Advanced Spatialities

ion of an ‘original’ reality rich in variety was transformed, via an abstract model, into a new reality – the space of the world is flow, structured flow according to functions, and it became not only an augementation device for a primordial reality already existing, but the reality, the world perceived as relevant. It started with the appliance of cybernetic models to shape the most diverse real issues, it continued to unfold with processes described in Manuel Castells’ Information Society with its “abstract instrumentalism”[3, p.3], and it now ended with the type of game we want to describe. What does this all mean? It means that we cannot understand the phenomena outlined in the examination to come without considering the historical context inside which they had evolved. Moreover, it means that the attempt to “augment” an existing reality, to meliorate it towards something perceived as better or (at least) more feasible has a long tradition inside our cultural sphere; in pursue of a myth of progress, the given reality has to be transformed (augmented), it is not allowed to stay as it is, for the respective time being, but has to be constantly improved, reworked. In its essence, it is a utopian approach in its literal meaning – the topos of the existing isn’t enough, we have to establish models for a better reality by abstracting from the existing, and the abstraction – the augmented version of the being as a model – has to be then, has to become reality. This is the overall move the following findings ground upon. Goal of this paper is to give a deeper understanding of the ability of the game to re-render the user’s perception of the city he lives in, as a concrete entity, and the implications this might have for the way he interacts with the places he visits. And aligned to it, our goal is to show that the actual destruction of space through augmenting it is not an isolated phenomenon restricted to “some” games but a general tendency of the historical epoch we live in. So, we want to show how the phenomena of games issued here are embedded in this general tendency, them being just one apex (amongst others) of this tendency. Gamifying Reality Let’s start with games. To explore the consequences of the game design of one popular example of a location-based game (Foursquare) to the perception of reality, we have to limit this perception of reality to the perception of place and space in general. It is about the implications regarding the perception of uniqueness of a place, making the latter to the entity it (originally, and genuinely) is, in having its own history and location in space; for instance, when you take the market place of an old town, embodying a specific, unique, and hence, individual place inside the frames of its surroundings of the town space it is located in. Our thesis is that this uniqueness, a necessary precondition for being a place and a space as well, is destroyed by the game, and therefore, that an anthropological basic condition for orienting oneself gets destroyed altogether. This might have far-reaching consequences for perceiving not only one’s environment, but for perceiving oneself as well. Exemplifying Foursquare is justified by both the popularity of the game [4] and the very simple game rules it uses. Foursquare, in general, is a prototype of a special kind of location-based game, the geosocial game, which by the term implies that it deals with location and social interaction. Goal of the game is to provide a mechanism to share information about the places one visits – to be more specific: to share the message about the fact of visiting a specific place – and the experiences at these places with the peer group in a playful manner. Foursquare therefore can be seen as a digital diary (a life log [5]) of all visited locations and as a geographically bound undirected communication channel to your peer group and the rest of the user base. Therefore, Foursquare can be seen as an augmentation of reality as it enhances the reality with (not obvious) information about the place. It means that it “enhances” the genuine, i. e. original place with characteristics not intrinsically belonging to that place and by that, turns the place in question into something different, 8 more pages are available in the full version of this document, which may be purchased using the "Add to Cart" button on the product's webpage: www.igi-global.com/article/advancedspatialities/85523?camid=4v1 This title is available in InfoSci-Journals, InfoSci-Journal Disciplines Communications and Social Science. Recommend this product to your librarian: www.igi-global.com/e-resources/libraryrecommendation/?id=2