Final Image

I used lots of different tools when using Photoshop to enhance my final piece. I used my own images as opposed to images off the internet, one of which was of my brothers face which I then copied onto a war game scene then smoothed out his face using the healing tool and posterized then pixelated it to give it a 'game like' look. My intention was to create a 'create your character' scene from a game using a real life child AKA my brother to show how 'stuck in the game' children can be, in order to do this I needed a 'table' or 'grid' at the side of his 'now game face' to show the 'create options', I drew this table out using the 'rectangle drawing tool' and 'text tool' as well as changing the opacity to allow some of the war scene to shine through the 'create your own character'. To say I'm not used to using Photoshop I think I did a really good job in achieving the game like scene I did.

Negative effects of video games on children

I found a list of the top 10 negative effects that video games have upon children. I found the seriousness of these effects very interesting to say they come from children playing video games which is supposed to be a fun, friendly activity, or so I had thought!

Top 10 negative effects of video games on children

Many parents worry, no doubt, about the effect video games have on their children. We list the ten most common problems recently investigated by researchers from 2006-present.

1. An increase in emotional disorder symptoms
2. An increase in and behavioral disorder symptoms
3. Declines in verbal memory performance
4. Somatic complaints
5. Attention problems such as hyperactivity, ADD or ADHD
6. Detrimental school performance (as video game usage increases, GPA and SAT scores decrease)
7. Family interaction problems such as less positive parental relations
8. Significant reduced amounts of slow-wave (REM) sleep
9. Modifications in visual selective attention
10. Playing violent video games is a significant risk factor for later physically aggressive behavior

SOURCES:

Pediatrics 2008 Nov;122(5):e1067-72
European Psychiatry 2008 Apr;23(3):212-8
Journal of Psychiatry Research 2008 Mar;42(4):253-8
Pediatrics 2007 Nov;120(5):978-85
Cyberpsychology & Behavior 2007 Aug;10(4):552-9
Psychological Science 2007 Jan;18(1):88-94
Pediatrics 2006 Oct;118(4):e1061-70

CONSIDERATIONS:

Males are more attracted to, and more likely to become “hooked” on video games than females which has been found to generalize across very different cultures. So being male significantly predicts computer gaming.  It’s also possible that aggression and narcissistic personality traits can predict game addiction, whereas self-control is negatively correlated with game addiction.

This list has given me a push forward to produce the final piece I had in mind. I want to show these effects within my piece as well as how chhildren get 'stuck in the game' and allow it to become a big part of their lives.

Alter Ego - My brother

I looked at some of the characters my brother has created or modified that he uses 'to be' on the Xbox. I noticed all of his characters look completely different from him apart from the one he uses on Fifa where he has uploaded an image of his own face onto the player. The other characters act as a 'second life' to him where as the Fifa player is more like what he strides to be like.

Alter Ego

''Our City of Heroes moments are moments of release that allow us to escape long enough to complete a few missions.''

''I just wanted to win respect from people in the game, to be somebody in the EverQuest world. But it cost me. Everything else in my life started to suffer – my social life, my schoolwork, even my health.''

''The difference between me and my online character is pretty obvious. I have a lot of physical disabilities in real life, but in Star Wars Galaxies I can ride an Imperial speeder bike, fight monsters, or just hang out with friends at a bar. I have some use of my hands – not much, but a little. In the game I use an on-screen keyboard called ‘soft-type’ to talk with other players. I can’t press the keys on a regular keyboard so I use a virtual one. I play online games because I get to interact with people. The computer screen is my window to the world. Online it doesn’t matter what you look like. Virtual worlds bring people together – everyone is on common ground. In the real world, people can be uncomfortable around me before they get to know me and realize that, apart from my outer appearance, I’m just like them. Online you get to know the person behind the keyboard before you know the physical person. The internet eliminates how you look in real life, so you get to know a person by their mind and personality. In 2002 at the UO Fan Faire in Austin, I noticed that people were intrigued by me, but they acted just like I was one of them. They treated me as an equal, like I wasn’t even the way that I am – not disabled, not in a wheelchair, you know. We were all just gamers.''

