Taking a quick intermission from my ecstatic trip into ye olde grotesquerie; here is an update of a more contemporary flavour.
Yes, I have a chapter in this book ... and I would like you to read it.
The book, that is. You don't have to read my chapter if you don't want to. This stuff is optional.
Why bother with a book at all - why not just Google all the things?
A) because it has an amazing title; B) because it's a really interesting and timely collection focused on a neglected (and somewhat reviled) genre; and C) because... games! They're brilliant!
Plus - if you have an interest in hybrid bodies, genetic mutations, and grotesqueness in general - my chapter is on BioShock, and explores the kinds of ontological fusions and boundary crossings made possible by the game's unique weapons system. It's all connected... oh yes...
The end.
P.S. I am also in this book. Talking about zombies. Buy it for your grandmother!
Hello, imaginary friends. In penance for a slow down in posting recently, I present an assortment of imagery for your visual enjoyment.
The university grounds have been home to a variety of artistic installations over the last month for the Perth Arts Festival. As part of the Dialogues with Landscape one artist arranged groups of trees and plants, each snuggled into its own sleeping bag. Apparently each circle represents a discipline within the university.
Something tells me this is the Humanities group.
Nobody matches. And someone is really into cartoons.
The above photographs record pretty much my only excursion in the last fortnight. A lot of working has been occurring.
You might think staying home + work = no shopping for loot. You would be mistaken. The 2K Games store is having a sale. My self-gifts arrived in the mail yesterday. Surprise: they are all BioShock related.
This is "1959" by Craig Mullins:
And this is "Subject Delta" by Boris Vallejo:
Very nice. I also scored a couple of posters based on in-game advertisements in BioShock.
The sale is still on, so you can check it out here if you like. Be warned: international postage is very expensive. But everything is half price so I think it works out. Maybe.
Following up on my previous post about the Grotesques in Hellgate: London, here is another distinct yet overlapping example of 'grotesque' video game beasts. This time they are in Diablo III, a fantasy RPG that has not yet been released.
According to the gamers who contribute to the Diablo Wiki, Grotesques in this game "seem to be doll-like entities made of human skin sewn together."
"...the grotesque are basically living pinatas. They are fat, white, humanoid monsters, who run up to a player who comes into range, take a single hit, bend over backwards, and rupture into a massive fountain of wriggling silver eels."
For your viewing pleasure, here is a clip of this precise event taking place.
"There seem to be far more eels within a grotesque than their volume would permit, but such is the nature of magic. The eels, properly called Lamprey are wriggling creatures that must be killed lest they consume your character's toes, but they seem to die very quickly, and on the whole the Grotesque-Lamprey combo looks more inventive and amusing than dangerous."
If you are getting a sense of déjà vu from this description, you are not alone. The Grotesques in Diablo III are very similar to the Grotesques in Hellgate: London. Both are described as figures whose bodies are stitched together from various pieces of flesh. Both explode when attacked, releasing a dangerous surge of eels or maggots. They also somewhat resemble each other at close quarters, each with multiple heads emerging from bulbous yet sinewy bodies crisscrossed with Frankensteinian scars. Here is the official art for Diablo III's Grotesque. Click for a closer look.
Two separate grotesques... why the resemblance? As usual, the good people of the Internet have the answer:
"Grotesque are extremely similar to a monster type in Hellgate: London also knows [sic] as Grotesque. In Hellgate, Grotesque are shambling, twisted mounds of demonic flesh that, upon death, explode and release numerous zombies and Death Maggots. Given that Hellgate: London was created by former members of Blizzard North, which made Diablo II and started work on Diablo III, one might speculate on some connection between the very similar monster types seen in the two games."
Most importantly, game producer Bill Roper (who was heavily involved in the creation of the Diablo series) left Blizzard Entertainment to begin making Hellgate: London.
I always find it interesting to observe how similar visions of grotesqueness are perpetuated in different texts. In this situation, a solid connection can be made between the two constructs. Individuals who share a notion of grotesqueness that is embodied in misshapen, composite and explosive human flesh have applied their definition while creating multiple texts, resulting in Grotesques that are similar in both appearance and behaviour.
