Virtual memory : remembering through, within, and towards virtual worlds

Abstract

This thesis concerns the relations between virtual worlds and memory. It aims at enquiring and analysing how virtual worlds mediate memory, and the role memory plays in our engagement with virtual experiences. To that end, I will analyse a specific set of virtual worlds, i.e., digital games, to provide a theory of virtual memory that is generalisable to every other kind of virtual world. In doing so, I will both contribute to the field of virtual worlds research and to the specific field that aims at analysing and discussing digital games, game studies. Although many approaches in game studies imply and/or indirectly refer to memory, very few of them explicitly approach memory as the distinct and complex concept it is. Many of the most discussed and relevant concepts in game studies, I will argue, will benefit from a more thorough and theoretically consistent approach to memory. This thesis aims at filling this gap, and to that end, I refer especially to memory studies as a companion to game studies and to virtual world research. A same thing can be said concerning virtual worlds research in general: although many accounts of virtual world research implicitly deal with memory, at the current state they still lack a comprehensive theory of virtual memory. Like other virtual worlds, games mediate memory both on the collective level, representing and simulating shared versions of the past, and on the individual level, allowing users to develop virtual memories as they adopt a subjective standpoint within them. By intertwining these levels, I achieve a comprehensive understanding of virtual memory. To address the relations between virtual worlds and memory, I approach the former by emphasising their dimension of technologically mediated experiences, of artefacts open to interpretation, and of interactive fictions. To that end, I use post phenomenology, and especially refer to Don Ihde and Peter-Paul Verbeek, and then merge approaches from philosophy of fiction and hermeneutics, considering especially Hans-Georg Gadamer and Kendall Walton. I therefore approach digital games in particular by using an operational definition of virtual worlds, inspired by David J. Chalmers, as the intertwining of digital and fictional worlds. ‘Memory’, on the other hand, clearly indicates a variety of (at times widely) different phenomena, depending on the context of reference. With the intent of addressing the complexity of the term, the aim of this thesis is to provide an understanding of memory that gathers individual and collective forms of memory, intertwined. Drawing from contemporary memory studies, and especially from Astrid Erll, I contend that it is only by conceiving the interrelations between individual memory and collective frameworks of remembering that we can address the variety of phenomena we term ‘memory’ as parts of a consistent whole. To address the different relations that virtual worlds have with memory, I understand and analyse them, and digital games in particular, as both hermeneutic and embodied memory technologies. As hermeneutic technologies, virtual worlds can be understood as ‘virtual sites of memory’ (inspired by the concept of ‘site of memory’ introduced by the forerunner of memory studies Pierre Nora) that represent and simulate the past way beyond the boundaries of literal depictions of it. With reference to historical game studies, I emphasise the role of mnemonic functionalisation in conceiving games that engage with the past, and therefore provide a taxonomy of different ways for them to represent or simulate the past. As embodied technologies, virtual worlds favour the enactment of virtual memory as a capacity that dynamically intertwines fictional and actual memories. When users engage with virtual worlds, they adopt subjective standpoints within them. I tackle the role of memory in the development of selfhood through existential philosophy, more precisely from Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre, and then frame such roles towards virtual worlds. Since memory is pivotal in our developing existential projects and in our constructing a consistent understanding of ourselves, this is also the case for virtual experiences: the virtual selves we develop, the standpoints we adopt, and the choices we make all draw upon virtual memory. Virtual memory is therefore pivotal in considering the existential implications of virtual worlds, and digital games in particular. I conclude the thesis by framing virtual memory towards the transformative potentials of virtual experiences, and by considering the role power relations play in how we design and enact virtual memory. By borrowing the concept of ‘apparatus’, I describe virtual memory as designed within and towards hegemonic worldviews. This has, and cannot but have, both hermeneutic and existential implications: I describe how digital games and virtual worlds in general, as hermeneutic and embodied technologies, can provide users with hegemonic virtual memory. Virtual memory can also be used to ‘resist’ hegemonic frameworks: by referring to the concept of ‘counter-memory’, introduced by Michel Foucault, I then overview different ways in which practices of virtual counter-memory can be used to resist power relations.