Asteroids, Holoblack and Clearance Futurism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9466331 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Pat McConville (0000-0002-7339-1669, Monash University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 62 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 405-418 |
| Publication date | 2021-11-06 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The British Journal of Aesthetics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-0904 • E-ISSN: 1468-2842 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/aesthj/ayab064 |
| OpenAlex | W4239322349 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 2 |
In this paper, I argue that the video game Asteroids’ enduring appeal turns on its ability to be read as futurist text. I connect Asteroids’ black and white aesthetic to the phenomenologist Vivian Sobchack’s notion of postfuturism. Central to postfuturism is a change from representations of space as deep to representations of space as surface, incapable of concealment. I consider materials designed to absorb almost all visible light—which I call holoblacks—as pushing past representations of space as surface into a paradigm of non-representation of space or space as non-representation. I argue that this non-representation is what is meant by Martin Heidegger in the concept of a thing. I therefore offer an interpretation of Heidegger’s Lichtung, or clearing, in which holoblacks act as a vehicle for the gathering, disclosure and nearing of world which I call ‘clearance futurism’. I conclude by reading Asteroids as a clearance futurist text
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Asteroid · Astrobiology · Futurist · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Physics · Politics · Reading (process · Representation (politics · Space (punctuation) · Digital Games and Media · Opportunistic and Delay-Tolerant Networks · Philosophy · Utopian, Dystopian, and Speculative Fiction
| Highly cited | No |
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