Playing with Sound

A Theory of Interacting with Sound and Music in Video Games

MIT Press

In Playing with Sound, Karen Collins examines video
game sound from the player's perspective. She explores the many ways that players
interact with a game's sonic aspects -- which include not only music but also sound
effects, ambient sound, dialogue, and interface sounds -- both within and outside of
the game. She investigates the ways that meaning is found, embodied, created,
evoked, hacked, remixed, negotiated, and renegotiated by players in the space of
interactive sound in games. Drawing on disciplines that range from film studies and
philosophy to psychology and computer science, Collins develops a theory of
interactive sound experience that distinguishes between interacting with sound and
simply listening without interacting. Her conceptual approach combines practice
theory (which focuses on productive and consumptive practices around media) and
embodied cognition (which holds that our understanding of the world is shaped by our
physical interaction with it). Collins investigates the multimodal experience of
sound, image, and touch in games; the role of interactive sound in creating an
emotional experience through immersion and identification with the game character;
the ways in which sound acts as a mediator for a variety of performative activities;
and embodied interactions with sound beyond the game, including machinima,
chip-tunes, circuit bending, and other practices that use elements from games in
sonic performances.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Collins, Karen

Fachgebiete

• Mathematik | Informatik EDV | Informatik Informatik Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion User Interface Design & Benutzerfreundlichkeit
• Geisteswissenschaften Design Interface Design, Interaktionsdesign, Application Design
• Mathematik | Informatik EDV | Informatik Programmierung | Softwareentwicklung Spiele-Programmierung, Rendering, Animation
• Technische Wissenschaften Sonstige Technologien | Angewandte Technik Akustik, Tontechnik

Über Autor(innen)

Collins, Karen
Karen Collins is Canada Research Chair in Interactive Audio at the University of
Waterloo. She is the author of Game Sound: An Introduction to the History,
Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design (MIT Press).