Imagery and pictographs in a videogame

With a serious career interest in game design and theory, it is easy for me to overlook how people play games. I am often too far caught up with mechanics and balance, ensuring that a game is not unfair, to notice that sometimes people can have trouble playing the game itself. This brings me back to the basics, as they say, and I want to consider very early games, iconography, and the arguments presented by Drucker and McGann in their article "Images as Text: Pictographs and Pictographic Logic."

In the article, our authors argue that ideas and knowledge are not only contained within pictographs, but also within their structure, location, orientation, and construction material. Before continuing with their thought, I thought it important to also note the manner in which the authors write. While the authors create an article that I agree with, I feel that their writing was, shall we say, soporific? I too can use expensive adjectives and adverbs, yet the writing would be no better. The arguments aren't intensely simple, but maybe reading the original paper would go better given more careful attention to vocabulary. There; diatribe over.

Anyways, after reading the article, I considered one of the first games I have ever played, and how pictographs were an intrinsic nature of learning and playing the game. 'Super Mario Bros.,' originally released on the Nintendo console, is still a classic. There are only a handful of times where text is seen, be it an on-screen timer or an apology for a missing princess. As such, everything must be learned by the player, and at a very cruel method. Unlike today's games, lives were in short supply, continues unavailable, and death quick and brutal. Despite all this, the game was not impossible and much was learned through observation.

One such example of pictography are the question blocks. Shown here, they were special blocks that once broken open could give coins or powerups.  In turn, these powerups were uniquely shaped. They could be a mushroom, a glowing plant, or even a star. All of these images eventually came to be instantly recognized. I find it amazing that people of any background or upbringing can begin a game of Mario and immediately pick it up.

How does all that relate to pictographs? The same way all knowledge must originate. These symbols described have been repeated over and over again in sequels and new Mario games yet never need explanation to those who have played before. Like anything else learned, these pictures now, arguably, reside as a form of basic societal knowledge.

Writing to change your mind

Most revolutions involve war, and while not apparent from the onset, writing revolutions are no different. Changing such an intrinsic aspect of any culture will always create friction. There will be those on both sides of an imaginary line in the sand, and writing is no different. As pointed out by Ong, in his Orality and Literacy, Plato himself described a Socrates upset with the very creation of written text. Arguing that writing would weaken the mind, this argument is similar to current day arguments with the latest revolution in writing, computers and electronic technology.

I find that this, the most recent revolution, to be one of the most interesting. Before, most revolutions were breakthroughs in solving logistics problems. Not enough people knew how to read, or books were hard to make until a printing press, or paper was hard to make in enough quantity. These were all problems that were considered a revolution once solved, however computer technology, to me, is the true revolution. Specifically, we are now at a point where the question is no longer simply what to read, but how to read.

With the ability to fundamentally alter the text we create, such as font, color, size (to name a few), presentation of reading materials is incredibly different. As an online culture we can start arguments over the use of font as means of transferring information. Recently, the movie Pandora featured a font that was the target of ridicule. How did this come to be? Simply put, writing has changed us. We can see so many different forms of writing, that the embedded message is no longer the focus. Information is available all the time on anything, so now all that matters is how the message is sent.

Changing History

After reading excerpts from Ong's Orality and Literacy and prompted to discuss one of the steps from orality to literacy, I found the first step to be the most interesting in terms of remediation. As a student of English, although one not fully 'studied,' Homer is given hallowed ground quite often. Right up there with Shakespeare, Plato, and a whole legion of authors, poets, and writers, Homer demands respect from high-schoolers nationwide. Unfortunately, the whole story has yet to be told.


Like beginning physicists who eventually learn to unlearn everything originally taught, it turns out that Homer was not a master of original thought or composition. His epics were in fact the result of a system of patterns enabling the poet to tell amazing tales without aid. These patterns, to me, are a great form of remediation. Since a writing system had yet to be established, knowledge was passed primarily through oral means. True, one could show another how to tend a farm or fish, but stories were by definition oral.


Creating a story would have been no easy trick. All the components, the words, were available, but setting them down would require immense foresight, or a cheat. That cheat would be to use a system. Changing words into groups of words, such as sentences, would be a first step. Ordering those sentences would be another. Homer, in effect, was like Ong described, less an artist and more a line worker.

Blog Post #1: Remediation as Reform, because I say so.

DTC at WSU is a unique program, exploring the spaces that are growing between contemporary English Rhetoric and the advent of communication technology. The fact that I am using a blog to describe this idea and the concept of remediation is a perfect example.  Unfortunately, this 'space' is not fully recognized nor established in the academic world, thus the reading of 'Mediation and Remediation' can be at times confusing, dry, painful, enlightening, or just bad. I will be discussing these concepts in greater detail as this blog grows, but for now I focus on a specific object I believe is a remediation of past technology. I chose Chatroulette.

For those unaware, Chatroulette is a relatively new program that connects people from across the world. The program works by having a user log on with a webcam, and then finds another person logged on randomly.  The people can then chat and see each other. At any time, a user can move on to another random person.

Chatroulette, I believe, is a remediation of the most basic forms of communication. How does one meet new people? Usually introductions are made, but also sometimes meetings new people is forced, for example in a classroom on the first day of classes. The teacher instructs the students to meet and greet, and one is introduced to random people. Now with Chatroulette the only ties these strangers have are through possession of basic technology. Unlike a desire to take or learn from the same class, strangers are meeting on a whole new set of terms.

This is, I believe, a manner of social reform, as described in the background reading. As a subcategory of remediation, this type of reform concerns itself with the mediation of classic social acts. With Chatroulette, standards of etiquette have changed dramatically. Classically, basic decorum creates a set of rules people feel strongly compelled to follow in most settings of introduction. The most basic are not a consistent part of Chatroulette. When I say 'most basic' I mean ideas such as wearing clothes and not participating in sexual acts.

How is this remediation (and not just gross)? Well, we, as a technological society, have now set a new low for social interaction. While I certainly do not expect to come across someone, naked on the street, introducing themselves while conducting some lewd act, I can imagine one day where our tolerances and tastes for societal graces have morphed dramatically.

In summary, remediation is not always a gentle process of change, pushing ourselves to different places through the introduction of interrelated concepts of technology. Sometimes a giant push in a direction occurs, changing how we interpret ourselves and our society.