The word 'grotesque' is popular in video games, especially in relation to the weird creatures that players are often called upon to battle. I recently discovered that Hellgate: London (2007) has some creatures called Grotesques, and figured it was worth posting here. Of course, the more I look, the more games I find with their own grotesques, so I might do a few of these 'in-game grotesque' posts.
Hellgate: London is a post-apocalyptic RPG involving a bunch of contemporary Knights Templar trying to win back London after the earth is overwhelmed by evil monsters. The knights wear glowing Tron inspired armour, and the game occurs in 2038, so there are clearly some past/future border crossings occurring here. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
You can play as other characters, but the knights look the best . Likewise, there are a whole bunch of different creatures to battle, but the Grotesques are in a class of their own. The Hellgate Wiki provides this visceral description:
"Stitched together from numerous corpses and chunks of flesh, the Grotesque is an aptly named abomination. The stench of rotting meat is always a sure sign that one of these lumbering, disease-ridden automatons is in the area. The decaying bodies are filled with maggots that have been altered by the demonic energies used to create this monstrosity."
Brilliant. In gameplay terms:
"Different Grotesque creations present different challenges but after slaying any of them, they remain dangerous. Invariably their melded corpses explode and undead forms then rise from the remains, freed from their united servitude. "
Here are a few screenshots of different Grotesques in action:
I'm always impressed by good screenshots. They are difficult to take when you're in the middle of playing. The official art images give you a clearer look at the design and appearance of Grotesques (click to enlarge):
I am definitely seeing "numerous corpses and chunks of flesh."
There is also a Fetid Hulk which is worth looking at. The intro video for the game is below. A bit melodramatic, but worth checking out for the shiny Tron outfits. And the monsters.
I've mentioned my love of BioShock once or twice on this blog before. Here is the trailer, if you don't know what I'm talking about.
One of my favourite parts of the game is the Splicers; citizens of Rapture (a dilapidated 1940s underwater city) who have abused gene altering substances to the point of physical mutation and mental instability. Splicers are always ranting and singing to themselves.
And sometimes they just whistle.
There are a bunch of action figures out for BioShock and BioShock 2. I decided I should get the latest. Specifically, the Lady Smith Splicer. For research purposes, you understand... *ahem* I was curious to see how her figure would look in the flesh, so to speak, considering her outrageous persona and physique in the game. She's not your typical bodacious female figure.
The Lady Smith is one of the most snobbish enemies, as she was originally an upper-crust lady of leisure:
"Once she was the talk of the town – a high-profile socialite whose wit was her weapon among Rapture’s elite. As the city fell from grace, so did she – becoming addicted to ADAM, splicing herself stronger and faster to feel safe in the streets. She resents having to eat refuse and scrabble for ADAM, but ultimately, she’s a survivor. As a "Leadhead", she pelts her enemies with bursts of tommy-gun fire between vicious verbal barbs."
Speaking of verbal barbs... these are a few of her choice sayings from the first game:
Snarky. Anyway, she arrived yesterday, and is so lovely and horrid I thought it was worth sharing a few pics.
She comes with masquerade mask, a gun and a rolling pin.
Her quality is a lot better than I expected. The skin is particularly good, bulging with veins and chords. Check out these details:
The huge fleshy growth on her waist is matched by a lump on her arm which has split her long glove.
I like how she is bursting through her 50s style dress at the back. It reminds me of The Hulk and how he erupts from his clothing.
The rolling pin, perm and pearls offer a nice touch of 'femininity gone wrong.'
Don't look now, but I'm 90% sure she has a breast growing on her leg.
Cute shoe. She has also grown a tail from one leg, while the other foot has come to resemble more of a hoof/claw.
It seems to me there is something quite poignant about the idea a woman would mutate her body so dramatically: "splicing herself stronger and faster to feel safe in the streets." Women today are surgically altering their bodies for beautification purposes. But would they do it for physical power? What kind of environment would justify such an act? And at what cost?
