundromat.”  

In her 1981 book Women, Race and Class, American author and civil-rights activist Angela Davis explains how women’s labor has been devalued under advanced capitalism. The separation of domestic labor from immediate profit means that women “can seldom produce tangible evidence of their work.” Hill’s works can certainly be seen in this context. In the series Garments, for example, she documents various pieces of clothing, like corsets or riding pants, whose reproduced images are characterized by high-contrast lighting as well as specific interventions with the copying machine, such as adding excess toner. It almost seems as though the glass platen of the copier is actually helping to fold the clothes, thus testifying to this otherwise invisible form of domestic labor. Hill deployed the copier’s ability to flatten objects to surprisingly dramatic effect, and thus also made the process of image-making the subject of her work. Hill doesn’t try to visualize the invisible as in some of her other works. Instead, she reveals the uncanny aspects of the familiar and questions its everydayness.  

Already in the 60s, Hill had conceived of the private sphere as a site of political resistance. Several years before she began working with the copier, she wrote a short novel titled An Angry French Housewife that described a series of transgressions against heteronormative relationship models and was later published together with a number of xerographs under the title Impossible Dreams. At the same time, she worked on the series Dreams Objects Moments. Increasingly frustrated by the lack of access to her copier of choice, the IBM Copier II, she began creating short texts for “[…] an exhibition that conveyed my feelings about copier work without requiring the use of a copier.” By using colored paper—green for Dreams, pink for Objects, and yellow for Moments—Hill created elements of what she described as filters of how we receive and classify information by occasionally confusing the respective categories.  

In 1977, Pati Hill met the designer and architect Charles Eames on a transatlantic flight. Through his consulting work for the IT company International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), he finally helped Hill access her long-coveted machine of choice. By 1979 she had used it to create two significant series of works, which differ formally but similarly pursue the destabilization of narration. Hill developed drafts for a universal sign language under the title Proposal for a Universal Language of Symbols. Shortly thereafter she wrote Eames to share her wish for the symbols to be “returned to their original position amongst us…where things were what they seemed.” The second series was Alphabet of Common Objects, one of Hill’s most important works. Arranged in a grid, the 45 images that comprise this work convey the potential that she attributed to visual communication. Moreover, her classification of the objects as alphabetic implies a “linguistic” quality in these images.  

The series Men and Women in Sleeping Cars, made in the late 70s, is one of the very few examples that features people in her oeuvre, here sourced from advertising campaigns for the railway industry. Hill never made her own body the subject of her works. She thus stood apart, both formally and thematically, from the dominant tendencies in feminist art production of the 70s and 80s, where the female body was often taken as the starting point in order to extract it from a system of fetishizing and objectifying representations. Through her successful work as a couture model at a young age, Hill was confronted very early on with the dominance of the male gaze, which she negotiated accordingly in her work, only to go beyond this in her later artistic production. In Letters to Jill. A Catalogue and Some Notes on Copying from 1979, she writes: “Many copy artists are women and only copy themselves. I don’t copy myself, but images were made of me for years, and this gave me a sense of reality. The reality of an object perhaps.” Seitenumbruch

Ironically, the copier was invented by a patent attorney and finally led to a fundamental questioning of the concepts of ownership and authorship as well as the eventual strengthening of copyright law. The discourse around questions of appropriation, original and copy, seriality and authenticity were not only at the heart of Copy Art from the 1970s onwards, but are also inherent to contemporary art. This is, in part, what makes the first comprehensive presentation of Hill’s work so relevant today. Though it takes the artist’s visual work as the primary starting point, the exhibition also considers her writing, publishing, and editing as practices that both question and accompany the visual work. As a fragmentary, necessarily incomplete index of her engagement with image and text (re-)production, the show includes published novels, poems, sketchbooks, unpublished manuscripts, and letters in addition to the xerographs.  

As part of the exhibition, a reprint of her publication Letters to Jill will be made available. In this 128-page book, Pati Hill explains the status of the copier and her working process in her own words to her New York gallerist Jill Kornblee, with whom she had a total of five solo exhibitions between 1975 and 1979. These texts shed light on Hill’s relationship to excerpts and examples from earlier projects, making this publication a valuable document of her activity as an author, which encompassed both production and reception, a duality that was at the core of her artistic output.  

[bassguy]

GOTY 2017

Honorable Mention: Doki Doki Literature Club

2017 was a strong year for deconstructed visual novels, but none of them take that concept quite as literally as DDLC. Not only does it successfully subvert every sexy anime school girl cliche you can come up with, it literally forces you into interacting with the game at a meta level to progress. It uses reality distortion to great effect, and the fact that it's free makes it all the easier to recommend.

Platform: Mac Country of Origin: United States

10. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

The world is in love with Breath of the Wild: The open world, the systems-driven gameplay, the sharp swerve away from Zelda traditions. I like it – it's charming as hell, but I can't find it in my heart to love it like I love other Zelda games. Breath of the Wild is huge and intriguing, but it never quite hits the stride that more focused Zelda games do. I don't really like Skyrim or Far Cry 2, so seeing those influences here is actually a turn-off for me. Good on Nintendo for trying something new, but it just doesn't resonate with me like I wish it would.

Platform: Switch Country of Origin: Japan

9. Tacoma

Tacoma could never have the same impact as Gone Home. It's unfair to hold it to that standard, but I just can't help comparing the two. I thoroughly enjoy the aesthetic and story of Fullbright's sophomore effort, but it doesn't ever hit the high highs that I wanted. Gone Home was a deeply personal tale, but this is more of a biting societal commentary. The characters are pleasant means to and end, but each one could be swapped out with an equally compelling interpretation. The same could never be said about Sam and Lonnie.

Platform: Xbox One Country of Origin: United States

8. Mass Effect: Andromeda

Mass Effect, as a series, is personally important to me – any new entry will garner my complete attention. Sadly, the execution of this Mass Effect Gaiden ranged from perfectly average to actively off-putting. The changes to the combat were very smart, and I sincerely enjoy the core premise, but the way it's all put together is a huge disappointment. Add in the near-complete abandonment of single-player support, and it makes me want to cry. There's a skeleton of a great Mass Effect game in here, but it's tainted by gross mismanagement.

Platform: PlayStation 4 Country of Origin: Canada

7. Super Mario Odyssey

Mario is fun: Runnin' around, murderin' goombas, butt stompin', and all of that stuff is neat. But if "here's more Mario, I guess" was the entirety of the pitch, I'd have brushed it off like I have with so many modern Mario games. A highly-refined platformer only gets you so far in my book, so I was overjoyed when Nintendo decided to get weird. I came to New Donk City for the giggles, but I stayed for the gushing love letter to a franchise that meant so much to me as a child.

