RE: [xmca] latour

Thanks a lot, Mike. I haven't written anything yet, I am still in
the "primitive accumulation" phase :) But I hope to have something before
Summer.

My interest in distributed cognition in games is due to the work of
Constance Steinkuehler (btw, she has published a paper in MCA). As regards
artifacts, basically I am not satisfied with the approaches to online games
as fiction, or simulation, or what have you. The issue at stake here is the
ontological status of such games. It is clear that they are artifacts
(Searle's theory of institutional facts might be useful here), and even
include some fictional elements. But since they are persistent (i.e., they
keep on going even when you are offline; in fact, even if no one is online),
they are a very peculiar sort of artifact, and a case can be made that they
are, in a sense, real worlds - or at least parts of the real world. A case
in point is the trade between game and "real world" currencies. As soon as
this happens, game currencies become part of the economy, and as such, real
(people actually make money by trading virtual coins, armour, equipment,
etc.).

I am still in a very early phase of my research, and ideas are still taking
shape. But they keep coming.

Best,
Luiz

**********
"The brain is a wonderful thing. Everybody should have one."

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
Behalf Of Mike Cole
Sent: sábado, 8 de Março de 2008 1:07
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] latour

Hi Luiz-- Have you written anything about your online game explorations
that led you back
to distributed cognition and artifacts?

The Latour article is in a book edited by Law. If someone has a pdf of it,
please let us know!
(off line is off line, but we are feeding each other tasty tid bits of ideas
here, right?)

Meantime, the following article may be relevant, its freely accessible, and
it gives a pretty
comprehensive overview of a bunch of related topics.

mike

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v4_n3html/RAMMERT.html

On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 4:48 PM, Luiz Carlos Baptista <
lucabaptista@fcsh.unl.pt> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> While exploring the brave new world of online games, I rediscovered the
> pleasures of distributed cognition and the study of artifacts. My
> bibliographical references in these areas are pretty much up-to-date, but
> I
> am still looking for a few rarities. One of them is an old article by
> Bruno
> Latour, called "Technology is society made durable". Does anyone have a
> copy
> (electronic or in print) that could send me? Please reply offlist.
>
> Thank you very much. All the best,
>
> Luiz Carlos Baptista
>
> **********
> "The brain is a wonderful thing. Everybody should have one."
>
> Luiz Carlos Baptista
>
> Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem
> Universidade Nova de Lisboa
> Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
> Avenida de Berna, 26-C
> 1069-061 Lisboa
> Portugal
>
> lucabaptista@fcsh.unl.pt
>
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
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Received on Fri Mar 7 18:00 PST 2008