Slideshow for a presentation at the

1. International Cultural Semiotics Symposium, Nanjing 2008 Patrick J. Coppock Departmentof Social, Cognitive and Quantitative Science, SchoolofCommunication and Business, Universityof Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy patrick.coppock@unimore.it http://game.unimore.it

2. Semioticsof Culture Thematic Area: Theoreticalstudiesconcerning cross-cultural semiotics My Title: Local and Global IdentityGames: [Re]mediatedmodellingoftransworld “glocal” identities in an “open” world

3. Here, there and everywhere? The Beatles (1966) […] I want her everywhere and if she's beside me, I know I need never care. But to love her is to need her everywhere. Knowing that love is to share. Each one believing that love never dies. Watching her eyes and hoping I'm always there. To be there and everywhere. Here, there and everywhere.

4. Managing “Glocal” Identities In our hyperconnected continually globalising world it can seempossibleforustobe “Here, There and Everywhere” at one and the sametime. Butisitactuallypossible to blend “local” and “global” identities in mutuallyacceptable, desirableand, first and foremost, ethicalways? Whatcriteriamightbeuseful to successfullymanagetransmedia, transworldidentitygames? Can analyticalcultural semiotics play a role in identifyingsuchcriteria?

11. Transmediaremediation

13. Reality: a continuous, autonomous, creative process C.S. Peirce “[…] we may define the realas that whose characters are independent of what anybody may think them to be.” (How to Make Our Ideas Clear, 1878) “Synechism, even in its less stalwart forms, can never abide dualism, properly so called. […] In particular, the synechist will not admit that physical and psychical phenomena are entirely distinct, – whether as belonging to different categories of substance, or as entirely separate sides of one shield, – but will insist that all phenomena are of one character, though some are more mental and spontaneous, others more material and regular. […]” (Immortality in the Light of Synechism, 1893)

14. Cognition, Consciousness and Experience A.N. Whitehead: “Cognitionis the emergence, into some measureofindividualised reality, of the generalsubstratumofactivity, poisingbeforeitselfpossibility, actuality and purpose.” (Science in the Modern World : 152) “The principlethat I amadoptingisthatconsciousnesspresupposesexperience, and notexperienceconsciousness. Itisa specialelement in the subjectiveformsof some feelings. Thusanactualentitymay, or maynotbeconsciousof some part ofitsexperience.” (Process and Reality : 53)

15. Self(hood): Feeling SubjectivityOther(ness) World: Reality/ Novelty/ Satisfaction/ Actuality Actualisation: Processual realisationofpossibility Process/ Being/ Cosmos/ Evolution/ Possibility RelationalityofBeing, Self(hood), Other(ness)

16. BetweenFactuality and Fiction Ourexperienced world is a cultural construct (Eco): The experienced world as a “multitudeof world pictures or stateddescriptions […] epistemicworldsthat are frequentlymutuallyexclusive” “Eventhough the real world is a cultural construct, onemightstillwonderabout the ontological status of the describeduniverse.

17. Possible and actualworlds Semioticsof Fiction (Eco: Lector in Fabula, 1979; I Limiti dell’Interpretazione, 1990) Fictionalpossibleworldsmaybecharacterisedas: “Small worlds”, “furnished” with actors and objects with certain “properties” “… alternative ways things might have been, not descriptions of these ways.” “… states of affairs … described in terms of the same language as their narrative object “Finite, enclosed”, “handicapped”, “parasitic on the real world”, must be “taken on trust” “Constructedbyhumanminds and hands”.

18. The Cultural RoleofFictionalPossibleWorlds Fictionalcharacters live in a handicapped world. Whenweactuallyunderstandtheir fate, thenwe start tosuspectthatwetoo, ascitizensof the actual world, frequentlyundergoourdestiny just becausewethinkofour world in the same way asfictionalcharactersthinkoftheirown. Fiction suggeststhatperhapsourviewof the actual world isasimperfactasthatoffictionalcharacters. Thisis the way thatsuccessfulfictionalcharactersbecomeparamountexamplesof the “real” humancondition.

19. Identity–twocomplementaryphilosophicalpointsofview In philosophy, personal identity refers to the essence of a self-conscious person, that which makes him or her uniquely what they are at any one point in time, and which further persists over time despite superficial modifications, making him or her the same person at different points in time also. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity_(philosophy) Personal identity deals with questions about ourselves qua people (or persons). Many of these questions are familiar ones that occur to everyone at some time: What am I? When did I begin? What will happen to me when I die? Discussions of personal identity go right back to the origins of Western philosophy, and most major figures have had something to say about it. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/#1

20. Personal Unityas a Locus foralloccasionsofexperience A.N. Whitehead (AdventuresofIdeas: 187): “Personal Unity” –cfPlato’s “receptacle” – “a locusthatpersists and providesanemplacementforall the occasionsofexperience. Thatwhichhappens in itisconditionedbyitsownpast, and by the persuasionofitsimmanentideals.”

22. Some aspectsofTransworldGlocalIdentitydevelopment Taking and sharingresponsiblitieshere, there and everywhere… Social (or cultural) criticism (Michael Waltzer) James Paul Gee: “SituatedLearning” (e.g. with computer/ video games): Learningby planning, tryng out, discussing and evaluatingoutcomesofsharedprojectstogetherwithothers. Sherry Turkle: “Information technologyisidentitytechnology. Embeddingit in a culture thatsupportsdemocracy, freedomofexpression, tolerance, diversity, and complexityof opinion isoneof the nextdecadesgreatestchallenges. Wecannotaffordtofail.” “When I first beganstudying the computer culture, a smallbreedofhighlytrainedtechnologiststhoughtofthemselvesas ‘computer people.’ Thatis no longer the case. Ifwe take the computer as a carrierof a way ofseeing the world and ourplace in it, we are all computer people now.”