ARTG + CMPM 171

RESEARCH: ETHICS + RESPONSIBILITY

Why does this matter?

1. Two research results: utility + understanding

research towards utility

The Great Horse Experiment

KODAK AND THE SHIRLEY TEST - EMBEDDED BIAS IN COLOR FILM

1950s + 1960’s Kodak Color Film was optimized and then calibrated for lighter complexions only

Photography as Utility

Pervasive technological Biases

ALGORITHMIC/CODED BIAS + AI

Joy Buolamwini + The Algorithmic Justice League

Facial Detection and Analysis Systems used in games, apps and other program are developed and “trained” with biased image libraries and data sets
Sample Sets lacked diversity and were captured with biased technology
Biased Systems become a huge issue once they gain “legitimacy” and are adopted for utility or enforcement by other systems of control

RESEARCH TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING

MEDIA + MEDIA TECHNOLOGY SHAPE OUR UNDERSTANDING OF OUR WORLD - REPRESENTATIONS IN MEDIA MATTER

GAMES AS EXPRESSIVE + PERSUASIVE MEDIA

REPRESENTATION CAN LEAD TO UNDERSTANDING OR MISUNDERSTANDING

CASE STUDIES - CULTURAL REPRESENTATION IN GAME NARRATIVES + ART

GRIM FANDANGO - LUCASARTS - 1998

FROM KILLSCREEN ARTICLE Exhuming Grim Fandango’s Mexican folklore inspirations

“One of my superpowers is to be able to go, ‘Oh, I think there was a Latino set designer involved in this,’ or ‘I think somebody really did their research or somebody really didn’t do their research,” says Nunn. “I think this game sort of borders both.”

When asked what other correlates there might be in film or TV that gets the same amount of things “right or wrong” in drawing inspiration from Latino culture, Nunn—after much consideration—says Fools Rush In, Nacho Libre, and maybe El Machete are the best examples.

“They set a precedent for at least the search for some authenticity regarding Latino culture,” says Nunn. “Latino culture is by no means homogenous and so all of these movies attempt to show the nuances, cultural exchange, blending, mixing, and blurring of borders. They do this all the time with wit, sarcasm, and a nod to Latino aesthetics and sensitivities.”

Dr. Tey Marianna Nunn, the director and chief curator of the Art Museum and Visual Arts Program at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, N.M.

…

Tim Schafer, Grim Fandango Writer and Director

“It [was not] really calculated,” says Schafer. “We definitely were trying to be authentic but it also just had a lot to do with the team. Mexican folklore is definitely important to it but if it had ended up on the desks of a different team, it probably would have been handled a lot different.”

Also, Schafer adds, Grim’s mixture of film noir and Mexican folklore has a very human explanation behind it: They just happened to be two things he was really into when it was time to plan his next game.

“I was really interested in film noir right when we were also kind of mulling around the right way to do a Day of the Dead game and it was—a lot of times you have ideas floating in your head for years and then two of them will crash into each other and you’ll realize that they accentuate each other,” says Schafer. “That’s what happened with Grim.”

…

So, the creative deviations Schafer and his team made were not done lightly. Oftentimes, Schafer says, they were the result of trying to make a game like this in a pre-Internet time, limited to whatever libraries had on hand or could interlibrary loan. Reading about Mictlán, it just sounded like a quest. Whenever things were vague in Schafer’s research, he “just made up some things.”

“I was well aware of how it could come off as a really crass cultural appropriation,” says Schafer. “On the one hand, it’s great to have representation of different cultures in games. It would be nice if it was being made by a developer that actually came from that culture, but I couldn’t really change that. But I did feel like, ‘How can I venture into another culture’s folklore and use it for this game and feel good about that?’ My main answer was, ‘I’m going to try to be as authentic as possible. I’m gonna research this and I’m going to try to capture not just specific details and the words, but also the themes and feelings of it.’”

…

As Schafer and his team proved with Grim, though, these types of missteps in creativity are not inevitable. They can be circumvented if you think about games as cultural artifacts that are a part of our lives just as much as their subject material. They have consequences and mean something to their audiences, and should be treated as such by player and creator alike.

