Excited to have been invited to present and run a workshop at the Multimodal Methodololgies even in Bath in November. It’s open to doctoral students at GW4 universities (Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter) but I thought I would share the abstract here too…
Collecting a few quick thoughts, ideas and references, starting with a ‘sign’ above a ‘door’…
During a Minecraft ‘virtual models’ discussion session, I noticed that a player had placed a sign above a door. It read ‘this is not a door‘. Asking why he had placed this particular sign here the player, <Castaway112>, simply insisted, ‘because it’s not a door’. Another player, <yoloface23jr>, repeated this assertion and, after my own comment that ‘so, everything is not always as it seems in Minecraft…’, we moved on elsewhere in the game and in our discussion. I wish I had pursued the issue further, but I didn’t.
Here, months later, returning to this screenshot of door (the ‘not-a-door’ door) provides me a ‘way in’ to thinking about representation. Recalling this sign now I am reminded of this image by Rene Magritte called ‘The Treachery of Images’.
Of course (of course?) it’s not a pipe – it’s a picture of a pipe; a representation. Similarly, <Castaway112>’s door ‘n’est pas une porte‘; a number of other possible (imagined) responses could be…
“It’s not a door, it’s a picture of a door.”
“It’s not a door, it’s a Minecraft door.”
“It’s not a door, it’s pixels on a screen.”
“It’s not a door, it’s a sign.”
“It’s not a door, it’s some writing about a ‘not-a-door.”
Each of these possible answers return to the idea of representation, albeit from different directions (I’m resisting saying ‘layers’ as layers don’t feel very rhizomic). Throughout this project I have considered issues of representation; how I am representing the lived experience of others, how different ways of collecting and representing data have implications and, specifically, how comic strip transcription can represent a scene differently to a textual transcript.
Deleuze and Guattari’s (1980) rhizome as an ‘image of thought’ has underpinned my thinking, itself a representation of a way of thinking about stuff (and one which includes itself). This has led me to, increasingly, exploring and representing my own thinking visually. For instance, in the following panel from a longer comic strip I use text and images to explain the idea of approaching the club’s soundscape as a rhizome, as an alternative to pursuing a more linear, chronological reading (or ‘listening’). Nick Sousanis’ ‘Unflattening’ (2015), which challenges ‘the primacy of words over images’, helped me to consider using images to explore metaphors of thought.
Also in relation to the the soundscape of the club and considering the challenges of representing (and, in particular, visualising) sound, I have producing a number of visual representations (or non-cartographic, composite maps) of the club’s sound, drawing on John Cage’s (1969) anthology of unconventional music manuscripts.
Here I was also recently inspired by Jon Dean’s recent presentation which included his representation of a particular soundscape, performed simultaneously verbally and through composite sound. I must also credit Diane A Rodger’s recent talk on underground comic strips as part of #focussheffield – in particular her drawing of ‘Rivelin Valley’ in Sheffield helped me to consider how a drawn composite image of a place can effectively represent a location in a particular way.
I love @MissyTassles comic of Rivelin Valley (one of my favourite places to go running in Sheff) #focussheffield pic.twitter.com/FkXPz6PP5S
— Chris Bailey (@mrchrisjbailey) January 28, 2016
So, what is this door that’s not a door? It’s likely that I will never fully know what it represented for the player. But for me? I suggested at the beginning of this post that it was a way in: an introduction. But equally it could provide a way out: a conclusion. Whatever it is, for me, at this point, it definitely represents the challenge of representation.
References:
Cage, J. (1969) ‘Notations’ Something Else Press, New York.
Dean, J. (2015) “Submitting Love?” A Sensory Sociology of Southbourne. Qualitative Inquiry. 1-7.
Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1980) A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia
Magritte, . R (1929) ‘The Treachery of Images’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images
Rogers, D. A, Blog here: https://missytassles.wordpress.com/
Sousanis, N. (1995) ‘Unflattening’. Harvard University Press, London.