Platform: Switch Country of Origin: Japan

6. Horizon: Zero Dawn

If there's a single game that can sell the PS4 Pro's strengths, it's Horizon. It has a massive open world that could suck up hundreds of hours, and Guerrilla Games stuffed incredible little details in every crevice. I spent hours playing with the photo mode because it's so damn pretty, but that doesn't come at the expense of story. The characters, motivations, and revelations kept me coming back until everything was finished – nothing to sneeze at considering how easily I fall off of these kinds of games.

Platform: PlayStation 4 Country of Origin: The Netherlands

5. What Remains of Edith Finch

Edith Finch, to me, feels more like two intercut games. The first game stars Edith exploring the House of Finch for a larger wrapper narrative, and the second game is a series of vignettes about her dead family. The two games compliment one another – intensify each other. They examine the concept of fate through the popular lens of the "doomed" family/building, and since you, the player, get to experience both the physicality of the home and the viewpoints of the family, the interactive nature of video games lets Edith Finch transcend the well-trod tropes it leans on.

Platform: PlayStation 4 Country of Origin: United States

4. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

The Lost Legacy is, without a doubt, the best Uncharted game ever made. Chloe and Nadine are much more interesting than previous pairings, the open world aspects make the setting feel much more tangible, and it doesn't overstay its welcome like the last game did. If the Naughty Dog B-team wants to crank out short Uncharted side-stories every other year from here on out, I'd be completely up for it.

Platform: PlayStation 4 Country of Origin: United States

3. Life is Strange: Before the Storm

Despite going in as a skeptic, this prequel to Life is Strange deeply penetrated my leathery critical shell. I hated the resolution of the first game's A plot, and much of Max's dialogue came up short. So the fact that a different team in a different country on a different engine with a different protagonist with different voice actors was able to pull off this kind of powerful backstory is goddamn astounding. Before the Storm doesn't have the same time-bending supernatural goodness of the original, but it has so much more heart. And let it be said here once and for all: Chloe and Rachel Amber are the OTP of this series.

Platform: PlayStation 4 Country of Origin: United States

2. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

Hellblade is unlike anything else I've ever played. It explores parental abuse, grief, personal loss, and the murky relationship between belief and mental illness. The player and the main character alike are never entirely sure what's real or imagined, and the surreal audiovisual presentation really sells the tenuous connection to reality. Pile on the phenomenal performance-capture tech, the top-notch acting from a purportedly novice actress, and the fascinating "Independent AAA" pitch, and the cultural heft of Hellblade cannot be denied.

Platform: PlayStation 4 Country of Origin: United Kingdom

1. Nier: Automata

Gobsmacked – absolutely gobsmacked. This pseudo-sequel to Drakengard grabbed me by the collar, and would not let go until I squeezed every last drop of narrative from it. It's been well over a decade since a game's twists and turns have legitimately floored me like Nier: Automata did this year. And in spite of the robot anime booty tomfoolery, this game manages to dive deep into the nature of war, duty, xenophobia, and humanity far beyond what I could have ever hoped for.

Platform: PlayStation 4 Country of Origin: Japan

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Top 10 game I missed in 2019

This year was a weird one. Quite a few big indies came out but none of them was a massive hit. Also, Epic paying devs for exclusive rights on their games put several major releases outside of my sightline. I just can’t be bothered with it. On the other hand I got way more invested in Itch.io and the scene around it. I probably expanded my library there more than my steam Library and I was super pedant while keeping track of new releases there. There were many exciting ones! Choosing only ten releases proved to be a difficult task.

Fortunately I posted about many more over the course of 2019 and I plan to post several honorable mentions in their separate posts.

One other thing worth mentioning is that games I was hyped about at the start of the year mostly got released and mostly fell out of my radar. Some of them got enough attention from more important outlets than my lil blog or they got overshadowed by more exciting unsuspected releases.

In comparison with the 2018 list, this contains somehow less unified and probably less alternative selection of games. In other words, there isn’t a single walking sim on the list and most games are focused on gameplay. Let’s start at the bottom of the list (yes, it is ordered this time):

10. Later Alligator

Originally, this game didn’t make it in top 3 noteworthy releases of September. But opposed to at least two games on that list, It’s been popping up on my mind and I think that spending few hours with it must be a pleasant time. Reasons for that are simple. Heaven Will Be Mine, a previous game by Pillowfight, left a lasting impression on me and Later Alligator itself has a charming trailer and premise. The game not taking itself too seriously is another aspect, which makes me more interested in it right now. The graphics remind me of an old animated short or an alternative zine for kids and I like that very much.

9. Fit for a King

And another September release. This stands strong for a variety of reasons. Unique gameplay inspired by Ultima and combined with Ultima inspired graphics creates such an inspiring product, which is both fresh and nostalgic. But it’s something totally different than millions of games with Nintendo inspired graphics and so much better for that alone. Using the whole keyboard for a wide variety of regal commands is another great feature taking this game on this list.

8. Legionary’s Life

To be frank with you, dear reader, I’m not sure why I got so excited about this the moment I read a very short comment on it and watched the trailer. It’s not particularly pretty or fun. It’s about something else. You’re a regular person. It’s a life sim combined with an RPG and somehow very delightfully presented with many things to care about and to manage and it looks like a more interesting version of Paper’s, Please, actually. Now, I probably am overselling it, but that’s how excited this newest life sim made me. Gotta play it.

7.  REDO!

I love metroidvanias and this year’s harvest has been generous. One of the most interesting and different ones releases of 2019 was REDO! Released in early access only to get full release few months later this dark anime (BLAME!) inspired non-linear platformer is dripping with atmosphere and good pixels graphics, which are anime inspired but also decent about it and the result is very charming. It’s not Rain World, but the dev works really well with colours. Environments are detailed and expressive. This will be one of the first games for me to play when I return to computer in 2021.  Honorable metroidvania mentions: Outbuddies, Cathedral, Gato Roboto, Sun Wukong VS Robot, Feudal Alloy

6. Wildermyth

This game looks like a treat and from what I read on RPS, it probably is one. It’s a tactics game with some very stylized hand drawn graphics, which make otherwise somehow generic fantasy feel super unique. The story is narrated in a form of a visual novel with individual panels presenting both the continuation and choices. There’s so much good stuff in it and I’m excited to try it out one day. The game’s still in early access, so there’s no need to hurry.

