Pachinko Parlors, Pinball Machines and The Netherworlds of Quake

[Dave Monroe]

Date: Thu, 08 May 1997 19:56:22 -0700
From: haferkamp <haferkamp@[omitted]>
To: pynchon-l@[omitted]
Subject: VINELAND

„Pachinko Parlors, Pinball Machines and The Netherworlds of Quake:
Games as Metaphors for Scientific and Cultural Paradigms in Thomas
Pynchon´s VINELAND“

Thomas Pynchon´s work contains quite a few references to games as
metaphors for scientific and cultural paradigms. Vineland, in this
context, offers quite an interesting field, for it mingles three
different modes of games, namely pachinko, pinball machines and video
games. Pynchon thereby evokes a highly intricate vision of American
culture that combines such heterogeneous realms as Japanese culture,
America´s mechanical tradition and the video (cyber-)culture of the
`Doom-Generation.´

My research focuses on the implications of the game metaphors in
Vineland. Pachinko (a very popular game in Japan) is associated with a
new kind of control as suggested by Roland Barthes in L´Empire des
Signes, which is highly reminiscient of the mode of control dealt
within the field of chaos-theory as well as in the socio-cultural
realm of Deleuze & Guattari´s work. This mode of control, however,
stands in direct opposition to the traditional Western concept that,
as Barthes has already shown, reveals itself in the mechanics of the
pinball machine. Both concepts of control, are then put radically in
question by the introduction of the digital realm in the form of video
games.

My aim is to outline the complex field between these three kinds of
control as they are presented by Pynchon against the background of the
late 20th century scientific and philosophical landscapes.

I´d appreciate it very much if those interested in the subject would
share views and ideas with me.

Sven Haferkamp
Institute for Enterpreneurial Cybernetics
Mülheim a.d. Ruhr, Germany
haferkamp@[omitted]

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