''I designed Thalia to look the way that I aspire to be when I’m older. I know the kind of person that I want to be, because I see some women like that, in real life or in films – like the character Aunt Meg in the movie Twister. I perceive them as friendly, graceful, comfortable with themselves, and very open and friendly and welcoming to everyone else around them. That’s how I want to be, and in some ways, by creating my Hero’s Journey character to look like my own future goal, it gives me something to visualize and work towards.''

''It’s like having an avatar as a boyfriend or girlfriend. It’s more like your partner. I definitely don’t get confused between my real self and my virtual self. When I’m acting I have to concentrate on my role. In the game I just try to be myself. If anything, my avatar has to concentrate on being me.''

''People buy more from my little girl dwarf compared to the old male dwarf I used to have, even though they sell the same things. Because I’m very polite, people think I really am a little girl.''

''I discovered virtual worlds a bit more than a year ago and it was a real shock. A positive one! I am a fan of all Marvel comics and also epic fantasy books. I have dreamed so much thanks to them and when I started to play online, it was as if all the stories I had read were coming to life! Megatox is me and I am Megatox, one does not go without the other. When I switch on City of Villains I am there with my own personality, the real and the virtual blending together. I simply step into a void bringing me to that Otherland. I spent a lot of time designing my costume because I really wanted it to be exactly how I wanted. I love this machine design I made, and the yellow and black colours are a mix I like a lot. The face is not like mine but I wouldn’t mind it in the real world. Megatox is all that I would like to be – strong, famous, respected, feared by some, daring, the talk of the town. This is why we complement each other. Together we make one complete person.''

People have different reasons for having an 'alter ego', There is nothing wrong with this, it's just when people get obsessed with their online life and forget aspects of their real lives when things start to go wrong, health and social problems occur. The image and quote that made me realise 'alter ego's' can be good for people was the one with the highly disabled boy and his perfectly functioning avatar. He said his online life allowed people to get to know him before judging him because of what he looks like in real life. This boy's second life helps his real life.

Alter Ego article

Alter Ego: Online Gamers Revealed

There are now an estimated 10 million online gamers across the globe. Each one has an online identity, a personally created character representing them in their virtual world.
Robbie Cooper’s Alter Ego project represents a wide spectrum of the online gaming community, from casual players to obsessive gamers, from creators of worlds to virtual entrepreneurs.

Most of us spend a huge amount of time in front of screens, at work and play. Research studies indicate that in the US, the average school age child spends around 4 hours a day in front of TV, computer and video game screens. The average work age adult probably spends far longer. We access a whole spectrum of software, entertainment programming and information through these screens. The interaction with programming, software and with others, through this space, is becoming an increasingly significant part of life.

Outside of our life in front of the screen, we are also immersed in a structure of abstraction in our daily lives. Simulation, as Jean Baudrillard writes in the classic essay ‘Simulacra and Simulations’, is an internal state as well as an external hyperreality. Our experience in a hyperreal world (held in the grip of simulacra and where much of experience is mediated) is one in which media and medium are not simply located in their own spaces, but dispersed around us, in all forms of experience.

It seems to me that this creates a fixation with the imaginary and visual aspects of our collective psyche, and experience which is itself reduced down to the elements that we like. In the sphere of work this is mostly about information. Outside of it, it’s mostly about sensation. My aim with these projects is to assemble video’s, texts and images that record our relationship with this world. In this environment, the ways in which we relate to mediated experience become, for me, an interesting portrayal of life in our 21^st Century culture.

Robbie Cooper.

'Stuck in the game' - My take on Robbie Coopers images

I took some photos of my brother pulling faces which would be made when playing an online game. I wanted a black background and limited lighting to focus on the face so this is the only thing the viewer can see, ensuring full attention on the expression.

'Stuck in the game' - Robbie Cooper

I came across the photographer Robbie Cooper who created a series of work called 'Immersion', showing the expressions on childrens faces whilst playing 'video games'. I was interested to see that most of the expressions show a 'trance like' state. These children look enthrawled in what they're playing, almost as though they are 'lost in the game'. Their minds are 'stuck in the game'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jXpvGBP0U0

'Stuck in the game' - Addiction/Obsession

Online game addiction rising, counsellors warn

• Obsessed players may forget to eat or sleep
• Patient, 23, treated with 12-step abstinence course

Addiction to online games is becoming more widespread among vulnerable young people, according to a treatment centre that has begun running abstinence courses in Britain.