5. Heaven’s Vault

This probably is the most complicated game on the list. I prefer simple experiences but sometimes something complex and sophisticated manages to capture my heart. The description of this game is one of the cases. You play as a time traveling archeologist, who is trying to figure out a lost civilization by deciphering its language. It sounds more satisfying than some of the drugs I’ve tried! It looks better than many AAA games too.

4. We Met in May

There are very simple reasons I crave this game. It reminds me of life of thing I like experiencing myself. It’s about the most basic of human interactions and yet love and dating is something fading. Like an ancient language, perhaps. Nina Freeman became my favourite dev after playing Kimmy and listening to the Tone Control podcast episode with her, so this shouldn’t be a disappointment. Also, It reminds me that my list includes zero gamer’s games and you can share these with your less violent buds.

3. Tiny Towns

Yes, I put a board game on my list. This whole year I have been following these as well and this is the only game I really wish to play. It’s simple, colorful, chunky and it uses bingo as its core mechanism. I like everything about it from presentation to relatively minimalist gameplay. 

The picture is a courtesy of my favourite board gaming blog Daily Worker Placement, originally used in their article.

2. Knights and Bikes

I wrote so many words about this game and I was genuinely excited to play it asap, when it came out, but then more important life choices happened and I haven’t played it yet and I won’t play it in 2019. I regret it a wee bit and I’m still looking forward this adorable adventure spiced up with some sad tones. There’s so much creativity and joy put into it and I believe that it might be one of the best games to play with or without children right now.

1. Art Sqool

As I mentioned before, this game’s a piece of art, a piece of critical thinking and more than many games aspire to be. It’s not there to tell a story, It present a phenomena and it allows you to use your creativity and shows you how ridiculous art schools can be. I bought this one many months ago hoping that I’d be able to play it soon. Unfortunately, the shaders don’t emulate on Linux and I will have to wait till 2021. I’m really looking forward to this and thinking about it after finishing it. It’s such a good concept and definitely something more related to other medias like art or art theory than traditional video games.

[aion-rsa]

Daybreak Creator Brian Ralph on the Comic's Jump to Netflix

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After creating perhaps the first ever first-person post apocalyptic zombie comic in Daybreak, Brian Ralph discusses the Netflix adaptation.

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The first thing that happens in Brian Ralph's 2011 graphic novel Daybreak is a character greeting you. Yes, in the very first panel a man in ragged clothing and missing an arm says "Hello" to you, the reader. In a novel approach to perspective, the reader is the main character of Daybreak as the story has you head off on a post-apocalyptic adventure filled with common dangers and a mass of zombie-like creatures called "ghoulies."

"It was always the intention for the story to be written in the first-person point of view," Ralph, the Savannah based cartoonist and professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) says. Daybreak was Ralph's third graphic novel after Cave In and Climbing Out and is now set to become the first to be adapted.

read more: Daybreak Review (Spoiler Free)

Netflix stepped up to the plate to adapt the unique and challenge in Daybreak into a TV series. In doing so, the streamer has introduced a high school element into Ralph's post-apocalyptic world, complete with a first person narration to pay capture the sensibility of the original. We spoke with Ralph about writing Daybreak, his thoughts on Netflix's adaptation strategy, and the challenges of teaching the sequential arts. 

Annoyingly broad question to begin, I know, but where did the inspiration for Daybreak come from? I’m just curious about its origins as you recall them.

Turning Daybreak into something more than a comic book has been a long time coming – the book itself was published in 2012. The comic book developed out of the need for a creative outlet that was on par with playing video games. At the time, I was a professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design within its sequential arts department (where I still work now) and wasn’t gaming all that often.

While I was trying to find things to fill the gap, I realized I was missing the adventure aspect – the way finding though uncharted territory, the problem solving, the world building… everything. So I decided to write a book that could complete with a video game! It was a slow process, but as I teach my students, you need to fully develop the story. We teach our students to concept, create and revise so that they can adequately weave the narrative with their visual art to tell amazing stories.

How did you develop your interesting take on zombies or zombie-like creatures even? Were you a fan of the zombie and/or apocalyptic genres? Any inspirations?

When it comes to zombies, I’ve always been a fan and have explored the genre from just about every angle. In college, my friends and I watched a lot of zombie movies. What I liked was the ability to see the solutions devised by the characters on how to survive. I liked that they were slow – it gave characters time to problem solve and really come up with a clever solution. I was also in a zombie band, The Scared Stiffs, for a while. We dressed like zombies and sang songs from the point of view of zombies. It was pretty sweet.

I’ve also read several apocalyptic novels, but I’d say that my inspiration was drawn from books like The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Zone 1 by Colson Whitehead, and Into the Forest by Jean Hegland.

The first-person nature of the comic is a unique storytelling technique. Was it always the intention to tell the story from that perspective or did it develop along with the story? To your knowledge, is that something Netflix attempted to do with the show in its early stages?

It was always the intention for the story to be written in the first-person point of view. In the comic, the characters are talking to the reader so having that come through in the adaption was great. Brad Payton (the director) thought it would be a good idea for the main character, Josh, to break fourth wall and that’s where Ferris Bueller nod comes in. It’s a throwback to an '80s classic and Matthew Broderick as one of the stars just makes it that much better.

Speaking of Netflix, how did that deal come about and what was your level of involvement with the series? What did you make of the high school aspect they’ve gone with?

As I mentioned before, turning Daybreak into a movie or TV show has been a long time coming – I’ve worked with director Brad Payton for many years as he’s optioned the project out. But to back up, Brad found the comic while he was browsing in a comic book shop in L.A. and called me that night to talk about it. It took me a moment to realize he was who he said he was, but after that, it was full steam ahead. Over the course of a couple of hours, we talked about Brad’s vision for Daybreak, what he liked about it and also what it would need to be adapted for film or TV. I really liked what he had to say, and felt his additions only enhanced the story I had created.

read more: Bone Animated Series Coming to Netflix

It wasn’t until early 2018 that I found out Netflix was turning it into a TV show – from there it moved quickly and was amazing to see the world I had created come to life. Originally, I thought I wanted to have a lot of input and control over the adaption of my book. However, after hearing what Brad and the team had to say, I became much more open to the collaboration. As a professor at SCAD I teach my students that cross-disciplinary collaboration is at the core of every great project. By collaborating, you have the opportunity to learn from the best minds in a variety of industries, ultimately making your project better. All of the men and women working on the project are insanely talented – the best thing I could do for the book was let them do what they do best. The end result was a group that had given their all to the project and you could really see it shine through in their work.