Really great to present at Sheffield University as part of the CSCY / Focus Sheffield Visual Methods series today.
Here’s the Storify link, courtesy of @dylanyamadarice: Comic Strips and Virtual Models
‘Virtual Worlds and Play – The diversity of social play in a Minecraft Club’
My video contribution about the range of play around Minecraft will form part of this free online course from Sheffield University.
Free online course on play from @sheffielduni featuring @sheilayoshikawa starts 19 Oct pic.twitter.com/Ucvm6l16rJ
— Sheff Uni Play (@FLPlaySheff) September 29, 2015
My intention was for discussion in each session to focus on three areas:
1. For the children to reflect on the nature of the club itself, with a focus on their motivation to continue attending weekly for a whole academic year.
2. For the children to discuss their perceptions of Banterbury, their ‘virtual community’. I asked them to describe what kind of place Banterbury is…
3. For the children to suggest some ‘episodes’, ‘events’ or ‘instances’ for me to look more closely at during my data analysis, based on what they felt had been ‘particularly interesting or important’. In order to prompt this part of the discussion I gave them two examples that I was already looking at – the horse funeral and the sheep song.
The following is a brief outline of the discussion session 5, centred around the models produced by the children, based on repeated re-watching of the screencast from the sessions.
Discussion Session #5
Callum’s model represented relaxation in the game, which he suggested is one reason to play the game. He then began to focus on the importance of social gameplay, particularly for him as a new member of the class at the beginning of the year, who joined the group from another school: ‘It’s a really great way for me to join in….I’ve got to know people so well through Minecraft Club. I don’t think I’d know anyone this well or be this best friends with anybody without Minecraft Club.’ Asked why a club around Minecraft was a good place for this social time he replied:
‘People talk more, there’s a bit more chance to talk and demonstrate their feelings in what they build… so I think I’ve got to know them quite well… and what they like and stuff’.
I asked if, for example, a chess club would have helped in the same way. He replied that he wouldn’t have gone, neither would anyone else!
Alex directed me over to his mushroom house and, after a bit of time establishing how to enter, he gave me a guided tour. This model was intended ‘to explain all of the places you can go’ (in Banterbury) ‘the forest… sand… mushrooms’. Above one of the doors was a sign reading ‘this is not a door’. Confused by this I asked why, to be told that ‘it’s clearly not a door’. Things are not what they appear to be.
As he led me around the house I saw ‘the most dangerous fireplace in the world, a baby sitting room, a room with a sign that says ‘do not enter because of chickens’ (we enter – there are no chickens) and a farm with cows with mushrooms on their heads’. He suggested that this ‘reminded him of the craziness of the world’ in Minecraft Club.
Joseph created an art gallery as a chance to try out using things he had not used before. He said that this reflected that ‘there are lots of items that they don’t use in the club’ and therefore possibilities that they had not yet explored.
Additional points
Alex began by suggesting that I should look more closely at the events around the creation of Banterbury Library. This was interesting as this is already the focus of some of my data analysis. When asked why he suggested, ‘definitely when they were making the books… we were actually doing writing…. We actually tried to do something that is exciting’. Callum agreed and suggested that a focus on the library was important because ‘a lot of people think that Minecraft is just about building structures but you can build books and stories and stuff as well, which is quite good… It’s a feature that is in Minecraft all the time, and it’s part of real life… there’s books in real life…’
Joe discovered a glitch in the game where the doors were only half rendering. They then began to notice that it was possible to change skins in this new version – they left the game to change their skins: ‘Awesome! That is so cooool! Epicness!’
There was also some discussion over the legitimacy of the naming of the town Banterbury. Callum expressed frustration about the town being called ‘Banterbury’ – ‘WHY IS IT CALLED THAT?!’ He attributed its naming to one specific player’s particular interest in the word ‘banter’. Alex suggested a possible origin for the name Banterbury – a youtube video of another game ‘Terraria’ where a player names his world ‘Banterbury’ (I could not find this, however). There was a suggestion that there were some ‘power’ issues relating to the naming and the subsequent perceived ‘ownership’ of the town and control over certain activities was something that they found potentially frustrating and potentially led to the forming of groups within the club. They talked about how the girls (and some boys) like ‘all their stuff private and make a massive fuss when someone goes in’. I will pursue this more specifically elsewhere.
