Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
https://knowledgecommons.lakeheadu.ca/handle/2453/1019
Title: | "Welcome to the modern world, painted stick" : postmodern magic in educational virtual reality |
Authors: | Boyd, Randall Ian (Randy) |
Keywords: | Learning, Psychology of;Video games Psychological aspects;Video games and children |
Issue Date: | 2011 |
Abstract: | This dissertation endeavours to create a conceptual frameworkwith which to examine “video games as postmodern magic.” I begin by defining the operative understanding of postmodernism for the purpose of this analysis, focusing on representation, power, and a critique of Enlightenment assumptions, then using the work of Deleuze and Guatarri I construct a postmodern approach to the research, and suggest “resonance” as an alternative mode of evaluation and validation. I then turn to examine the concept of magic, before it was reduced and discredited by the Enlightenment, and in so doing finding another way of looking at the world, a way that privileges imagination over rationality, spirit over materialism, and multidimensionality over linear logic. Having “reached back” to a time before the Enlightenment, I then seek to connect those insights to “visual digital culture” where image, interactivity and immersion predominate. Having created a framework that integrates the issues of postmodernism, magic, and visual digital culture, video games are analyzed within this structure. Noting that magic plays a surface role in many games, I suggest that there is a more pervasive magical element to such games, and look at how video games expand the realm of possibility through simulation and simulacra, how they challenge the meta-narrative by shifting power and control of the narrative to the player, and finally how video games augment our appropriation of reality by synaesthetically creating experiences and a “phenomenology of magic.” The dissertation is concluded with a discussion of a possible “pedagogy of enchantment” in which the insights gained from the analysis are applied to the educational environment, narrativity, intereactivity and immersion, are placed within a virtual environment for exploration. |
Description: | To view accompanying video clips, please see CD accompanying the print version of this dissertation. |
URI: | http://knowledgecommons.lakeheadu.ca/handle/2453/1019 |
metadata.etd.degree.discipline: | Education |
metadata.etd.degree.name: | Doctor of Philosophy |
metadata.etd.degree.level: | Doctoral |
metadata.dc.contributor.advisor: | Fennell, Hope-Arlene |
Appears in Collections: | Electronic Theses and Dissertations from 2009 |
Files in This Item:
File | Description | Size | Format | |
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BoydR2010d-1b.pdf | 12.38 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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