Volatile Memory - Discourses of Memory, Forgetting, and Post-memory in Interactive Entertainment Cover Image

Niepamięć operacyjna - Dyskursy pamięci, zapomnienia i post-pamięci w rozrywce interaktywnej
Volatile Memory - Discourses of Memory, Forgetting, and Post-memory in Interactive Entertainment

Author(s): Tomasz Gnat
Subject(s): Ethics / Practical Philosophy, Cognitive Psychology, ICT Information and Communications Technologies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: memory; post-memory; interactive entertainment;

Summary/Abstract: My aim in this article is to analyse tools that are used to improve the processes of memory in video games. The discussion will open with a look at the methods used by game developers to reconcile the antithetic trends of discourse: the structural narrative and the interactive nature of the medium. Consequently, narrative clichés in the form of amnesia as well as innovative techniques that use tools characteristic of interactive entertainment will be analysed. The main thesis of this analysis is that in comparison to traditional narratives the processes of memory loss, forgetting and consequent emergence of post-memory, play a more important role in video games. This way of reinterpreting memories will largely shape our perception of the concept of temporality in interactive entertainment. It will require a departure from the traditional perspective of time and a transition to the interpretation of time from the perspective of Bergson and Deleuze.

  • Issue Year: 2020
  • Issue No: 40
  • Page Range: 43-62
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: Polish