In terms of the high school aspect, it seemed fitting! I think it was Brad that made the comment, but everyone can relate to the feeling of being in high school, the feeling of being “so over” this world and wishing you lived in another one. The apocalypse is that “other world” and really allows for the playing field to be leveled so to speak, and for everyone to reinvent themselves.

Do you feel that your works Cave In, Climbing Out, Daybreak work as a sort of spiritual trilogy? The titles alone in sequential order seem like they tell a little story. How did your storytelling and art evolve through each?

Yes – I do think that they are a part of a larger world. What that world is I’m still trying to figure out- so stay tuned! I think the art and storytelling have evolved over time, simply by the things that I’ve learned and seen throughout my time working in comics and teaching at SCAD.

How has teaching a sequential arts program changed or refined how you think about sequential arts/comics/graphic novels? It seems like the teaching of this art in an academic environment is still a relatively young endeavor. How do you go about developing coursework?

It's interesting, because what I teach is directly related, but also juxtaposed, with what I would consider “real life” work. I teach traditional sequential storytelling and the core elements like drawing, cartooning, and the known ways of storytelling. Like any creative endeavor, you have to have the foundational elements in place to make the piece an effective piece of art. For sequential arts you need to have elements like the character development, the problem being solved, or story arch, and know how to drive the story forward to keep the audience turning the page.  However, in my opinion, the best novels are the ones that break the rules and keep you guessing, so that’s what I try and do in my own work.

I teach my students the foundations and the parameters but want them to think of my classes as the “authority on how to break the rules” in order to create great stories. And while I give assignments that are asking students to make creative decisions, every assignment has a bit of a “wink” to it that allows for creativity.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

Alec Bojalad is TV Editor at Den of Geek and TCA member. Read more of his stuff here. Follow him at his creatively-named Twitter handle @alecbojalad

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Interview

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Alec Bojalad

Oct 17, 2019

Netflix

Daybreak

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[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: Cruising the Crunchy-Catalog: "DENKI-GAI"

What's “Cruising the Crunchy-Catalog”?

  Picking a new anime to watch may not be as difficult as stocking shelves, checking inventory, and running a cash register, but sometimes a little guidance comes in handy. “Cruising the Crunchy-Catalog” is on the job. Each week we provide additional information and cultural context to help anime fans determine whether or not they'd like to take an unknown series for a test drive.

    What's DENKI-GAI?

  DENKI-GAI is a 2014 TV anime with direction by Masafumi Sato and animation by Shin-Ei Animation. The series is based on the Denki-gai no Honya-san (“The Book-sellers of Electric Town”) manga by Asato Mizu that is serialized in Media Factory's Comic Flapper seinen manga magazine. Crunchyroll describes DENKI-GAI as follows:

    A blush-inducing, coming-of-age comedy about manga-loving book store employees!! The unique cast of characters -- all hard-core manga fans and maniacs of some sort -- work at comic shop “Uma no Hone.” On a daily basis, they display new releases, shrink-wrap comics, shudder at their lack of feminine qualities, question their love for porn literature…and basically have fun while working hard (?). Girls and guys call each other by nicknames and some begin to develop close relationships! It’s non-stop humor and romance in this book store rom-com!

    DENKI-GAI is a romantic office comedy with an otaku twist, in that all of the main characters work (and fall in love) in a busy bookstore that caters to the tastes of fans of anime, manga, light novels, visual novels, and video games.

    Verbal Puns and Visual Humor.

  DENKI-GAI has a lot of well-timed physical comedy, but it's also littered with sight gags and wordplay. For example, the title itself an oblique reference, since Akihabara is historically known as Akihabara Denki-Gai ("Akihabara Electric Town"). The store at which the main characters work is called Uma no Hone (“The Horse's Bone”), a reference to the real life doujinshi shop Toranoana (“The Tiger's Hole”), which is itself a reference to Tiger Mask.

    DENKI-GAI is filled with overt parodies of actual anime, manga, and video games, such as the To Heart spoof Die Heart or Attack on Uncle, a riff on Attack on Titan. The sight gags also come fast and furious in DENKI-GAI. Blink and you might miss a reference to My Neighbor Totoro, Neon Genesis Evangelion, or Crayon Shin-chan.

    The Holidays are a Time for Romance.

  DENKI-GAI has not one, not two, but three episodes with segments dedicated to Christmas and Valentine's Day, so some trivia about how Japan celebrates these Western holidays may be helpful to better understand the jokes. In Japan, Christmas is largely stripped of its religious connotations, and Christmas Eve in particular is considered a romantic time for lovers to spend time together and to exchange gifts.

    On Valentine's Day in Japan, women are supposed to give gifts of chocolate to the men in their lives, with hand-made chocolate indicating a deeper emotional connection. Men are expected to reciprocate on White Day by handing out gifts of white chocolate. Since the cast of DENKI-GAI are unlucky in love, neither holiday goes according to plan.

    Sense and Sensuality.

  Commercialism and eroticism have always been a part of the anime medium, but DENKI-GAI is remarkably sex-positive in how it addresses the marriage of these concepts. The series doesn't kink-shame, and it doesn't depict the erotic aspects of otaku pop culture as something worthy of derision or scorn.

    Instead, DENKI-GAI portrays a playful, happy, and healthy sexuality, where even the character in charge of making sure Umi no Hone complies with literary obscenity standards is free to admit her love of pornographic literature. It's a refreshing change-of-pace from the many manga and anime series where the sex lives of otaku serve as punchlines for mean-spirited jokes.

    Tender Moments.

  While the comedy in DENKI-GAI is broad, the romance aspects of the story are subdued and bittersweet. There are some genuinely touching moments, especially when characters lament past passions that have cooled in the present or when they address the idea of unrequited love.

    Limited Edition.

  Crunchyroll currently streams DENKI-GAI in 203 territories worldwide. The series is available in the original Japanese with English, Spanish, Latin American Spanish, French, Portuguese, and German subtitles. The series is also released on North American home video by Ponycan USA, although these sets are priced and marketed as collector's items.

    DENKI-GAI's love of pop culture media is reverent but not self-indulgent, its humor is sharp but not caustic, and its romance is sweet but not sappy. If you're in the mood for a lighthearted romantic comedy with some good-natured ribbing aimed at the business of making and selling anime and manga, consider giving DENKI-GAI a try.

