So I go into the NUA Library on Monday to find more on collecting with my Learner Support to discover something rather annoying
The book I had been seeking at UEA was in our library all along
There goes my money for chips awwwww
In the meantime, I have quotes from this book that should help me greatly (I have also returned "Evocative Objects" to Bradley as I have been unable to salvage any more quotes as powerful as those I have now)
--------------------
Cabinets of Curiosities, or Rooms of Wonders, were the astonishing creation of collectors who wished to gather together everything, all knowledge - animal, vegetable or man-made - into a single unimaginable space. An entire universe in minature. (Patrick Mauries, Cabinets of Curiosities)
--------------------
On Collecting: An investigation into collecting in the European Tradition
(Susan M. Pearce)
...The way...objects are tokens of remembrance, respect and love...
...collecting is itself a form of consumption...
The usual distinction drawn between 'collector' and 'miser/acuumulator/horder' is that the collector has a 'rational' purpose in mind which the other does not.
The pure collector's interest implies order, system, perhaps completion. The pure collector's interest is not bounded by the intrinsic worth of the objects of his desire; whatever they cost, he must have them. (Aristides, 1988: 330)
What seems to one person to be simply an attractive row of jars on the kitchen shelf may to another person be the nucleus of an important containers collection.
Collecting and collections are part of our dynamic relationship with the material world.
...collecting is a more powerful activity than might at first appear...it is an active intervention into a social reality which is merely one construct among potential others.
Its important that I own a bit of the universe. I will not stop as long as there is room in the house for them. (People's Show 1992)
The collecting middle ground is a messy, chancy, exciting place, where all sorts of people play.
--------------------
These are some very handy quotes I discovered within the pages.
Wednesday, 22 January 2014
Tuesday, 14 January 2014
There goes my money but here comes that book
So, went all the way to UEA today to use their library facilities, only to get there and be told I needed proof of address to enter.
Can't afford to do that again this week, so there goes the majority of my day.
Good news is I managed to aquire the book "Evocative Objects" from another student on my course (Bradley's the man!) so the day itself has not been wasted (shame my money has)
All following quotes after the lines are from said book (With the names of those who said it in brackets like this)
-------
"My biological father had been an absent figure since I was two. My mother had left him. We never spoke about him...gotten rid of any bits and pieces he might have left...Once I found a photograph of a man...with his face cut out of the picture...I knew never to metion the photograph, for fear that it too would disappear. It was precious to me." (Sherry Turkle)
"...choose an object and follow it's assosiations: where does it take you; what do you feel; what are you able to understand?" (Sherry Turkle)
"...a young child believes her stuffed bunny can read her mind; a diabetic is at one with his glucometer. Other objects remind us of people we have lost." (Sherry Turkle)
"When objects are lost, subjects are found." (Sherry Turkle)
"For every object they have spun a world. They show us what they looked upon and what became the things that mattered" (Sherry Turkle)
-------
"...I play the cello to concentrate, to meditate, to relax....It is the object that is closest to me that I don't share with others...to reconnect to the forces and feelings that drew me to music in the first place." (Tod Machover)
"Much as painters relish a blank canvas, writers a fresh page, or moviemakers a darkened screen, I suppose I will alwayshave a penchant for bits of string and the potentials they suggest." (Carol Strohecker)
"Will we be able to feel the human connection through digital servers? Will we care?" (Susan Yee)
"...Something was missing...I had lost contact with my obsession. I began to recognize the importance of having obsessions." (Mitchel Resnick)
"...my hope is to create new objects that help others find their own obsessions." (Mitchel Resnick)
"I was preoccupied with the idea of protection from an unpredictable world. Protection often came in the form of a glaringly bright, yellow raincoat that kept me dry...on my way to school...More than it's function of keeping rain out, however, it represented my fear of leting anything in - people most of all." (Matthew Belmonte)
"...the raincoat represented my mother's triumph over my own will....the coat came to represent my mother, and I loved and resented it as I loved and resented her. A fear of death...drives us to separate ourselves from our parents...a fear of life...brings us back to seek their protection" (Matthew Belmonte)
""...I slipped between the horns of this dilemma. When I was alone, there was neither the threat of attention from other people, nor the demans to submit to the decisions of my parents...I was immersed in the outside world's flood yet insulated from it...to feel the pressure of the rain...and leave me dry" (Matthew Belmonte)
"The rigid and repetitive behaviours of people with Autism begin to make sense when we consider them as the normal reaction of a human mind to a very abnormal sensory enviroment, rather than as direct symptoms of an illness. Autistic symptoms are what a person does in order to force a chaotic world to follow a predictable script. We are all trying to impose a narrative order on what may seem a fundamentally chaotic world. The difference in Autism is that there is more chaos to be controlled. In this regard, the study of autism can tell us a great deal about humanity in general and how psychological distress can be explained as a rational, if extreme, reaction to a world gone awry." (Matthew Belmonte)*
-------
(More quotes will be added in time, this was as much as I could snag out of it for today without overloading my brain)
-------
*Though this paragraph may not have been relevant to my current RR, it struck a personal chord with me that I felt was worth noting down for myself in the future
Can't afford to do that again this week, so there goes the majority of my day.
Good news is I managed to aquire the book "Evocative Objects" from another student on my course (Bradley's the man!) so the day itself has not been wasted (shame my money has)
All following quotes after the lines are from said book (With the names of those who said it in brackets like this)
-------
"My biological father had been an absent figure since I was two. My mother had left him. We never spoke about him...gotten rid of any bits and pieces he might have left...Once I found a photograph of a man...with his face cut out of the picture...I knew never to metion the photograph, for fear that it too would disappear. It was precious to me." (Sherry Turkle)
"...choose an object and follow it's assosiations: where does it take you; what do you feel; what are you able to understand?" (Sherry Turkle)
"...a young child believes her stuffed bunny can read her mind; a diabetic is at one with his glucometer. Other objects remind us of people we have lost." (Sherry Turkle)
"When objects are lost, subjects are found." (Sherry Turkle)
"For every object they have spun a world. They show us what they looked upon and what became the things that mattered" (Sherry Turkle)
-------
"...I play the cello to concentrate, to meditate, to relax....It is the object that is closest to me that I don't share with others...to reconnect to the forces and feelings that drew me to music in the first place." (Tod Machover)
"Much as painters relish a blank canvas, writers a fresh page, or moviemakers a darkened screen, I suppose I will alwayshave a penchant for bits of string and the potentials they suggest." (Carol Strohecker)
"Will we be able to feel the human connection through digital servers? Will we care?" (Susan Yee)
"...Something was missing...I had lost contact with my obsession. I began to recognize the importance of having obsessions." (Mitchel Resnick)
"...my hope is to create new objects that help others find their own obsessions." (Mitchel Resnick)
"I was preoccupied with the idea of protection from an unpredictable world. Protection often came in the form of a glaringly bright, yellow raincoat that kept me dry...on my way to school...More than it's function of keeping rain out, however, it represented my fear of leting anything in - people most of all." (Matthew Belmonte)
"...the raincoat represented my mother's triumph over my own will....the coat came to represent my mother, and I loved and resented it as I loved and resented her. A fear of death...drives us to separate ourselves from our parents...a fear of life...brings us back to seek their protection" (Matthew Belmonte)
""...I slipped between the horns of this dilemma. When I was alone, there was neither the threat of attention from other people, nor the demans to submit to the decisions of my parents...I was immersed in the outside world's flood yet insulated from it...to feel the pressure of the rain...and leave me dry" (Matthew Belmonte)
"The rigid and repetitive behaviours of people with Autism begin to make sense when we consider them as the normal reaction of a human mind to a very abnormal sensory enviroment, rather than as direct symptoms of an illness. Autistic symptoms are what a person does in order to force a chaotic world to follow a predictable script. We are all trying to impose a narrative order on what may seem a fundamentally chaotic world. The difference in Autism is that there is more chaos to be controlled. In this regard, the study of autism can tell us a great deal about humanity in general and how psychological distress can be explained as a rational, if extreme, reaction to a world gone awry." (Matthew Belmonte)*
-------
(More quotes will be added in time, this was as much as I could snag out of it for today without overloading my brain)
-------
*Though this paragraph may not have been relevant to my current RR, it struck a personal chord with me that I felt was worth noting down for myself in the future
Wednesday, 8 January 2014
Some notable things I found about Tajiri
-Grew up in Machida, Tokyo (during childhood it was rural, but is now part of the metropolis of Tokyo)
- As a child he wanted to be an entomologist, a studier of bugs
- Collected bugs as a child - referred to as "Mr Bug"
- He was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome
- Would skip high school sessions to go play arcade games
- Bought a Famicom, took it apart and studied the pieces to create his own games
- Created his own fan magazine called "Game Freak"
- This captured the attention of Ken Sugimori, who later became the artist for Pokemon Red and Blue
- 1986, Game Freak, the magazine, was ended
- 1989, Game Freak, the company, was founded
- Seeing two GBs connected by cable, Tajiri used his love for bug collecting to get influence for a game that had creatures fight through the cable.
-Then POKEMON happened, the end :D
I'll obviously have this written up much better in my final draft, but this is more of a quick collection of info that is related to my work.
Located from here:
http://kotaku.com/5806664/how-pokemon-was-born-from-bug-collecting-and-aspergers-syndrome
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2040095,00.html
--------------------------
I have also failed to obtain the book "Evocative Objects" for the Collection part of my CS. This will prove to cost me, I believe
--------------------------
Redo of Chapter 3 with the new info gathered:
- As a child he wanted to be an entomologist, a studier of bugs
- Collected bugs as a child - referred to as "Mr Bug"
- He was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome
- Would skip high school sessions to go play arcade games
- Bought a Famicom, took it apart and studied the pieces to create his own games
- Created his own fan magazine called "Game Freak"
- This captured the attention of Ken Sugimori, who later became the artist for Pokemon Red and Blue
- 1986, Game Freak, the magazine, was ended
- 1989, Game Freak, the company, was founded
- Seeing two GBs connected by cable, Tajiri used his love for bug collecting to get influence for a game that had creatures fight through the cable.
-Then POKEMON happened, the end :D
I'll obviously have this written up much better in my final draft, but this is more of a quick collection of info that is related to my work.
Located from here:
http://kotaku.com/5806664/how-pokemon-was-born-from-bug-collecting-and-aspergers-syndrome
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2040095,00.html
--------------------------
I have also failed to obtain the book "Evocative Objects" for the Collection part of my CS. This will prove to cost me, I believe
--------------------------
Redo of Chapter 3 with the new info gathered:
Chapter 3 – Pokemon
“So you were collecting Pokémon a long time ago! Did you make the insects fight against each other?”
“No, but sometimes they would eat each other.” TIME interviewing Pokémon creator Satoshi Tajiri (1999)
Satoshi Tajiri was born on August 28th in the year 1965 and grew up in Machida, Tokyo. As a child, Tajiri captured and collected bugs from the rural parts of his hometown. This prompted the nickname "Mr. Bug" by other school children.
Later on in high school, Tajiri had gone from collecting bugs to playing arcade games, often skipping classes to go play them for most of the day.
Upon purchasing his first Famicom, a gaming system, he took it apart to see how each part works. He then used this base knowledge to make his own games.
Tajiri made his own fan magazine in 1981 under the title "Game Freak", which held tips and tricks for the harder video games of that day. After this caught the attention of Ken Sugimori, Tajiri took him on as the artist for the magazine. In 1986, the magazine was stopped and the Game Company "Game Freak" was created.
After witnessing two game boy consoles connect together with the cable, Tajiri became inspired to create a game that had '...organisms moving back and forth across the cable...'.
After six years of development and creation, with Ken doing the artwork, Pokémon was complete.
Satoshi Tajiri was born on August 28th in the year 1965 and grew up in Machida, Tokyo. As a child, Tajiri captured and collected bugs from the rural parts of his hometown. This prompted the nickname "Mr. Bug" by other school children.
Later on in high school, Tajiri had gone from collecting bugs to playing arcade games, often skipping classes to go play them for most of the day.
Upon purchasing his first Famicom, a gaming system, he took it apart to see how each part works. He then used this base knowledge to make his own games.
Tajiri made his own fan magazine in 1981 under the title "Game Freak", which held tips and tricks for the harder video games of that day. After this caught the attention of Ken Sugimori, Tajiri took him on as the artist for the magazine. In 1986, the magazine was stopped and the Game Company "Game Freak" was created.
After witnessing two game boy consoles connect together with the cable, Tajiri became inspired to create a game that had '...organisms moving back and forth across the cable...'.
After six years of development and creation, with Ken doing the artwork, Pokémon was complete.
Pokémon first came to Japan in 1996 in the forms of Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green, coming to the rest of the world as Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue in 1998 on the Game Boy.
The prime objectives of these games was to collect all 151 Pokémon in the game and to become the greatest Pokémon Master by assembling a strong team of Pokémon. To catch all 151 Pokémon however was not easy, as some Pokémon were only found in one version, while others were obtained by choosing one of two or three.
Some powerful Pokémon would only appear once in the game at a certain fixed point, known as Legendaries, while one of these was only legibly accessible by a Nintendo event (the other method involved glitching the game to encounter it).
Its success brought forth a second generation of games known as Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver in 1999 on the Game Boy Color. These games introduced more Pokémon, bringing up the total to 251. It also introduced inside game time, roaming Legendaries, gendered Pokémon and the rare shiny Pokémon (Pokémon of a different colour than their usual counterparts). A third game of the second generation known as Pokémon Crystal was released in 2000 and introduced a deeper story to the Legendaries, something that all future Pokémon games took up, and was the first Pokémon game to let the player choose to play as a boy or a girl.
Since then, more Pokémon games have been released. Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald for the third generation, Pokémon Diamond, Pearl and Platinum for the fourth generation, Pokémon Black, White, Black 2 and White 2 summed up the fifth generation and the most recent sixth generation of Pokémon X and Y which were released October 2013. Each generation has introduced more Pokémon and game mechanics, including Pokémon-Amie, a way if bonding with your Pokémon further by feeding and playing with them – much like that of a virtual pet.
Friday, 22 November 2013
Things to do
It's occured to me that I'm still missing some key parts in my CS. While I have struggled to add them into the draft I will fit them in before the official hand in:
Historical context - great collectors of the past, the fashions of the past, some objects worth more than the "sum of it's parts"
Locate a book called "Evocative objects" by Sherry Turkle, Edited
Chapter 2 – Virtual Pets
Attachment to virtual pets - look into skylanders and it's appeal to children
look further into the creator's past and his habit of collecting
Thursday, 21 November 2013
BA7 First Draft
For my Research report I am looking into the way collecting and virtual pets have been implemented into video games. The report will be in the form of an Extended Essay and will be the 5,000 word option for this year.
Titles in the works
How have collecting and Virtual Pets become important elements in games?
Virtual pets and collection: What drives one to collect them all?
How have games exploited the urge to collect?
The essay will contain the following:
Introduction
Introduction
This report will explore how
the hobby of collecting and the love of virtual pets have become important in
video games with the main focus on the game series Pokémon. I will look at the
meaning of collecting and its place in people’s daily lives, as well as how
virtual pets have captured the attention and love of people worldwide.
Chapter
1 – Collecting
“Collection is a constant reminder of the very
reality it has been created to stave off. The greater the value … the greater
the risk of loss that it represents. …” (Blom, 2005)
The known hobby of Collecting
often involves searching, acquiring and displaying items or objects of interest
to a single person known as the collector. There are different types of
collectable items which range from personal interest to age old objects.
Antiques are collectible
items that are 100 years or older, more often than not showing insight to past
human eras, such as furniture, vehicles or clothing. Most antiques show an
intricate design and often the older they are, the higher value they have to
the collector.
Collecting once living things
like butterflies and insects are often referred to as Natural Objects. Some
collections involve objects intended for other uses, stamps and dolls being
quite common.
A recent example of collector
value is of a set of dolls called The Dionne Quints Alexander Doll Set. The
dolls were modelled after the real Dionne quintuplets who were born in 1934.
Born two months premature at birth during the Great Depression, the five
altogether only weighed around 14 pounds. They quickly became a symbol of
courage in Canada and the dolls were only the start. The children ended up in
campaigns for advertising, all of which were related to the quintuplets in some
way, which is why they’re considered valuable.
The dolls were modelled in
great detail, composed with wigs of human hair. These near perfect condition
dolls were sold as a set in October of 2013 for $2,400 during the Morphy
Auctions Doll Sale.
