Digital Historicism: Archival Footage, Digital Interface, and Historiographic Effects in Call of Duty: World at War

Jaimie Baron
{"title":"Digital Historicism: Archival Footage, Digital Interface, and Historiographic Effects in Call of Duty: World at War","authors":"Jaimie Baron","doi":"10.7939/R3BZ61B56","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Historical videogames offer the promise of a new relationship between the reader of history and the account of an historical event, potentially transforming the “reader” of history into the active “user” or even “maker” of history. Indeed, the concept of historical videogames suggests that the user may play an active part in the construction of historical narratives and, thereby, in the implications of these historical events for the present. In this paper, I examine the appropriation of indexical archival documents into two instances of what I call “digital historicism” – the videogame Call of Duty: World at War (Activision, 2008) and the database narrative Tracing the Decay of Fiction: Encounters with a Film by Pat O’Neill (Pat O’Neill, Rosemary Comella, and Kristy H.A. Kang, 2002) – and their respective historiographic effects. I argue that the appropriations of indexical archival footage in each of these two digital media works produce in the user a phenomenological experience of the documentary “real,” but at the same time shape and limit the meanings that may be attributed to this footage. Indeed, I suggest that Call of Duty, while at the cutting edge of game design, imports and reinforces a conservative and even reactionary historiographic model into the emergent genre of digital history. Moreover, I argue that although Tracing the Decay of Fiction offers a less teleological and more open-ended encounter with the historical past, it is precisely its lack of a singular narrative that may ultimately (and paradoxically) undermine the user’s sense of historiographic agency as she is confronted with the unruly indexical traces of the past.","PeriodicalId":247562,"journal":{"name":"Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture","volume":" 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2010-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"17","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R3BZ61B56","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 17

Abstract

Historical videogames offer the promise of a new relationship between the reader of history and the account of an historical event, potentially transforming the “reader” of history into the active “user” or even “maker” of history. Indeed, the concept of historical videogames suggests that the user may play an active part in the construction of historical narratives and, thereby, in the implications of these historical events for the present. In this paper, I examine the appropriation of indexical archival documents into two instances of what I call “digital historicism” – the videogame Call of Duty: World at War (Activision, 2008) and the database narrative Tracing the Decay of Fiction: Encounters with a Film by Pat O’Neill (Pat O’Neill, Rosemary Comella, and Kristy H.A. Kang, 2002) – and their respective historiographic effects. I argue that the appropriations of indexical archival footage in each of these two digital media works produce in the user a phenomenological experience of the documentary “real,” but at the same time shape and limit the meanings that may be attributed to this footage. Indeed, I suggest that Call of Duty, while at the cutting edge of game design, imports and reinforces a conservative and even reactionary historiographic model into the emergent genre of digital history. Moreover, I argue that although Tracing the Decay of Fiction offers a less teleological and more open-ended encounter with the historical past, it is precisely its lack of a singular narrative that may ultimately (and paradoxically) undermine the user’s sense of historiographic agency as she is confronted with the unruly indexical traces of the past.
查看原文
分享 分享
微信好友 朋友圈 QQ好友 复制链接
本刊更多论文
数字历史主义:《使命召唤:战争世界》中的档案素材、数字界面和历史效应
历史电子游戏为历史读者和历史事件的叙述提供了一种新的关系,有可能将历史的“读者”转变为活跃的“用户”,甚至是历史的“创造者”。事实上,历史电子游戏的概念表明,用户可以在历史叙述的构建中发挥积极作用,从而在这些历史事件对当前的影响中发挥积极作用。在本文中,我研究了索引档案文件的盗用,并将其纳入我所谓的“数字历史主义”的两个实例中——电子游戏《使命召唤:战争世界》(动视,2008)和数据库叙事《追踪小说的衰落:与Pat O 'Neill的电影相遇》(Pat O 'Neill, Rosemary Comella和Kristy H.A. Kang, 2002)——以及它们各自的历史编纂效果。我认为,在这两种数字媒体作品中,对索引档案片段的挪用在用户中产生了纪录片“真实”的现象学体验,但同时也塑造和限制了可能归因于这些片段的意义。事实上,我认为《使命召唤》虽然处于游戏设计的前沿,但却将保守甚至反动的历史模型引入并强化到新兴的数字历史类型中。此外,我认为,尽管《追寻小说的衰败》提供了一种较少目的论的、更开放的与历史的相遇,但正是它缺乏单一的叙述,最终(而且矛盾地)削弱了读者在面对难以驾驭的过去的索引痕迹时的历史能动性。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 去求助
来源期刊
CiteScore
0.90
自引率
0.00%
发文量
0
期刊最新文献
Playing on life's terms Reimagining a future for game studies, from the ground up A future already past? Time to stop playing Young video game players’ self-identified toxic gaming behaviour
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
现在去查看 取消
×
提示
确定
0
微信
客服QQ
Book学术公众号 扫码关注我们
反馈
×
意见反馈
请填写您的意见或建议
请填写您的手机或邮箱
已复制链接
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
×
扫码分享
扫码分享
Book学术官方微信
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术
文献互助 智能选刊 最新文献 互助须知 联系我们:info@booksci.cn
Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。
Copyright © 2023 Book学术 All rights reserved.
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号 京ICP备2023020795号-1