    Is there a series in Crunchyroll's catalog that you think needs some more love and attention? Please send in your suggestions via e-mail to cruisingcrunchy@gmail.com or post a Tweet to @gooberzilla. Your pick could inspire the next installment of “Cruising the Crunchy-Catalog”!

  Paul Chapman is the host of The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast and GME! Anime Fun Time.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

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Sakura Wars Review (PS4) — The Dream is Back

April 29, 2020 10:00 AM EST

While it has been a long wait, Sakura Wars is a satisfying blend of everything that the franchise has done well for a new generation on PS4.

Claiming that Sakura Wars (aka Sakura Taisen) is a huge franchise is an understatement. The steampunk, East meets West stylized series featuring courageous women who act as a theater revue by day and fight demons at night left a huge mark on Japanese pop culture and on anyone who encountered it. When Sega and Red Entertainment released the first Sakura Taisen game on Sega Saturn in 1996, it made history with its peculiar aforementioned mix of genres and atmospheres. Most notably, it mixed various dating simulator, tactical RPG, and adventure elements (what we commonly call visual novels in English) together. By far, it wasn’t the first game that strove to create mixes like these. Red Entertainment themselves weren’t at their first attempt, as Sakura Taisen followed in the footsteps of games such as the Galaxy Fräulein Yuna series.

Sakura Taisen, however, is the first franchise of its kind that managed to reach such mainstream stardom, at least in Japan. This is in part thanks to a very unorthodox idea back then that the franchise pulled off. The seiyuu, Japanese voice actresses and actors, of Sakura Taisen would all regularly hold “Kayou Shows”–musicals similar to the ones that players experienced in-game–that greatly contributed to establish the franchise’ cult status. Putting the seiyuu themselves in the spotlight through stage events, streams and radio shows is usual nowadays, but it was a very novel idea back then, as Sakura Taisen‘s original author Oji Hiroi recently pointed out. Today, many game and anime franchises all do their own stage play musicals in the same vein.

While the Sakura Taisen series reached a conclusion with Sakura Taisen 4 in 2002, followed by a standalone Sakura Taisen V in 2005 (the sole episode that officially left Japan), the series never truly stopped. Indeed, the mainline game part stayed dormant, but anime, manga adaptations and spinoffs, mobile games, apparitions in crossovers such as Project X Zone, and real life events such as art expositions kept it rolling around over the years. And last but not least, the Kayou Shows continued for all these years. Fan demand for a new game never relented, and Sakura Taisen is such a big piece of Sega’s (and gaming) history that culturally and business-wise, a game comeback was only a matter of time. When, and how, were the main questions. And the answer is this brand new PlayStation 4 game, titled Shin Sakura Taisen/New Sakura Wars in Japan, and simply rebranded as Sakura Wars overseas.

Sakura Wars brings back the franchise that everyone loved in a magnificent way, all while making it accessible to neophytes.

Sakura Wars, the PS4 game, is the first main game of the series in 15 years. Officially announced in March 2018 and revealed in March 2019, Sakura Wars is Sega’s attempt to fully relaunch the franchise worldwide, hence why a localization in multiple languages was announced from the get-go. The game is accompanied with its own novel, manga, and a multitude of new crossover collaborations and goods. Seeing the game is already available in Japan since December 2019, an anime sequel also started this April. A stage play was planned as well, but was sadly canceled due to COVID-19.

To be honest, as I relentlessly covered Sakura Wars news via the monthly streams that Sega organized for the game, part of myself was scared. I asked a lot of different questions to myself: “What if the game sucks? What if they only show the good parts on stream? What if I end up hating it?” I’ve rarely been this scared of being disappointed when it comes to my hobbies. It would have been incredibly painful to see the series fail its comeback and fall into oblivion. As I grabbed the game in Japanese, part of my doubts were dispelled after spending some time on it. I even attempted live translating part of the game to show my enthusiasm and spread awareness. Now with this English version, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time with the game, and I can finally affirm this now, with conviction: Sakura Wars brings back the franchise that everyone loved in a magnificent way, all while making it accessible to neophytes.

“Sakura Wars is an ADV, a pure and thorough Adventure game akin to what we call visual novels, and should be approached as such.”

Sakura Wars works both as a sequel and as a reboot. The game’s intro explains how the cast from the previous games all disappeared after a decisive battle against the demons, and introduces instead a brand new cast of main characters. Players are put in the role of Seijuro Kamiyama, a young, talented ex-marine ship captain, who’s now assigned as the captain of the Flower Division. The Flower Division is the core battle and theater unit of the Imperial Combat Revue, protecting Tokyo from demons. All big cities in the current world of Sakura Wars similarly have their own Combat Revues, and they are about to participate in a big tournament to hone their skills. However, the Imperial Combat Revue is facing both a financial and identity crisis, and it’ll be up to Kamiyama to give the Flower Division members the trust they need to overcome their issues and win the tournament, all while fighting off a new demon threat.

You might be wondering why I’ve yet to touch upon the gameplay aspect of Sakura Wars in this review, but you’ve actually been experiencing it already if you’ve read this far. Just like its predecessors, Sakura Wars is an ADV, a pure and thorough Adventure game akin to what we call visual novels, and should be approached as such. You’ll be spending the vast majority of your time in the game reading the dialogue and events unfolding as you control Kamiyama and interact with the characters.

The game reintroduces the series’ LISP system, which are short-timed dialogue choices selected with the directional stick. This aims to make the players realistically think about their words and strengthen immersion. Most of the time, players will have a clear choice between either acting in a positive and gentle way (Top Choice), in a harsh and stern way (Left Choice), or being some kind of creep or clown (Right Choice). Beyond these obvious dialogue choices, you’ll have to do your best to figure out the characters’ feelings, as always picking cliche anime lines about friendship and love won’t work. Kamiyama himself isn’t a self-insert; he has his own personality, and will choose his own words in certain crucial moments, where you’ll instead be urged to pick the intensity of said words.

“All of the concepts and mechanics unique to the Sakura Taisen series have been tirelessly thought over by the development team. They have all been improved and adapted to 3D.”

The true difference in Sakura Wars compared to its predecessors isn’t the change from a tactical RPG system to action RPG elements for its battles; I’ll get to that later. It’s the fact that the game has switched to full 3D. This is a revolution for the series, and Sega made the best out of it. The past games let you roam around the Imperial Theater, which is the Imperial Combat Revue’s base of operations, via a 2D map where characters were represented in Super-Deformed, SD style. When you triggered dialogue with other characters, the games switched to a visual novel-like style, with the characters illustrated with 2D artworks and occasional anime cutscenes. It had (and still has) its charm.

On the opposite side, Sakura Wars lets you explore its environments in full 3D. This choice wasn’t simply fueled by a desire to make the series more appealing to a new generation of players. All of the concepts and mechanics unique to the Sakura Taisen series have been tirelessly thought over by the development team. They have all been improved and adapted to 3D. Exploring the Imperial Theater and the city has never felt so rewarding and immersive. While each area barring the Imperial Theater is quite small, they are packed with small details, fun NPCs, and points of interests. Kamiyama’s own thoughts and observations when inspecting elements will evolve together with the story. Sakura Wars is full of intricate world-building, most notably thanks to the contribution of military specialist and world setting advisor genius Takaaki Suzuki. Simply heading to your next main objective pointed out on the Teletron, Kamiyama’s steam-technology powered smartphone, will probably only make you experience half of the game. You’ll end up missing a myriad of optional events, which aren’t necessarily pointed out on the map, Bromides to collect (photographic portraits of the characters), minigames, and lore.

The most striking aspect introduced thanks to 3D is how Sakura Wars handles its dialogue and events. Nearly all the dialogue is presented through in-engine cutscenes, and each one is stunning. Except during their pre-rendered cutscenes, I dare you to find any other typically Japanese game with as much camerawork, screenplay, and especially lively characters during dialogue. Be it Yakuza, Persona, the Tales series, Ni no Kuni, or any offerings from smaller independent studios like Falcom or Nippon Ichi Software, the characters will most certainly simply be standing there when chatting. Most of the time in several of those games, you will be cycling through minimal, prepared in-advance movements and expressions.

Meanwhile, Sakura Wars feels as if specific movement patterns and facial expressions were tailor-made for every single dialogue in the game. They’re always on-point with the discussion and emotions conveyed by the characters. This is so disconcerting compared to what Japanese games usually offer that I’m convinced some players will dislike how the characters in Sakura Wars are constantly in movement. In-universe it makes perfect sense, as the members of the Combat Revues are all used to performing arts and expressing themselves with their bodies.

“Only 60% to 70% of Sakura Wars‘ dialogue is voiced, and it’s the biggest disappointment that I have with the game. It’s especially jarring to see such incredible vivid dialogue scenes being left unvoiced.”

As for the ever-changing expressions of the characters, you might have heard how multiple artists have worked on Sakura Wars. The original character design of the main cast was handled by Bleach‘s Kubo Tite. Other original character designers handled side characters in the game, and we have K-On‘s Yukiko Horiguchi, Sword Art Online‘s Bunbun, Strike Witches‘ Fumikane Shimada, Pokemon‘s Ken Sugimori, Haruhi Suzumiya‘s Noizi Ito, and Persona‘s Shigenori Soejima. However, it’s important to note that similarly with an anime’s production, another single character designer redrew all the designs so that they’re easy to animate and more uniform. That task was handled by Masashi Kudo, who did a terrific job. In fact, Masashi Kudo in the past did the exact same job with Kubo Tite’s designs on the Bleach anime. As such, there’s absolutely no sense of disunity when it comes to the characters’ designs, despite the various artists.

Sadly, overall, I’d say only 60% to 70% of Sakura Wars‘ dialogue is voiced, and it’s the biggest disappointment that I have with the game. It’s especially jarring to see such incredible vivid dialogue scenes being left unvoiced. Sega’s auditioning for the game, which included singing–seeing as each character has their own theme song–brought us an all-star and talented cast of seiyuu. It’s a huge shame they didn’t get to fully demonstrate their skills. Pre-rendered anime cutscenes are back too, and are in 3D as well. These were handled by famous 3D anime studio Sanzigen. Ironically, the sole lackluster visual aspect of Sakura Wars lies in some of its 2D illustrations used to depict certain scenes in the game, with some of them being of varying quality. Going out of your way to interact with the characters and experience as much of the dialogue as possible, the core gameplay will have a direct influence on the minor gameplay elements, the battles.

“Rather than the battles, what makes Sakura Wars so good is definitely its cast. It’s a purely character-driven experience.”

Each story chapter in Sakura Wars follows a typical mecha anime pattern, with the characters heading to sortie near the chapter’s conclusion, setting up a fight scene for the climax. Characters in the Sakura Taisen franchise fight demons using Combat Armors, which are mecha powered by steam and magical spirit energy, mixing steampunk and fantasy elements. This is where a stern warning is due: you definitely shouldn’t expect to be playing a traditional JRPG. Sakura Wars and its predecessors do not feature numbers to grind, equipment to maintain and skills to learn. The only variable which makes your characters stronger, or weaker, are their Trust Levels, the only way to influence Trust Levels are through your dialogue choices. There’s no real changes to the battle system throughout the whole game, except for Team Attacks that you’ll unlock as you increase Trust.

The battle stages aren’t that big and are globally pretty easy. If you do get a game over, you’ll always be able to restart with extra help. While there are many different types of enemies, none of them will stay etched in your memory. The only exception are the bosses, all introduced with huge on-screen Kanji, following Sakura Taisen tradition, and something you might be acquainted with through Skies of Arcadia and Valkyria Chronicles.

As an important note, the battle system of the original Japanese release of the game had no lock-on system and instead used an automatic homing function, which made it hard to hit flying enemies, most notably. This isn’t a problem anymore as a patch has long been released, adding a lock-on system, a better radar, limited button remapping, being able to save anytime, and last but not least, a dialogue log with voice playback. These improvements will be included in the Western version, so make sure to download the day one patch. However, the patch was only made available to reviewers a little bit before embargo, so some reviews might mistakenly point out these faults, even though they are now patched.

In any case, you’ll only be fighting for around 20 minutes for about every 3 hours of gameplay, and despite being so simple, the battles are still fun and do their job well. The battles, like the rest of the game, are also filled by cool dialogue and incredible cutscenes, including dialogue choices. The music by the legendary Kohei Tanaka (One Piece, Gravity Rush, among others) is always on-point as well, and it’s the combination of these factors that makes these climaxes so awesome. But ultimately, the battle system of Sakura Wars in itself is marginal. Rather than changing from a tactical RPG to action RPG, the battle system might as well have switched to Sega’s match-three puzzle game Columns, and it wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Rather than the battles, what makes Sakura Wars so good is definitely its cast. It’s a purely character-driven experience. Japanese games tend to traditionally include a stereotypical cast, which gradually shows its uniqueness as you play. Sakura Taisen is and always was the culmination of this concept. The protagonists fight to protect the world and follow huge cliches based on their country of origin. The villains simply wish to see humans suffer for no reason. Everything is cheesy, but it works terribly well. The original script, written by 428 Shibuya Scramble‘s director Jiro Ishii, doesn’t stray from these traditions of the Sakura Taisen series, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Each chapter mostly focuses on a single main character, but all the others will play a role too. This is especially true for the second half of the game, when all the characters have already gone through a good chunk of development. Each character’s individuality slowly unveils itself through the multitude of dialogue events, and you just can’t help but fall in love with the characters.

Ultimately, while we might call it a dating sim, Sakura Wars is quite different from most. Of course, in the same vein as its stereotypical characters and plot, Sakura Wars is also filled with cliche anime situations. Kamiyama often finds himself in “lucky pervert” incidents depending of your choices. I’d add Sakura Taisen is one of the few franchises that manages to make sexual fan service moments and “romantic comedy” misunderstandings like these actually comedic and funny. Still, you shouldn’t expect anything steamy to happen, as even the unlockable optional flirting scenes are very tame. Indeed, your true goal in Sakura Wars isn’t to whoo girls, it’s to make the team members feel at home and have a place where to belong. I believe this is why the nomenclature of the series always used “Trust Levels” instead of “Affection” or “Love” levels.

Moreover, while we control Kamiyama, the true protagonist of this new Sakura Wars is Sakura Amamiya, the most devoted member of the Flower Division, who aims to restore the Imperial Combat Revue to its former glory. While the game includes a dive into each main character’ psychology and worries, everything revolves around Sakura Amamiya. She’s the sole character on the game’s case artwork, the first character you see in the opening anime sequence, and she’s the one getting a typical mecha anime midseason upgrade. It’s not a baseless choice as to why the ongoing manga version and sequel anime both put the spotlight on her.

Sakura Wars might even be too much centered around Sakura Amamiya at times. Most side characters, and those who belong to the other Combat Revues fought during the tournament, barely interact for most of the game with the main cast besides Kamiyama and Sakura Amamiya. Moreover, while the tournament battles are centered around 3 vs 3 team battles, only two members of each Combat Revue we face off against are introduced. Their third combatant is always a nameless, faceless character we’re never introduced to.

Nonetheless, in Sakura Wars the girls are always the true stars of the stage. This approach is one of the many reasons why the franchise as a whole is so inspiring and attractive to anyone, despite being a dating simulator for hetero male anime otaku. Furthermore, Sakura Amamiya idolizes Sakura Shinguji, one of the main characters of the past games in the series, which brings us to the final important point; how meta this Sakura Wars is.

“Overall I’ve rarely seen a game manage to deliver a commentary on itself, all while handling fan service perfectly, brimming with love and respect for its own legacy.”

The first part of Sakura Wars‘ story features an obsolete Imperial Combat Revue shunned by all and on the verge of shutting down. It’s almost as if the game is reflecting the image of the franchise itself in the eyes of younger folks who didn’t live through it. Then, you’d be amazed at the numbers of NPCs who trashtalk the new characters while singing the praise of the old ones. Sega is fully aware of grumpy fans who claimed on social media that instead of a new cast, they’d rather have the ex-main characters back even if they were into their senior years. Players can regularly learn about the previous cast via the Imperial Theater’s archives, with Kamiyama sharing words of admiration. And then you have Itsuki, an embodiment of the good fan, with whom you can fangirl with while chatting about both the old and new characters.

As a newcomer or as an oldtimer, your overall opinion of the game and its characters will grow positively as you play, exactly mirroring how the Imperial Combat Revue slowly regain its fame through the main story, making for a unique experience. Overall I’ve rarely seen a game manage to deliver a commentary on itself, all while handling fan service perfectly, brimming with love and respect for its own legacy. I clearly remember the excitement I’d feel when I was a kid looping the Sakura Taisen games’ anime opening sequences while dreaming of playing the series. Experiencing Sakura Wars on PS4 feels exactly like that. The dream is back.

Before concluding, I’d also throw in a word regarding the English localization of Sakura Wars. As I mentioned earlier on, I’ve partly played the Japanese version, and I must say that the English translation is amazing. Despite the Japanese heavy setting, It doesn’t go with the simple choice of keeping Japanese terms and honorifics, and yet still retains what makes the series’ atmosphere so unique, and conveys everything that needs to be conveyed. Every ten lines I was in awe and reminded of how much I suck as a translator.

In conclusion, while Sakura Wars never feels like it cuts corners, you can clearly tell, with the lack of full-voice acting or the nameless third combatants thing, that Sega didn’t fully believe in themselves. Sega is incredibly eager to make the series reach glory again, and brought to the development team all-star artists, writers and seiyuu, but at the same time was reluctant and wary. They believed in this comeback but lacked conviction to put more resources on the table, which is slightly disappointing. A more ambitious and polished sequel would definitely have the potential to become one of the most iconic Japanese games in years, similarly to Persona 5. With full voice acting this time, even denser content, more interactions between the main and side casts, and an attempt to make the battle parts into something more than narrative climaxes, you’d have the formula for a masterpiece. Sales would follow suit, boosting the franchise’s popularity worldwide, and we could even see the past games finally get official localization.

Unless you religiously scorn the act known as reading, there is absolutely no reason to avoid grabbing Sakura Wars on PS4. If you’ve read the integrity of this review, you need to hurry up and grab the game right the hell now. It’ll make you discover a fresh universe full of surprise. If you’re a complete stranger to this culture, it will surely be the game that makes you realize what’s so good about Japanese games, anime and manga. In an era where the most exported Japanese cultural products are battle stories inspired by Dragon Ball, playing Sakura Wars can be a gateway that will definitely broaden your horizons.

April 29, 2020 10:00 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/04/sakura-wars-review-ps4-the-dream-is-back/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sakura-wars-review-ps4-the-dream-is-back

[micaramel]

Artist: Pati Hill

Venue: Kunstverein München

Exhibition Title: Something other than either

Date: March 7 – May 31, 2020

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of Kunstverein München and the Pati Hill Collection, Arcadia University. Photos by Sebastian Kissel. 

