Observed bodies and tool selves: kinaesthetic empathy and the videogame avatar

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the field of Kinaesthetic Empathy and how it is studied in dance and film then interrogates whether this framework can be applied to the videogame avatar. I study the avatar as textually signifying, as an observed body, and as a prosthetic tool-limb using the works of Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger as theoretical support and Ian Bogost’s procedural style of videogame reading. I perform close readings of videogame-texts Metal Gear Solid 3 and Mirror’s Edge demonstrating how the former enacts a traditional kinaesthetic empathy in the same way as in dance or film and the latter complicates this observer/performer relation. My paper concludes that, though a player/reader may experience a kinaesthetic empathy that resembles the filmic mode of observer/performer kinaesthetic empathy, the videogame form engenders a deeper tool-based empathy, which is altogether different from traditional conceptions of kinaesthetic empathy.

KEYWORDS:

• Kinaesthetic
• empathy
• videogames
• body
• avatar

Acknowledgements

This work was originally submitted towards the degree course of MA English Literary Studies specializing in Criticism and Theory at the University of Exeter.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Gabriel Patrick Wei-Hao Chin is a graduate of the University of Exeter, where he studied for both BA and MA qualifications in English. He is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Sussex on the subject of an Object-Oriented ethical approach to studying cultural forms in literature and other media.

Notes

1 Many writers such as Gottschalk, Waskul and Martin, Eiko Ikegami, and Stanley Harrison, to name but a few, discuss the avatar in terms of production of the self and identity politics within a social order. This is a rich field, but sadly I have no time to go into it here.

2 It is arguable that INSIDE is actually set within a 3-D world and therefore outside of what Klevjer calls the miniaturised worlds of 2-D games, but since Klevjer makes clear that the ‘scrollable’ nature of 2-D games and the fact that this does ‘not establish spatial continuity’ (167–168) defines a 2-D gamespace, I hold that it remains clearly within Klevjer’s stated boundaries of 2-D games.

3 I have previously discussed what it is to ‘play’ a videogame and will not go into detail on the nuances of the term here.

4 Which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9veCjE_LgA.

5 I use the terms ‘Parkour’ and ‘Freerunning’ interchangeably, though there is some debate as to the correct usage of each term.

6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqQ9kzne-mc.

7 In Mirror’s Edge the phenomenon I am calling an ‘air kick’ is the product of the wallrun kick, which is a normal game mechanic where the player can attack an enemy by doing a wallrun and kicking off the wall. In order to keep the avatar from kicking through objects, the game code generates a temporary invisible floor beneath the avatar during the kick which supports the avatar for its duration. After the kick animation ends, the avatar should fall to the floor as the physics engine dictates, as the invisible floor disappears. However, there is a 3 frame window in between the ending of the kick animation and the disappearance of the invisible support floor. It is in this window that the speedrunner can jump off the invisible floor and perform the air kick which appears as if the avatar has kicked off the air to extend jump and allow her to leap enormous distances. For reference, at the time of writing the latest videogames run at 60 frames per second, which should give an idea of how long a 3 frame window of opportunity is (Though Mirror’s Edge probably did not run at 60 fps on its release in 2008).