The Interface Envelope: Gaming, Technology, Power

In The Interface Envelope, James Ash develops a series of concepts to understand how digital interfaces work to shape the spatial and temporal perception of players. Drawing upon examples from videogame design and work from post-phenomenology, speculative realism, new materialism and media theory, Ash argues that interfaces create envelopes, or localised foldings of space time, around which bodily and perceptual capacities are organised for the explicit production of economic profit. Modifying and developing Bernard Stiegler’s account of psychopower and Warren Neidich’s account of neuropower, Ash argues the aim of interface designers and publishers is the production of envelope power. Envelope power refers to the ways that interfaces in games are designed to increase users perceptual and habitual capacities to sense difference. Examining a range of examples from specific videogames, Ash identities a series of logics that are key to producing envelope power and shows how these logics have intensified over the last thirty years. In turn, Ash suggests that the logics of interface envelopes in videogames are spreading to other types of interface. In doing so life becomes enveloped as the environments people inhabit becoming increasingly loaded with digital interfaces. Rather than simply negative, Ash develops a series of responses to the potential problematics of interface envelopes and envelope power and emphasizes their pharmacological nature.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements 1. Introduction 1.1 Attention, Economy, Power 1.2 Post-Phenomenology and New Materialism 1.3 Media, Software and Game Studies 1.4 Chapter outlines 2. Interface 2.1 Interface theory 2.2 Interface as Object 2.3 Interfaces as Environments 2.4 Interface, Object, Transduction 3. Resolution 3.1 Resolution 3.2 Neuropower 3.3 High and low Resolution 3.4 Phasing between resolutions 3.5 Resolution, Habit, Power 4. Technicity 4.1 Technicity 4.2 Psychopower 4.3 Homogenization 4.4 Irreversibility 4.5 Technicity, Time, Power 5. Envelopes 5.1 Homeomorphic Modulation 5.2 Envelope Power 5.3 Shifting Logics of the Envelope in Games Design 5.4 The Contingency of Envelopes 6. Ecotechnics 6.1 The Ecotechnics of Care 6.2 Ecotechnics of Care: two sites of transduction 6.3 From suspended to immanent ecotechnical systems of care 6.4 The Temporal Deferral of Negative Affect 7. Envelope Life 7.1 Gamification 7.2 Non-gaming interface envelopes 7.3 Questioning Envelope Life 7.4 Pharmacology 8. Conclusions 8.1 Games / Digital Interfaces 8.2 Objects / New materialism / Envelopes 8.3 Power / Economy / Capitalism Bibliography Index

About the Author :
James Ash is Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at Newcastle University, UK. He has a background in human geography and completed his PhD at the University of Bristol on practices of video game design and testing. James has published a number of articles on technology and video games in a range of international journals.

Review :
This book offers a wealth of in-depth analysis, which delivers on the promise of taking games seriously. The broad and solid theory building that the book offers is sorely needed. ... [It] pushes our discussion and thought in a different and important direction. The book’s readability is assisted by the format of eight relatively short chapters and a clear expository logic ... [and Ash] does an admirable job explaining computer games in ways that are accessible to nongamers. [Raising] important questions about the commodification of perception ... The Interface Envelope is an interesting text that clearly articulates a vision for how video games localize folds of time-space to orient, and profit from, our perceptual and embodied capacities ... It serves as a platform for understanding the ontological links between—and beyond—gaming, technology, and power. Theoretically nuanced and empirically rich, this discussion of how big-budget computer games attempt to organise players' perceptions is a must-read for all those interested in how digital technologies are changing our forms of life. James Ash's critical study shows how interfaces create spatio-temporal traps in which we are enveloped in alternative worlds. Cognitive capitalism works through techniques that stimulate our perceptions and sense of difference. Ash's book is a strong take on the non-human aspects in contemporary media culture without forgetting issues of political economy either. It will definitely speak to readers in game, media and cultural studies. More and more aspects of everyday life are being mediated through digital interfaces. And yet, to date, critical thinking about interfaces has been quite limited. The Interface Envelope is a vital contribution to filling this lacuna, providing a compelling new approach to making sense of interfaces that draws on post-phenomenology and new materialist ideas. In so doing, James Ash provides a thoroughly interdisciplinary and provocative analysis of interfaces that takes seriously and weaves together notions of embodiment, affect, memory, materiality, objects, power, space and time, through a detailed analysis of gaming interfaces. If you are interested in understanding how and why interfaces matter read this book.