Noclip World: Drawing the disruptions of virtual video game environments

Luke Caspar Pearson
2017 Drawing Research Theory Practice  
Noclip World: Drawing the disruptions of virtual videogame environments. Abstract Modern videogames give the player ever more realistic worlds to experience, yet they typically remain carefully cultivated virtual spaces. Cheaters and players who operate against the prevailing logic of the system often expose strange digital phenomena that come with attempts to replicate realistic spaces in game engine environments. Noclip World is an ongoing research project in which I seek to expose the
more » ... ing logics of videogame spaces using hand drawing as a critical tool. The project explores games based on Valve Corporation's Source Engine that has been used to make games from 2004-2016. Through a roving 'counterplay' (Dyer-Witherford & De Peuter 2009) using cheats to suspend in-game physics, I produce a taxonomy of behaviours which manifest in the virtual camera when navigated to the fringes of game worlds. The project references Flusser's notion of the camera as a 'black box' (Flusser 2006) and frames the inner coded workings virtual camera as equivocal in its opacity. I subsequently propose transcriptive drawing as a tool to unpick the logics of glitched virtual worlds. Protocols of architectural drawing are used to unpick and reassemble the fragmentary spaces detailed in-game through the use of screenshots as preliminary 'photographic' recordings. Noclip World questions whether the architect producing drawings of these virtual spaces can become surrogates for the opaque zone of Flusser's camera, becoming a 'black box' themselves. By using drawing to expose the disruption of virtual videogame environments, the project ultimately seeks to uncover the contingency of even the most realistic digital depictions of space. Keywords virtual environments virtual phenomena videogames screenshot photography drawing transcriptions counterplay cheat codes drawing glitches
doi:10.1386/drtp.2.1.23_1 fatcat:7ruuwo6j6zclnimwl2ewrxvpda