Reading Response 6

The reading discussed the influences of visual media, such as video games, on people due to their interactive nature. Bill Nichols takes Walter Benjamin's article about the essence of art when it is mechanically reproduced and adds in the factor of time and how it affects art. He uses the example of a montage, many of us are accustomed to now in film and shows, to explain how it created new art forms and ways of seeing daily events in life. It gives new meanings to simulated objects and how we as humans can treat them like they were real. Unfortunately, there are limitations to the amount of control humans have over simulations, breaking the reality formed within it. Later on, Nichols talks about the copyright issues of video games and how it is just a tool to create what the user makes out of the limitations of the code and who remains the creator of the object within the game. In the end, the creators of the video game won the right to their works under copyright and patent laws.

I thought the article was interesting because most of my life was spent playing video games that were simulations like the ones explained in the text. A great example would be how I couldn't part from neopets until I did cold turkey because I felt physically attached to my pets like they were real minus the ability of being able to touch and feel them.But my generation and the future ones will be used to thinking of simulations and interactions with the computer to be like reality. We're used to talking to our friends over instant messanger and playing games with people all over the world that it deeply affects the culture of our society.