Wonder the World

  Anthropologically, space and place are different from one another. Deeper into the topic, non-place is something aside from place. This video seeks to talk about this unfamiliar concept of non-place with more familiar subjects: MMORPG. Once explained, the argument goes over to whether the MMORPG is really a non-place or place in the cyberspace. What's your choice: Is game non-place or place?

 Storyboard: Non-place Documentary on Lost Ark The revised scenario starts with my narration describing examples of ‘non-places’ and their characteristics, explaining the concept of non-place. Then I will compare it with ‘place,’ and how they differentiate from one another. Folklores as a traditional form of escapism will follow, and how game has occurred as the modern form of alternative reality. That is when a brief summary of Lost Ark will follow and is declared as the main topic of this documentary. This chapter will last about a minute.   I will then address certain footages from the game where I felt alone, alienated and unidentified, following the traits of the non-place. I will compare Lost Ark with taking a subway, which is the standard non-place. The NPCs address me as the hero and the savior of the world, but that was not a special word, rather a coded message for all the players who play the game, just like how I am merely one of the passengers in a station. ...

Scenario:   'Non-place' Documentary on Lost Ark To start with, we must clarify the definition of 'non-place.' Non-place is a concept coined by a French anthropologist, Marc Augé. Non-places are the generic spaces and globalized environments we experience as airport, motorway underpasses, carparks and other custom-designed and left-over spaces of mass production, consumption and global capital. They are not personal, not historical, nor not concerned with identity. However, non-place can sometimes be a place for other people. In that sense, massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are also a form of non-place in the sense that many people freely come, given an identity as a ‘player,’ interact with the game world in a formed set of text and signs. However, in the sense that it can be personal or historical to some people, it could also be said that MMOG also has an aspect of place - one might feel at home within the game even more than the real world, or the time spent ...