They also further emphasised the important of the social aspect of the gameplay in the club: ‘You can work together… sometimes we talk about other things, we talk about things while we are playing’. This ‘makes it more exciting’.
Another lunchtime discussion session where four children built models using the iPad version, contributing to the ongoing map of models. This time I used some printed screenshots and photographs from the club as a form of photo elicitation to prompt discussion. I’m struck by how visually diverse the children’s creations continue to be – seen here are some new creations such as the massive spiral, the illuminated ‘FUN’ sign and a giant waterfall bridge. Again, I’ll keep this post text-light, based simply on some screenshots taken during the session.
In this post I will reflect on last week’s discussion activity – as before, loosely based on David Gauntlett’s ‘Identity Models’ work.
Other events in school this week meant there was no time for full after-school club session. However, I took the opportunity to conduct another lunchtime discussion session with four of the participants. As before, discussion centred around the children’s creation of virtual models in a shared world – the same shared world that has been used for the previous two discussion sessions.
After updating all iPads to the same version of Minecraft (I had updated my version, forgetting the consequences of incompatibility with the school devices) the four children entered the world, hosted on my iPad. I recorded their dialogue as part of the screencast of my screen. I was present in the world, with the children. Two of the children had not participated in one of these discussion activities before so I briefly explained the presence of the existing models as ‘representations of people’s ideas’. I was later interested to note that the word ‘representation’ had obviously stuck with the two new children as this directed the nature of the virtual models they produced. While I was talking I noticed one of the players finishing off someone else’s ‘player’ model from the previous session by adding a head.
This week I was interested in exploring the children’s use of space in the game, with a particular focus on the origin and development of the things they create in the game. The task set for the children, therefore, was to simply ‘build something that you think looks good‘. I then used their resulting activity as a basis for discussion with the children about why they had chosen to build the particular model, attempting to unpick their decision making process in relation to virtual creation. This revealed a range of different approaches to the task that demonstrated the children using the game’s resources in quite different ways, taking different routes from their own individual starting points.
None of the children seemed to take any time to think through their model – they all began building immediately.
The models:
This was created to represent the players of the game in the club. The Finland flag represented this players’ imminent holiday destination. His choice to create something that ‘represented’ something presumably stemmed from my earlier use of the word in relation to previous models. He said he had build flags before ‘a couple of times’ so his idea was also based on his previous experience.
Joe: ‘Well, it’s something that represents us all…It’s not random flags… It sort of looks interesting, because it’s big….’
Rob: ‘I’m building me…. No I’m not, I’m building… a building… I’m building myself… no I’m not… Because I think I’m good… No, actually, I’m going to build a sign that says my name!’
Me: ‘Can you think how you got this idea?
Rob: ‘I saw the big person and had an idea ‘why don’t I build a person’, but it didn’t look right so I turned it into a sign.’
Later I noted that his sign had some blocks missing in the top left hand corner and asked if this was intentional. Rob said it’s wasn’t and returned to complete the project – I suspect he may have been occupied with his own alternative project (see the end of this post).
This player explained that his podium started out as a lighthouse but adapted when it didn’t look right. The idea for the lighthouse stemmed from the fact that Minecraft allows the player to use light in a number of ways and he wanted to explore the use of this resource:
Callum: ‘It was originally going to be a lighthouse, but after the first three sections I thought ‘this looks too square, it’s not going to work out so I’m going to change it into a podium’
Me: ‘So it’s a podium? Can you think what made you think ‘lighthouse’ in the first place?’
Callum: ‘Well, I like minecraft because as well as playing with blocks you can play with light? And I kind of like the whole ‘playing with light’ aspect, so I wanted to do something with that.’
Conversation then turned to using TNT and whether this was allowed in this alternative world – at this point I was not aware that this linked to Rob’s alternative project.
The chicken earned significant praise from the other children.
Me: ‘What made you choose a chicken?’
Lisa: ‘Well, I like chickens…’
Me: ‘Real ones or Minecraft ones?’
Lisa: ‘Both. They’re cute. because they have a purpose in the world. To lay eggs’
Me: ‘Who are the eggs for?’
Lisa: ‘For the chicken. I suppose in Minecraft they’re for us….’
Me: ‘Does it look like you wanted it to look?’
Lisa: ‘I didn’t know, like, have an idea of what I wanted it to look like.’
Me: ‘Can you remember which bit of the chilcken you did first?’
Lisa: ‘I started with the feet first, then made a boat shape and then changed it to make it more round’
This model made me think about Lisa’s relationship with animals in the game. Her play often revolves around animals, and a previous model she build also involved animals. I recalled a conversation in a previous session where I heard her discussing an incident in the game where she had killed a pig for food.
Freya: [incredulously] ‘YOU killed a pig? How did you manage that?’
Lisa: ‘Well, I looked the other way!’
——————
As usual, other topics were discussed too.
Lisa: ‘It’s better than an interview’
Callum: ‘Yeah, I hate interviews. A proper interview, when they’re asking loads of questions about you, they just feel like when they ask all these questions of you they feel like the person doing the interview is intruding on your life, in a way because they’re asking questions about you, personal stuff in the interview, and they feel like they’re trying to intrude….it feel’s like an interrogation or something.’
Callum: ‘with survival you’ve got to concentrate a lot, you’ve got to stay on task, whereas with creative you can just chill out. If I’m on survival at home I can’t stop because I’m just terrified that I’m going to get blown up!’
Callum: ‘I had this idea for a community… I just thought… I was watching this TV programme, and there was this big, like, community with allsorts of things from the future and things from the past and from the present…. .so you have Aztec temples and rocket stations and stuff….. It was just a show, a real life thing, but with loads of… like a live action thing – and I thought ‘hey that’s a really good idea, I wonder how I could make something similar’. First I thought about a sketch or something but then I thought ‘hey!’ and then I did it on Minecraft.’
‘What I really love with Minecraft is you can just build anything you want, I mean, before Minecraft it was just dreams people had, and it was just really frustrating because you couldn’t make it in real life… For me, it’s, like, the next best thing to real life. The second most realistic thing, even though it’s make of blocks!’
Finally, as we reached the end of the session, Rob drew our attention to a hole in the ground, demonstrating why he had not perhaps had his full attention on finishing his sign:
Inside revealed a basement had been dug and filled with Endermen and zombies, recalling the subversion of gameplay often seen during the early stages of the club.
I have written previously about my use of David Gauntlett’s ‘Identity Models’ approach in order to discuss the club with the children, adapted to take place in Minecraft. This post relates to the second discussion session that took place before Christmas, the week after session #7 of the club.
Four girls took part in the session, each accessing the shared Minecraft world on the iPads. I also entered the world, recording my screen using quicktime on my laptop, mirrored from the iPad. The children could also see my perspective on the laptop screen. I decided to continue using the same map used by the boys in the previous session in order to allow the players to see the models created by others. The idea of having an ongoing second world running in parallel with the whole-group world of the club was also appealing, not least as it would allow me to maintain some sort of historical record of the children’s models.
Again, I asked the children to create a model to convey their feelings about Minecraft and the club. Mindful of the seemingly default position taken by the last group of children who ended up producing very Minecraft-y buildings, I attempted (in retrospect, at annoyingly unnecessary length) to encourage the children to think of their creations as sculptures, drawing on their knowledge of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park as a point of reference.
The models
1. Molly’s model – relating to collaboration, togetherness and imagination
Me: Are you going to show me around then?
Molly: Yeah. I’ll show you around. Ok, so basically…
Sophie: Nice one Molly, so is that your little castle? I can see it on Mr Bailey’s screen.
