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Thesis Info
- LABS ID
- 00647
- Thesis Title
- From the virtual to the physical: expanding the boundaries between art and life through emersive digital games
- Author
- Samue Gallastegui González
- E-mail
- samuel.gallastegui AT gmail.com
- 2nd Author
- 3rd Author
- Degree
- PhD
- Year
- 2016
- Number of Pages
- 264
- University
- University of The Baque Country
- Thesis Supervisor
- Cristina Miranda de Almeida de Barros
- Supervisor e-mail
- cristinamiranda.de AT gmail.com
- Other Supervisor(s)
- Language(s) of Thesis
- Spanish
- Department / Discipline
- Art and Technology
- Copyright Ownership
- Samuel Gallastegui
- Languages Familiar to Author
- English, Spanish, Baque and Catalan
- URL where full thesis can be found
- samuelgallastegui.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Tesis_Doctoral-Samuel_Gallastegui_Gonzalez-1.pdf
- Keywords
- Art, Video games, Emersion, Serious games, gamification
- Abstract: 200-500 words
- Digital games have the ability to introduce the subject, from outside to inside, in a space of meaning that is agreed by players. However, they also have a great potential to emerge the game’s content from to the subject's life, from the inside to the outside. Likewise, art creates a space of consensual significance that, in addition to allowing immersion, admits the emersion of the content of art to life, as Fluxus movement or activist art have shown.
This thesis enquires how this emersion occurs in digital games and if it allows to articulate the art and life binomial in a different way from how it has been done so far. First, the boundaries between play and life have been explored, as well as the
concept of emersion in digital games and its characteristics. Second, a model has been made to determine if a specific digital game is oriented immersively or emersively, using three scales that allow to place any game in the continuum between immersion and immersion. Finally, based on this model, a practical proposal has been made, which consists of the design, development and putting into action of Hey Planet!, an ad hoc created game.
Empirical data, practical experience and conceptual considerations reflect that emersion is a growing phenomenon in digital games, which can be analyzed, controlled and used for artistic and educational purposes. This doctoral thesis shows that emersive digital games are a valid and very little explored medium to expand the boundaries between art and life, and offers a theoretical-practical framework with a great potential for artistic and didactic use.