Chapter
2 – Virtual Pets
"Children behave as if practically
everything is alive when they're engaged in pretend play. That in itself
doesn't mean they're confused about what's alive and what isn't." Gopnik
(2000)
Virtual pets made
its first impact with the Tamagotchi in 1996 by Bandai, selling more than 40
million units around the world. The birth of the Tamagotchi brought in the new
genre of Virtual pet imitators. The toy itself is a round egg shaped toy in
which the player feeds, plays with and cares for the pet Tamagotchi. Using the
connection features players could interact with other Tamagotchi to become
friends, fall in love, get married and have a second generation of pets.
Since the
Tamagotchi’s success, virtual pets have made more of an impact, especially with
the release of physical toys such as the well-known Furby, who sold more than
40 million, and robotic dogs known as Puppy and Rover. Other robotic animals
included FurReal Cat, Paro the Seal and RoboRaptor.
People could
interact with these toys as if they had a mind of their own, like that of a
real pet, but without the need to feed it or clean up after the pet. This also
meant that the pet could not get sick or die.
Chapter
3 – Pokemon
“So you were collecting Pokémon a long time
ago! Did you make the insects fight against each other?”
“No, but sometimes they would eat each other.”
TIME interviewing Pokémon creator Satoshi Tajiri (1999)
Pokémon first came to Japan
in 1996 in the forms of Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green, coming to the rest of
the world as Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue in 1998 on the Game Boy.
The prime objectives of these
games was to collect all 151 Pokémon in the game and to become the greatest
Pokémon Master by assembling a strong team of Pokémon. To catch all 151 Pokémon
however was not easy, as some Pokémon were only found in one version, while
others were obtained by choosing one of two or three.
Some powerful Pokémon would
only appear once in the game at a certain fixed point, known as Legendaries,
while one of these was only legibly accessible by a Nintendo event (the other
method involved glitching the game to encounter it).
Its success brought forth a
second generation of games known as Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver in 1999 on
the Game Boy Color. These games introduced more Pokémon, bringing up the total
to 251. It also introduced inside game time, roaming Legendaries, gendered
Pokémon and the rare shiny Pokémon (Pokémon of a different colour than their
usual counterparts). A third game of the second generation known as Pokémon
Crystal was released in 2000 and introduced a deeper story to the Legendaries,
something that all future Pokémon games took up, and was the first Pokémon game
to let the player choose to play as a boy or a girl.
Since then, more Pokémon
games have been released, taking the world by storm. Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire and
Emerald for the third generation, Pokémon Diamond, Pearl and Platinum for the
fourth generation, Pokémon Black, White, Black 2 and White 2 summed up the
fifth generation and the most recent sixth generation of Pokémon X and Y which
were released October 2013. Each generation has introduced more Pokémon and
game mechanics, including Pokémon-Amie, a way if bonding with your Pokémon
further by feeding and playing with them – much like that of a virtual pet.
Conclusion
The series of Pokémon was at
first a mere collecting game with the secondary objective of being the best,
but since has evolved into much more than that. The Pokémon-Amie function has
you bond with your Pokémon as if it was alive on the other side of the screen,
loving you as you love it. By building up the affection metre on your Pokémon,
they will do better in battle for you by landing more powerful attacks,
avoiding enemy moves, curing itself of status effects and surviving knock out
moves to impress you.
Pokémon has made bonding with
your Pokémon a stronger factor than it’s ever been and, despite its several
generations and basic gameplay, will still keep introducing newer mechanics and
more Pokémon, always telling the player that they’ve “Gotta catch ‘em all”.
Bibliography
Philipp
Blom (2005) To Have and To Hold: an intimate History of collectors and
collecting.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/collectable
http://www.ipl.org/div/pf/entry/48439
http://antiques.about.com/od/toys/ss/Dionne-Quints-Alexander-Doll-Set-Sells-at-Auction.htm
http://partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/circuits/articles/25pets.html
http://www.mimitchi.com/tamaplus/tama_history.shtml
http://www.webvet.com/main/2008/08/04/brief-history-robotic-pets-rags-pleo
http://web.archive.org/web/20050314021722/http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/99/1122/pokemon6.fullinterview1.html
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