DEVELOPMENT ESSENTIALS: GAME STORY AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND DEVELOPING SERIOUS GAMES

References

Cite

Share

Abstract

obliquely and mockingly, through a game ‘of displacements and replacements’ (as in the substitution of Frampton’s own voice by that of fellow filmmaker Michael Snow), it nevertheless is ‘a document about an era’, as Moore argues. Indeed, in addition to portraits of Frampton’s friends and contemporaries – among whom are Carl Andre, Frank Stella and James Rosenquist – the film is rich in injokes and references to the period. Stella’s portrait blowing smoke rings, for example, evokes Bruce Nauman’s Self-Portrait as a Fountain (1966–7), as the voice-off hints. By talking us through these puns and references, Moore maps out (nostalgia)’s relation to the critical and aesthetic debates of the time. Among these debates is that around the ‘structural film’, a label coined by the critic P Adams Sitney in response to the ostensible concern with form and structure of many experimental films of the late 1960s, among them Frampton’s own. Frampton’s problems with, and problematisation of, the category have not gone unnoticed, even, in fact, by Sitney himself. In this context, Moore’s mobilisation of Bataille’s concept of the ‘formless’ as, via the agency of fire, the drive of (nostalgia) is perhaps by now a bit clichéd. Much more interesting, here, is Moore’s insistence on the humour and irreverence impregnating (nostalgia) and on Duchamp’s legacy in Frampton. For, notwithstanding the sombre title, the dramatic (or melodramatic) act of burning one’s ‘past’ at its core, and the highly rationalised, ordered structure, (nostalgia) is also a funny and playful film – one in which Frampton, as Moore reminds us, is ‘having [us] on’. A comprehensive and stimulating discussion of this important work, Hollis Frampton: (nostalgia), will hopefully contribute to making it better known and appreciated outside avant-garde filmmaking and film theory circles. Moore’s book opens up a space for an evaluation of its historical significance in art practice and theory more generally, as a work representative of a moment by which contemporary art is still very much informed. Elegantly written, accessible and informative, Moore’s book will appeal to both a general and an academic readership interested in twentiethcentury art, photography, and independent cinema, and in the interrelations between these disciplines and their theories. matilde nardelli University College London DEVELOPMENT ESSENTIALS: GAME STORY AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT