Open AccessGaming as Everything
Author(s) -
Vlad Butucea
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
nordic theatre studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.139
H-Index - 2
eISSN - 2002-3898
pISSN - 0904-6380
DOI - 10.7146/nts.v32i1.120413
Subject(s) - dramaturgy , performativity , natural (archaeology) , anthropocene , transcendental number , aesthetics , set (abstract data type) , posthuman , sociology , environmental ethics , epistemology , art , history , computer science , philosophy , archaeology , programming language
In this article I will discuss David O’Reilly’s video game Everything (2017), suggesting that its unique dramaturgy portrays an ecology in which the human is seen as forging alliances and interconnections with the non-human. Set in a seemingly infinite open-world environment, the game revolves around the player exploring vast digital landscapes from the vantage point of multiple nonhuman avatars. Wondering about with no defined goal or direction, I played as animals, plants, rocks, continents, and even galaxies, shifting from one state to the next and making unexpected alliances along the way. Employing Audronė Žukauskaitė concept of “nomadic performativity” (2015), I will suggest that the game’s dramaturgy invites the player to imagine the human as deeply embedded in a wide system of interaction with non-human others, as an immanent part of an ecosystem, rather than a transcendental being outside of it. In articulating this idea, Everything puts forward a theatrical critique of thehuman domination and othering of the natural environment that underpins and drives the Anthropocene.