(BioShock engages with plastic surgery also, through the character of Dr Steinman and his "Aesthetic Ideals" clinic. You can check out his bit of the game here- warning, major spoilers.)
As one reviewer put it: "NECA's Ladysmith Splicer is a hideous monster of a woman. She's painful to look at, and unsettling to consider. But that is as it should be: that's how she looks in the game, as well. "
If I still had my childhood barbies, they would definitely be clutching their pink purses tighter tonight.
I have dedicated a chapter of my thesis to 'grotesque games' or, more accurately, 'games that make use of notions of grotesqueness during gameplay.' For this reason I was pretty excited to discover that there is an actual game called Grotesque in the making.
In what way do the developers understand their game to be grotesque, I wondered. Will it be in terms of gross/disgusting? Full of turds and/or blood and gore? Or will the game be about human/animal/plant beasts? I can think of a number of existing games that concern themselves with such content, but they do not call themselves 'grotesque.'
It turns out that Grotesque: Heroes Hunted is a German role playing game intended to operate as a parody of other role playing games. Stay with me.
You play as Roger Sun:
"an everyday hero from the present, who is neither particularly strong nor particularly honourable. He is the guitarist in a heavy metal band, loves animals and is a huge fan of role-play games and adventures."
The game narrative begins as follows:
"Through the mystical force of an antique mirror he has recently bought [Roger] is sucked into another world and lands, complete with his lounge furnishings, right in the midst of a conflict between a kingly character and some grass-like creatures. It seems as though the eternal battle between light and dark in the game, which has been going on for years, suddenly become reality. However, Roger had never imagined that a hero’s life, as a prospective chosen-one, would be anything like this. The forces of the light that Roger urgently needs as co-combatants and friends, emerge mainly as arrogant, egotistical and to some extent even inter-fighting."
Apart from being a bit confusing, what the heck is grotesque about all this?
"When the vampires, Dawnclaude & Solithaire appear, and with sadistic fiendishness hunt down everything human, it becomes quite clear that they are merely the forerunners of a very angry and very murky power, a power that would not remain hidden to the sudden appearance of Roger Sun... Now it’s up to you to blend into the world of Grotesque – this is not the ultimate quest of any hero; it is the one of your own life!"
So, it turns out that Grotesque is the name of the world; a noun as opposed to an adjective.
The emphasis upon parody indicates that the notion of grotesqueness in use here is bound up with humour. There is a whole body of grotesque theory that argues that 'the grotesque' is a species of the comic, so this is not revolutionary. To rudely simplify a lot of interesting theory, the primary argument tends to be that 'the grotesque' occurs at the intersection of the comic and the horrific. So is Grotesque: Heroes Hunted both comic and horrific? You can judge for yourself, if you so wish...
"Mandy, don't get jealous."
The female characters are large breasted and whiny, but the chicken things are funny, right?
I'm very busy at the moment with my usual writing schedule, PLUS my mutant drilling schedule. Oh, you must know what I'm talking about:
Playing wasn't as easy as I'd hoped. My first attempt to launch the game resulted in the soon-to-be-dreaded Windows error message "BioShock 2 has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." Without going into my extreme rage in unflattering detail... after two days of trawling forums filled with similarly distraught gamers I found the solution. It was, of course, ridiculously simple. If you are having troubles getting the game to work I recommend checking here and/or visiting the 2K Games tech support forums. Yes, I had a genuine "Computer Says No" scenario, and we all know how irritating that is.
At least I can laugh about it, now... *twitch*
Technical troubles aside, I am happy to report that BioShock 2 is just as good as I'd hoped. I won't be posting any spoilers, so you will have to play for yourself to find out what it is all about. Now, if you will excuse me... *drilling*
My BioShock 2 countdown continues. It's only 1 week until the release date now, so everybody better get their pre-order ready. No?
Hmm. How can I convince you...
"With genetic modifications, beauty is no longer a goal, or even a virtue, it is a moral obligation."