Molly: Ok, right, so basically, the signs are the eyes. The glass is the nose. The bricks are the eyebrows. Ummm.. the white stuff is the teeth… um…
Mia: Big grin…
Molly: Thank you.
Freya: Let’s have a look. Hahaha!
Molly: And, um, the torches are spyhole and I’m just gonna do brown things for hair.
Me: Great. And you’ve written on it.
Molly: Ummm… ‘I love Minecraft because it makes me feel happy’
Girls: ahhh!
Me: Can you explain… can you think about why?
Molly: Yeah umm…
Mia: It brings people together.
Molly: Cos it brings people together, its really fun to play and you’re doing it with your friends, So it’s basically your world, so you can, basically use your imagination, you can do everything you want.
Mia: [singing] ‘You control it / You the owner’
Me: So are you talking about Minecraft or Minecraft Club?
Molly: Minecraft and Club.
2. Mia’s model – relating to the social experience of playing with a group
Me: And can you explain why you’re creating a person?
Mia: To represent that people that are playing Minecraft.
Me: And that’s what you like about it? [sounding sarcastic by accident]
Mia: [Laughs]
Me: That wasn’t meant to sound bad, that was me trying to understand what you like about it!
Mia: I like how there’s people playing Minecraft and how everyone… and how other people are like brought together by Minecraft so that’s why I’m drawing a person / people to represent the people playing the game. [later]
…. All the people are extra important because if you didn’t have the people it wouldn’t be fun.
3. Lisa’s model – relating to exploration and the absence of restrictions
Me: Lisa, I’m watching your creation that you built. Would you like to talk to us about it?
Lisa: Yeah. Well, the animals represent people and it’s like having to explore? Like, together?
Me: So you’ve put a group of animals together and they represent people.
Lisa and Mia: [singing] ‘Together, forever, Skyfall’
Me: And it’s the exploring you like?
Lisa: Yeah!
Me: Can you say a little more about that?
Lisa: Well, you can, like, go wherever you want to and do whatever you want. There’s no restrictions.
Mia: [singing] no restrictions!
All: Hahaha!
Molly: The sky is the limit!
Lisa: That’s what [teacher] said earlier.
Molly: Literally the sky is the limit because you can’t get to the sun. I was trying to get to the sun in Minecraft, you go up there for hours and you’re looking down and moving but you can never get to the sun.
4. Freya’s model – relating to inclusiveness
Freya: Basically I’m making a house to show… right.. .that like everyone is welcome in, cos people come into the house and it’ll show that everyone is welcome in minecraft, noone ever gets left.
Me: So you like it cos everyone’s welcome? What makes everyone welcome?
Freya: The people in it. And everyone, like, is welcome cos everyone makes sure that everyone is ok.
Some initial observations and questions
In this post, at an early stage in my research project, I provide a brief synopsis of my application of a ‘virtual models’ method – inspired by David Gauntlett’s non-virtual ‘Creative Explorations’– used to seek the children’s opinions and feelings about their participation in Minecraft Club.
Background
In the methodological outline for this ethnography, I stated that I would set tasks for smaller groups of club participants to create virtual, in-game representations of their feelings about the club, at a number of interval during the project. This would happen aside from the regular timetabled club and would use the Pocket Edition of Minecraft on the iPads rather than the Laptop version of Minecraft Edu.
My rational for this approach was twofold: Firstly, I intended to further involve a version of the virtual world in the research process, thereby utilising a medium that the children are already enthusiastic about, and proficient in, acting as a stimulus for further group discussion.
Secondly, inspired by Gauntlett’s (2007) use of ‘identity models’ constructed using Lego, this method was chosen to give the children and opportunity to use their own ‘visual voice’ (Gauntlett, 2007, p.107), circumventing the ‘inherent linear mode of speech’ by presenting ‘a set of ideas all in one go’ (Gauntlett, 2007, p. 126). Adapting this method to work in a virtual context seemed appropriate given the focus of the study around a virtual world, particularly given Minecraft’s (admittedly simplified) status as something of a ‘virtual lego’. In this way, I hoped that children would be engaged in more sustained thinking, processing and representing of their ideas to supplement the other data collected during the fieldwork.
Outline of the session
Last week I conducted the first hybrid ‘virtual models’ / interview session with three club members, who attended voluntarily and enthusiastically. I had initially positioned this as ‘a group interview’ – which drew no volunteers from the group. However, when I subsequently mentioned that we would be using the game itself to aid our discussions, a number of hands were quickly raised (Another win for the pulling power of technology there, I think).
Seated around a table in their classroom during lunchtime, I generated a map in Minecraft on my iPad Mini and the three boys joined on their local network. As a result, all four of our avatars were present in the same virtual space, just as the four of us were also present in the same material setting. I verbally set them the task of building something that would reflect their feeling about Minecraft Club or Minecraft itself. I explained that this might seem like a challenging concept, but that anything they came up with was fine. It was refreshing how easily they took up this challenge, as if this was something they were asked to do on a regular basis. They created in game and we talked for around 20 minutes until it was their allotted lunchtime. I began drawing the session to a close but they requested to come back and continue once they had finished eating, so we continued the session on their return for another ten minutes. I took a video recording of the session, primarily to record the conversation and some of the action on my screen. I also took screenshots, at random intervals, to capture the construction of the models from my perspective. I have transcribed the conversations from the sessions.
While the children built I asked questions, sometimes leading the discussion and at other times being led by their agenda. Two of the three children were very vocal, one was less forthcoming during the discussion in general and seemed very focus on his task of creation, but was very happy to describe his model. Below I have briefly presented screenshots of the models in production, along with the transcripts of conversation that related directly to these models. Our conversations also covered a wide range of topics, including the group’s propensity to break into song, the origins of their ideas, their feelings about collaboration and the affordances of this ‘virtual models’ method.
The Models
Child 1: Do you need me to explain why I’m making a floating house…?
Me: You can explain it now if you like, if you’re prepared to.
Child 1: I’m making a floating house because simply because you can’t do that in real life. In Minecraft… there are no limits. You can do what… you… want! There’s no limits and you just don’t have that in real life. That’s one of the great things about Minecraft.
Child 2: Because I feel at home at Minecraft club, cos I’m with my friends.
Me: So you’re building a home? And Minecraft club makes you feel at home?
Child 2: Sometimes if I’m playing it at home… If I play it with my friends I feel like I’m at home.. or not at home it’s like magic!
Child 1: That makes a lot of sense!
Child 2: A lot of sense! Yeah I always make sense!
Child 2: I built a village cos I like villages in Minecraft.
Me: Ok. What do you like about the villages?
Child 3: It’s like you can… Do lots of stuff in the village and there’s lots of different types of village.
Child 2: And you can trade with villagers
Child 3: Yeah and you can trade them
Me: So these villages that you’ve built, they’re kind of erm… They exist in the game, the game makes them, is that right?
Child 1: Yeah generated game structures.
Me: You’ve built something that’s actually replicated something that the game generated?
Child 1: It just gives you that satisfaction like: ‘I can beat the game’ cos you can do the stuff that the game can!
Child 3: I can do the game. Basically… Do the game, at life, so…
Conclusions
These first models are perhaps more conventional in their traditional Minecraft-ness than I would have expected, given the unlimited scope of colour and variety afforded by the tools available in creative mode. In retrospect however, given the very limited introduction I gave the task, it should not be surprising that the children’s models are more literal than metaphorical in nature. This is something I will work on with other groups, and in my future sessions with this group, both through the nature of my introduction and the more conceptual nature of future questions, which may relate to ideas of identity and their experience of place and space. This said, I must also be careful not to push my aesthetic expectations on the children, just as I wouldn’t wish to put words in their mouths! Nevertheless, as a first attempt, this session enabled some effective discussion that would otherwise not have occurred, given a purely verbal focus.
Reference:
a space for things 