“We did think about the risks of cultural appropriation and I think ultimately it’d be great if as far as the diversity of game development goes, there was a game about Mexican folklore that was made by someone from Mexico—and I’m sure there has been,” says Schafer. “But I feel like games are really cyclical. Games are made and they appeal to people for the most part who are similar to the people who made them and then those people get inspired to grow up and make games themselves. So you have a lot of same-isms, and just a lot of repeated cycles of people wanting to make what inspired them when they were younger. If that never expands, then games will always stay stuck in this kind of cycle. Maybe Grim wasn’t made by people who were of that culture but maybe it spoke to someone and by being on a new topic, something that wasn’t of a genre that was in games, would maybe reach new people and it could reach people outside of the currently identifying as gamers. That it would reach someone new, and that person might grow up to make games, and that would broaden that circle and help make it bigger and bigger.”

THIS IS WHERE WE ARE NOW - 25ISH YEARS LATER

CASE STUDY COMPARISON - KACHINA/DONUT COUNTY V NEVER ALONE

FROM BEN ESPOSITO’S GDC Failure Workshop on Kachina
& RPS ARTICLE Hopi-less: How Kachina Became Donut County

"There's no such thing as Hopi folklore," he told a packed crowd at this week's session. "It's a religion. It's not cool to be 'drawing' from that." He further explained that the depth of his research into the topic had been, well, liking the look of those dolls. But at that point, it was the design of his game, it looked good, and he was happy. And then he got sent a link to a blog post

…

Esposito explained that he had the worst possible reaction. "I decided to prove her wrong. I would make the most authentic game. It would be heroic... I am quite embarrassed about this."

To do this, Esposito began research. He bought books. He read about the Hopi, their stories and legends, and began working on making them be part of his game. His player character, a young girl of Hopi descent, would be exploring her own heritage, learning about it as the player did too, taught by Esposito through his game. Hopi dolls would guide her on her journey, and the story of the erasure of the Hopi people would be told, authentically, educationally

...

What had been a project, part faithful desire to tell unknown tales, part desire to prove someone wrong, he realised, was actually the real-life stories of real-life people. "And I was not treating them way," he admitted with humility. "A lot of what I was doing was hurting them. I couldn't do it justice, because they didn't want me to do it justice."

…

Donut County is a beautiful game about a hole that consumes and regurgitates objects, set in the place Esposito lives, telling the stories he's involved in. It looks as magical as Kachino once did when first revealed in 2013, but it features no totem poles or Hopi dolls. Esposito wants to tell his own story.

"Research does not equal lived experience," he said in conclusion… "Folks are not trying to silence you by telling you you're trying to silence them."…"If it's really important to tell someone's narrative," he adds, "let them tell it." If someone is not in a position to tell their story, maybe look at ways to help it get told. But don't assume it's yours to tell.

E-LINE’S NEVER ALONE

FROM KILLSCREEN ARTICLE Mini-Documentary on Never Alone Shows the Power of Inclusive Game-making

Never Alone may have invented a new genre known as “world games,” which aims to share, celebrate, and extend cultures from around the globe through interactivity. In the documentary, Amy Fredeen from the Cook Inlet Tribal Council explains that videogames felt like the best bet to communicate the sensorial nature of the Inupiaq storytelling tradition. “When we looked at how [a connection between our culture and the rest of the world) could be made through videogames, it seemed natural. The player is there, engaging in a story.”

But considering the industry’s previous treatment of indigenous cultures (in a word: painfully stereotypical), Fredeen knew that in order to make their game right, “the whole process of videogame making [would need] to change, and we needed to set that bar higher.”

COMPARISONS

ONE-WAY RESEARCH V.S. INTENTIONAL PARTNERSHIP
APPROPRIATION V.S. COLLABORATION
USING CULTURAL NARRATIVES V.S. EXPRESSING CULTURAL NARRATIVES
TELLING SOMEONE ELSE’S STORY V.S. HELPING SOMEONE TELL THEIR OWN STORY - AUTHORSHIP