One of my favourite parts of the original BioShock is the way the game imagines the possible repercussions of plastic surgery in the context of genetic modification. Once absolute symmetry is achievable by all, what next? As any fashion connoisseur will tell you, conformity is the opposite of style.
"Why do we have two eyes? Is there some law that says we must? Two arms, two legs, two ears, two breasts..."
So asks the game's first major villain, Dr Steinman, a plastic surgeon whose 'Aesthetic Ideals' surgery is the setting for the first boss battle.
This video shows the main points of your encounter with Dr Steinman and gives you a taste of how storytelling occurs during gameplay. Yes, it is very spoilery, so if you are already planning to play the game you probably shouldn't watch.
In fact, this post follows rather nicely on from my last post on the 'grotesque' female body. What is beautiful? What is grotesque? And why is the female body so central to our constructions of both of these concepts?
On Steam right now you receive the original BioShock free with your pre-order of BioShock 2.
I am so excited.
[Steinman pic via BioShock Wiki > Warning: epic spoilers here]
Finally joined Steam over the weekend. Found this little gem in the 'indie games' section. Disclosure: I'm not a huge fan of puzzle games. But Machinarium is just so gorgeously rendered and intricately constructed that even I have to appreciate it. It's like a child's story book come to life. Plus there are robots.
The video game BioShock (2007) has played a crucial role in expanding my thesis argument (and my mind) beyond the usual suspects of print and film. Not to mention opened up a whole new arena in which to theorise the notion of grotesqueness in terms of agency, power and the body. I won't go into my argument regarding BioShock and the grotesque; there would be many, many words, my keyboard would catch fire, and your eyes would grow weary. Maybe later.
Plus, my appreciation is not solely academic. The music is a big part of why I love BioShock. Each gaming scenario has its own special theme, and each level and character has a particular tune that really lifts the FPS experience. These are pretty good examples of what I mean:
The Art Nouveau surroundings and stylish graphics are also part of it.
The game is set in an abandoned underwater city where the overuse of genetic mutagens has sent most of the remaining (mutated) citizens insane. The scenario is thus both nostalgic and futuristic; set simultaneously in the past and the future. At least, in an imagined past/future. The whole game is a kind of alternative history akin to Steampunk. (Or perhaps a kind of 21st century Neo-Nostalgia?) It is interesting to try and situate the real 'now' in relation to this game; you could say it is both a prequel and sequel to the present, letting us play out our dreams of lost naiveté and future corruption at the same time.
The emotional heart of the game lies in the relationship between the Little Sisters that trot about extracting valuable genetic materials from corpses and the attentive Big Daddies in scuba suits who protect them. The player must make a moral choice to save or sacrifice the children in order to progress in the game.
Depending on your choices, you achieve a 'good,' 'neutral' or 'bad' conclusion at the end. I like to see games introducing moral questions such as 'to kill or not to kill'. I know it isn't real. But I could never bring myself to hurt the little ones. I also started wishing I could choose not to kill the Big Daddies. Once agency is introduced, you start wanting to exercise it more and more.
In any case, BioShock 2 is coming out in a few weeks. The developers have promoted it as a prequel/sequel to the first game, so it looks like the past/present vortex will only get more confusing. The teaser trailer is intriguing.
The full trailer doesn't give too much away either.
Big Sister is a good idea. Gender equality and all that. It would be nice to play as her though, which probably won't happen. Either way, this game needs to come out soonish, preferably before I spend any more impatient money on merchandise. (They are figurines, not dolls.) I am curious to see what visions of grotesquery the creators have constructed this time around.
I commented a few posts ago about how the theme of human and nonhuman merging, typical of the traditional 'grotesque' style, has a particular poignancy in the 21st century. As the natural world begins to express its suffering more persistently, and we are forced to reevaluate our status as one creature among many, the style that was once 'grotesque' is experiencing a political rebirth.
American artist Kate MacDowell has a body of work that speaks to this theme amazingly well, and I was thrilled to discover it. Click on the images for a closer look.