As games become more visually enticing and the recession leaves people at home in front of computer screens, therapists are encountering more cases of people obsessed with being online. In extreme circumstances game players can, they warn, become detached from normal existence and forget to eat or sleep as they interact with screen characters such as wizards and monsters. Youngsters can also develop posture problems.

Broadway Lodge, a residential rehabilitation centre in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, that normally deals with alcoholics and drug addicts, has recently treated a 23-year-old for his obsession with online games.
Brian Dudley, the centre's chief executive, said: "He was staying online for seven or eight hours at a time. We developed a treatment for him which followed the 12-step [abstinence] approach, but you can't tell someone never to use the internet again. He had eating issues, he wasn't eating properly. He did very well. He has … the mechanisms now to cope with it.

"The problem is not just restricted to young kids. We know parents who are hooked on these things. It's only a small percentage of people who get addicted but it's also only a small percentage of people who gamble too much. I don't know anybody else who is treating [such cases] in this country. There's no helpline."
Peter Smith, another counsellor at Broadway Lodge, said: "It's not unusual for people to get so obsessed with online gaming that they forget to eat and drift towards an anorexic and undernourished state. You can play online with people around the world, so it can be at odd times of the day – when it's 5pm in Chicago or evening in Japan. You have a relationship with characters in the game that give you an artificial feeling, created by your body's natural endorphins, when you have killed some monster or solved a problem."
"Addiction" is a loaded term among psychiatrists and psychologists, with many disputing whether the dependency exhibited by a few constitutes the same type of physical craving triggered by opiates such as heroin.

Online Gamers Anonymous, a US website, classifies "massively multiplayer online roleplaying games" as the most addictive. "Success in these games is highly dependent on the amount of time you put into them. Playing the game casually will leave you trailing behind others who put in more time, possibly making you feel as if you aren't as good or are falling behind."

Owen Bowcott

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 8 October 2009 19.47 BST

War games V Real life wars - My images

Children can sit at home and enjoy playing a war game without the knowledge of what's happening somewhere else in the world, somewhere where the war is real and effects the children in a really bad way. I created some images to show this, the images are rough experiments to see if this is the route I wanted to take forward to producing my final piece.

War games V Real life wars

Children sit there on their nice comfy couches playing on game based on war. Weapons and violence are the main attraction to these games. Children don't realise that whilst they sit there 'shooting people' online that people are really being shot in real wars. Is it such a good idea to base a game on such a serious matter?, can this make people question the seriousness of real war situations? I want to create some images to show people that whilst they're safe at home playing war games, some people aren't so lucky and have to live through what the people at home are 'playing'.

I found an article online explaining the effects that war has on children who have to try and survive though it, it made me realise how lucky children who live away from war zones are whose closest experience of war is an online game.

The effects of war on children
Among the many devastating aspects of war is its effects on children. Far from innocent bystanders, children are often casualties of war–through death, disease, malnutrition or injury. For example, from 1985-1995, an estimated 2 million children were killed due to war*.

Many children in war zones become refugees due to separation from or death of their family. Orphaned children often have limited access to food and clean water and therefore become susceptible to deadly illnesses and face life-long health problems. It is estimated that such diseases account for 60-80% of the deaths of displaced children of war*.

Those that survive are not considered lucky. In many instances, vulnerable boys are brainwashed into becoming child soldiers, working with the oppressors and regularly engaging in combat. Girls can be exploited into sex trade, forced to offer sexual services, married off to rebel leaders, or even sexually mutilated.

Beyond death, injury, exploitation and displacement, children in war zones are often emotionally damaged and suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They typically lose years of education, and the level of violence that they see can alter their normal development and lead to a skewed sense of reality.

If we hope to live in a peaceful and just world, we must start with the children because they are the seeds of the change we hope to see.

By Mimi Maritz

Routes to take

Thinking around the 'online game' topic, I have thought up 4 messages I could portray.

- How people don't realise the seriousness of real wars whilst sat there playing war games.
- How people (mostly children) get 'stuck in the game', obsessed almost.
- The loss of chilhood and memories as childrens lives are made up of staying indoors playing online games.
- Alter egos, how people use their game character or avatar to 'escape from reality'.

