Book | Chapter
Proximity to violence
war, games, glitch
pp. 229-242
Abstract
Ball traces the uses of immersion—techniques that place a spectator in close proximity to a world, story, or character—to form and reform political subjectivities through a detailed comparison of International WOW Company's immersive drama of the Iraq War, Surrender; the violent videogame Spec Ops: The Line; and Harun Farocki's installation of four documentary films, Serious Games. Ball argues for locating the political potential of immersive theatre in the inadequacy of certain simulations to precisely render reality. Brought into proximity with an immersive model, a spectator inevitably encounters a glitch—the ostensible error that disrupts verisimilitude—that can interrupt the efforts of constituted powers to mask the reality of global conflict.
Publication details
Published in:
Frieze James (2016) Reframing immersive theatre: the politics and pragmatics of participatory performance. Dordrecht, Springer.
Pages: 229-242
DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-36604-7_18
Full citation:
Ball James R (2016) „Proximity to violence: war, games, glitch“, In: J. Frieze (ed.), Reframing immersive theatre, Dordrecht, Springer, 229–242.