Press Release:

This spring, Kunstverein München presents Pati Hill’s first posthumous institutional solo exhibition in Europe. Hill (b. 1921 in Ashland, Kentucky, USA; d. 2014 in Sens, France) left behind an artistic output spanning roughly 60 years and encompassing various disciplines. Untrained as an artist, she began to use the photocopier as an artistic tool in the early 1970s and continued to do so until her death, leaving behind an extensive oeuvre that explores the relationship between image and text. In addition to this comprehensive body of xerographic work, she published four novels, a memoir, several short stories, artist’s books, and poetry. Drawing also became an essential part of her practice. 

The multidimensionality of Hill’s motifs and the stark lighting that seems to emanate from the photocopier’s depths distinguish her work from iconographic examples of Pop Art and offer another historical reading of that era. In addition to the primary works that Hill conceived for exhibitions during her lifetime, the presentation at Kunstverein München also encompasses a large portion of works that have never been shown before. 

By using the copier—a machine that was stereotypically linked to secretarial work and thus to feminized labor—to trace everyday objects such as a comb, a carefully folded pair of men’s trousers, or a child’s toy, Hill developed an artistic practice that programmatically translated invisible domestic labor into a visual and public language. Through her use of this reproductive apparatus, she created a model of artistic production that critically opposes the convention of individual expression as well as the supposed neutrality of technologically produced images. 

For example, the series Informational Art that Hill began in 1962 took printed diagrams and instructions from product packaging as their subject matter. Whether it was through detailed illustrations that showed housewives how to carve meat or instructions about how to make a doll dance, Hill was interested in arranging quasi-narrative sequences and the subsequent juxtapositions and coincidences of text and image that emerged. In 1975, Hill published the book Slave Days with financial support from the poet James Merrill. The book is comprised of 29 poems thematizing the partly fictionalized everyday lives of housewives, which were then juxtaposed with 31 xerographs. Slave Days was Hill’s first work to combine her xerographs with her own texts, which also described the production site of the works with a sinister humor. In one poem she notes that “Heaven’s door is open to us like a big vacuum cleaner,” thus resignedly outlining the limits of her own spaces of agency. Here, Hill doesn’t use the xerographs as material for a collage or the starting point for further production, but rather presents them alongside her texts as independent works. She thus had a sense of production and reception being equally important parts of her practice. Even though she mostly worked outside of an institutional context and exhibited irregularly, she also wrote about the process of publishing: “I have always thought publishing should be like taking your clothes to the laundromat.” 

In her 1981 book Women, Race and Class, American author and civil-rights activist Angela Davis explains how women’s labor has been devalued under advanced capitalism. The separation of domestic labor from immediate profit means that women “can seldom produce tangible evidence of their work.” Hill’s works can certainly be seen in this context. In the series Garments, for example, she documents various pieces of clothing, like corsets or riding pants, whose reproduced images are characterized by high-contrast lighting as well as specific interventions with the copying machine, such as adding excess toner. It almost seems as though the glass platen of the copier is actually helping to fold the clothes, thus testifying to this otherwise invisible form of domestic labor. Hill deployed the copier’s ability to flatten objects to surprisingly dramatic effect, and thus also made the process of image-making the subject of her work. Hill doesn’t try to visualize the invisible as in some of her other works. Instead, she reveals the uncanny aspects of the familiar and questions its everydayness. 

Already in the 60s, Hill had conceived of the private sphere as a site of political resistance. Several years before she began working with the copier, she wrote a short novel titled An Angry French Housewife that described a series of transgressions against heteronormative relationship models and was later published together with a number of xerographs under the title Impossible Dreams. At the same time, she worked on the series Dreams Objects Moments. Increasingly frustrated by the lack of access to her copier of choice, the IBM Copier II, she began creating short texts for “[…] an exhibition that conveyed my feelings about copier work without requiring the use of a copier.” By using colored paper—green for Dreams, pink for Objects, and yellow for Moments—Hill created elements of what she described as filters of how we receive and classify information by occasionally confusing the respective categories. 

In 1977, Pati Hill met the designer and architect Charles Eames on a transatlantic flight. Through his consulting work for the IT company International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), he finally helped Hill access her long-coveted machine of choice. By 1979 she had used it to create two significant series of works, which differ formally but similarly pursue the destabilization of narration. Hill developed drafts for a universal sign language under the title Proposal for a Universal Language of Symbols. Shortly thereafter she wrote Eames to share her wish for the symbols to be “returned to their original position amongst us…where things were what they seemed.” The second series was Alphabet of Common Objects, one of Hill’s most important works. Arranged in a grid, the 45 images that comprise this work convey the potential that she attributed to visual communication. Moreover, her classification of the objects as alphabetic implies a “linguistic” quality in these images. 

The series Men and Women in Sleeping Cars, made in the late 70s, is one of the very few examples that features people in her oeuvre, here sourced from advertising campaigns for the railway industry. Hill never made her own body the subject of her works. She thus stood apart, both formally and thematically, from the dominant tendencies in feminist art production of the 70s and 80s, where the female body was often taken as the starting point in order to extract it from a system of fetishizing and objectifying representations. Through her successful work as a couture model at a young age, Hill was confronted very early on with the dominance of the male gaze, which she negotiated accordingly in her work, only to go beyond this in her later artistic production. In Letters to Jill. A Catalogue and Some Notes on Copying from 1979, she writes: “Many copy artists are women and only copy themselves. I don’t copy myself, but images were made of me for years, and this gave me a sense of reality. The reality of an object perhaps.”

Ironically, the copier was invented by a patent attorney and finally led to a fundamental questioning of the concepts of ownership and authorship as well as the eventual strengthening of copyright law. The discourse around questions of appropriation, original and copy, seriality and authenticity were not only at the heart of Copy Art from the 1970s onwards, but are also inherent to contemporary art. This is, in part, what makes the first comprehensive presentation of Hill’s work so relevant today. Though it takes the artist’s visual work as the primary starting point, the exhibition also considers her writing, publishing, and editing as practices that both question and accompany the visual work. As a fragmentary, necessarily incomplete index of her engagement with image and text (re-)production, the show includes published novels, poems, sketchbooks, unpublished manuscripts, and letters in addition to the xerographs. 

As part of the exhibition, a reprint of her publication Letters to Jill will be made available. In this 128-page book, Pati Hill explains the status of the copier and her working process in her own words to her New York gallerist Jill Kornblee, with whom she had a total of five solo exhibitions between 1975 and 1979. These texts shed light on Hill’s relationship to excerpts and examples from earlier projects, making this publication a valuable document of her activity as an author, which encompassed both production and reception, a duality that was at the core of her artistic output. 

Link: Pati Hill at Kunstverein München

from Contemporary Art Daily https://bit.ly/39IuSgx