MacDowell's philosophy is worth quoting, for it articulates the way in which artists and creators are reworking traditional techniques and visual themes for the contemporary context:
"In my work [the] romantic ideal of union with the natural world conflicts with our contemporary impact on the environment. These pieces are in part responses to environmental stressors including climate change, toxic pollution, and gm crops. They also borrow from myth, art history, figures of speech and other cultural touchstones. In some pieces aspects of the human figure stand-in for ourselves and act out sometimes harrowing, sometimes humorous transformations which illustrate our current relationship with the natural world. In others, animals take on anthropomorphic qualities when they are given safety equipment to attempt to protect them from man-made environmental threats. In each case the union between man and nature is shown to be one of friction and discomfort with the disturbing implication that we too are vulnerable to being victimized by our destructive practices."
These are beautiful, disturbing images. And, as always, I see them as part of a larger movement in visual media. I am intrigued by the sculpture below, called 'Cross Pollination,' because it reminds me of a certain game I like to play:
In BioShock, the player modifies the body of their avatar in a way that breaks down the border between inside/outside and human/nonhuman. Using Plasmids - mutagens that enable the body's genetic code to be 'rewritten' - the player is able to perform a number of acts, including turning their hands and arms into a beehive. Bees (are they wasps? I'm not an entomologist) crawl in and out of holes in the hands, ready to form a swarm and attack enemies at your instruction.
As the PC blurb puts it, the player is given the opportunity to "biologically modify your body: send electric bolts storming from your fingertips or unleash a swarm of killer hornets hatched from the veins in your arms." This clip is a bit dark, but you get the gist:
It's interesting how the theme of human/nonhuman merging is presented here as a form of power. The term 'grotesque' appears with notable frequency in both the reviews and promotional material, for the game tells a tale in which becoming grotesque is a form of agency. Despite the violence involved: being grotesque signals a gain, rather than a loss. Rather a political story in today's context.
[Images used with permission from the artist. Screenshot via CVG.]
The term 'grotesque' was coined in reference to a style of ornamental design that usually occurred around the edges of larger artistic works. What made this marginalia unique, and worthy of its special new title, was the way in which the style blended plants, animals, humans and objects into intricate patterns. These panels are an example of what I'm talking about. They are from Seer aerdige grotissen dienstich, a series of 12 engravings by Johan Bara after Nicasius Roussel's (1623) 'De Grotesco Per utilis ... Liber' (from the British Museum Print Database).
Click to have a closer look.
Heads grow from stalks and pedestals, delicately farting buttocks perch on ostrich legs, combination bodies erupt from all directions and twist together. Such ontological mangling was something of a shock to the principles of God and nature in the 17th century. It was also very exciting and daring, and soon everyone wanted their own grotesque decorations.
I'm very interested in how this theme of combination bodies has translated into today's pop culture. Once you start looking, you see it everywhere. For example, I was reading Swamp Thing comics the other day (what, it was for research) and this cover image really caught my attention:
Swamp Thing is simultaneously man and plant, animal and mineral. And here his swampy body merges with the Gothic architecture: the dome of his head takes the place of the roof, the peak of his nose forms the pointed arch while his gaping mouth acts as the window. The intricate tangling of the vines running down and around the walls are also reminiscent of the intermingling vines of the traditional 'grotesque' style. The Swamp Thing comics also feature characters called the 'Un-Men,' and spend a lot of time examining the line between human and 'un'-human.
It seems the human/object/plant/animal figure not only remains a significant presence in contemporary culture, but has grown even more complicated. I like how the arm merges veins/roots/wires into the giant crab-claw blade: the man is simultaneously mechanical and organic. (No, I didn't buy it for the cover. How could you even suggest such a thing.) I'm promised "deadly shape shifting action." It's a whole two months before BioShock 2 comes out... I have to entertain myself somehow. Thanks to modern media I don't just have to sit like a lady and look at shapes shifting on pages, I can do it myself.
Did you know Swamp Thing had his very own TV show? Also, a lovely theme tune:
