The Aesthetics of Human-Machine Interaction: Generative Textuality in Hello Games’s No Man’s Sky

ABSTRACT Generative design is the artistic practice where an artist uses external systems (rules, algorithms, organic processes) to complete an artwork. Commonly utilized in video game design, generative design suggests an aesthetics of human-machine interaction, as machine decision-making partially shapes the experience of the player. In generative games, then, the relationship between designer, system, and audience dynamically shapes the conception, production, and reception of the game as a text. The interaction between designer, system, and audience unfolds in three ways. Firstly, by applying generative methods, the designer is explicitly de-centered, instead creating an environment in which systems somewhat-autonomously interact with entities. Secondly, generative games frame players as both entities within the game-world and agents from outside of it. Thirdly, generative games produce unexpected or emergent outcomes. Emergence is a product of the tension between decisions made by designer, system, and player(s). In essence, generative games produce novel worlds into which players are thrown, forcing them to learn to dwell within them. As Gianni Vattimo argues in Art’s Claim to Truth, in such artworks where “the hermeneutic circle is conceived in more existentialist terms, the act of interpretation is dramatized” (85). Further analysis of the interpretive drama found in games which utilize generative methods, especially as these texts continue to pervade popular culture and daily life, can unpack theories of intentionality, presence, and creativity in modern digital contexts. To elaborate these theories, I examine generative methods found in Hello Games’s No Man’s Sky. In this game the relationship between designer, text, and player produces emergent narratives with each subjective experience of the text, suggesting that human-machine interaction is inherently processual and relational.