I will experiment more with each of these possible 'messages' and see which I would like to take forward to produce a final image.

Inspiration can come from the strangest places! I was looking at circuit boards to get some inspiration for my game themed images and came across this photo of a tie. This image has given me the idea to work with 3D elements when finalising my photos. I would like to experiment with wires and LED lights within my photography creating a partly 3D image.

Initial Images

I took some photos of my brother after asking him to show expressions of 'mind is in another world' and merged them with photos I took of the screen whilst my brother was playing on the xbox.

I used the healing tool on this photo to get rid of the redness, spots and marks to make the image cleaner after merging it with a scene from the game. 

These photos show how 'in that game' my brother is, I portrayed this through the expressions on his face and merging of the game photos. I like these photos but think they seem a little too simple. I will try other ways of showing how people can get trapped into games. 

An interesting find

These photos are just something I came across when researching, they show half of the real life scene and half of the scene in the game. It struck me how life-like the game versions on the scenes are, this in itself shows how game world cam take over. We are presented with a vertual reality. I could use this layout to show how life-like the games are that are most commenly played today.

Game world V Real world

I found some images on a website which I found very interesting, they show game characters in real life situations.

The photos are quite comical, I think the comedy would take away from the point im trying to get across if I chose to do something like this, although I would like to try it out and see how it turns out. These photos are really interesting because they're so surreal. We never would witness these scenes in real life therefore find them intriguing when we do see them. 

Spy kids 3 - Game over

I watched 'Spy kids 3 - Game over' which is all about some kids who get caught inside a video game. This film gave me some ideas of how I can portray 'society getting stuck inside the game' I can portray it in more of a litterally sense like how it is in the film to make my point more obvious.

I like how the kids in the film look like what the game characters would look like, it really does make them part of the game. The backgrounds in these images do look very game like, if I do anything like this I will make sure to use un-natural colours, pixels and bizarre scenes.

Idea planning

I scribbled down some rough ideas and routes for my project to take and came up with a few different options. The idea of 'lost childhood' can be portrayed in this work as I believe most games these days take over a childs life not leaving them room to explore other aspects of childhood for example, playing out. My best memories of being younger are when I was outside with my friends climbing trees, making dens and basically making up our own games outside. These days children don't play out much, they're more interested in staying in and going on the xbox. I could explore more negatives to people staying in playing online games and on the xbox like what effects it can have on the body, e.g. obesity, lonelyness. Another way of which I can portray the aspect of online games taking over so many peoples lives is to show online games replacing parts of peoples everyday lives.

Idea

I found the path I wanted to follow quite early into the project and once I got the idea I was hooked into it. My idea is all about the 'game world' and how people these days can be obsessed with it. This idea came from when it was snowing outside and I asked my brother (who was at the time playing on the xbox) if he wanted to have a snowball fight to which his reply was ''No I'm on here'' so I had a bit of a go at him... ''The xbox will always be there but it won't snow again til ages'', and still he didn't budge; this made me realise how enthralling games can be these days, especially to children.

Cyborg research

''We are all cyborgs now'' - Donna Harraway This quote suggests we are all cyborgs because we incorporate alot of technology into our lives. These days technology has become an extension to us as people, almost everywhere we go we are using some form of technology to make our lives better in some way. iPods, mobile phones, TV's, laptops.. the list goes on.

Wafaa Bilal is an artist and professor who once had a camera surgically fitted to the back of his head, this camera took a photo every single minute. Bilal intended on having this camera there for a whole year but his body rejected the camera so he had to have it removed before the year was complete. The photos posted live onto his website for viewers to track.

These photos are some of the photos of which the camera fitted tot he back of his head took in August 2011. I like the idea of this work, it captures and hold memories. Everywhere he has been for the amount of time he had the camera has been captured and saved. These photos show a journey and an outlook onto someone elses life. This is a new way of seeing for us as viewers and for Bilal himself; for us because we're looking at someone elses life and for him because it's a backwards view, it's what he doesn't see normally. The whole aspect of looking at something through a different viewpoint interests me, I might use this idea somehow within my project.