To examine the aesthetics of video games, this paper proposes to consider games as a contemporary multi-media version of the so-called “Denkbild,” or “thought-image,” an experimental genre of philosophical writing employed by members of the Frankfurt School that takes literary snapshots of philosophical, political, and cultural insights that interrupt and challenge the enigmatic form of traditional philosophical thinking. While previous scholarship tends to examine the aesthetics of video game as a homogenous, self-contained genre that can be clearly defined and understood within the framework of a variety of dichotomies, thinking of video game through the lens of the Denkbild allows us to understand the diversity, conditionality, and incommensurability of game as a multimedia aesthetic object. By presenting two snapshots of video game players, the collector and the glitcher, this paper argues that the concept of Denkbild allows us to better understand the relationships between game, gamers, and the socio-political context in terms of unexpected bonds, accidental breakthroughs, and moments of absolute freedom.
BenjaminW. (1968). Illuminations. New York, NY: Schocken Books.
7.
BenjaminW. (1979). One ways Street and other writings. London: NLB.
8.
BenjaminW. (1999). The Arcades project. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
9.
BenjaminW. (2002). Selected Writings. In BullockM.JenningsM. W. (Eds.), (Volume 1, pp. 1813−1926). Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University.
10.
BenjaminW. (2003). Selected Writings. In EilandH.JenningsM. W. (Eds.), (Volume 4, pp. 1938−1940). Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University.
11.
BolukS.LemieuxP. (2017). Metagaming: Playing, Competing, Spectating, Cheating, Trading, Making, and Breaking Videogames. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
12.
BlochE. (1979). Philosophy as cabaret. New Left Review, 1(116), 94−96.
13.
CailloisR. (2001). Man, play and games. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
14.
ClarkeA.MichellG. (2007). Videogames and art. Bristol and Chicago: Intellect.
GautB. (2010). A philosophy of cinematic art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
17.
GuattariF. (1996). Capital as the Integral of Power Formations. Soft Subversions: Texts and Interviews 1977-1985 (pp. 244−264). New York: Semiotext(e).
18.
HuizingaJ. (1950). Homo ludens, A study of the play element in culture. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
19.
JanikJ. (2017). Glitched perception: Beyond the transparency and visibility of the video game object. Transmissions: The Journal of Film and Media Studies, 2(2), 65−82.
20.
JuulJ. (2001). Games telling stories? A brief note on games and narratives. Game Studies, 1(1), 13−14.
21.
JuulJ. (2018). The aesthetics of the aesthetics of the aesthetics of video games: Walking simulators as response to the problem of optimization. 12th International Conference on the Philosophy of computer games Conference, 13−15 August. Available at: (Accessed January 2022)www.jesperjuul.net/text/aesthetics3/
22.
KirkpatrickG. (2011). Aesthetic theory and the video game. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.
23.
KrappP. (2011). Gaming the glitch: Room for ErrorGlitch, noise, and jam in new media cultures (pp. 113−132). New York, NY: Continuum.
LevyS.ReynoldsR.SchechterS.BerlantiG.KolbrennerA. (Producer) (2021). Free guy [Film]. Berlanti productions, 21 laps entertainment, maximum effort, lit entertainment group, and TSG entertainment.
26.
McLaughlinK. (1995). On Benjamin’s collector. Writing in parts: Imitation and exchange in nineteenth-century literature. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
27.
MenkmanR. (2011). Glitch Studies Manifesto. Vortext Video Reader II: Moving Images Beyond YouTube. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2011.
28.
MeskinA.RobsonJ. (2010). Videogames and the moving image. Revue internationale de philosophie, 254(4), 547−564. https://doi.org/10.3917/rip.254.0547
29.
MoellerR. M.EsplinB.ConwayS. (2009). Cheesers pullers, and Glitchers: The rhetoric of sportsmanship and the discourse of online sports gamers. Game Studies (9:2). Available at: (Accessed January 2022)http://gamestudies.org/0902/articles/moeller_esplin_conway
30.
NewmanJ. (2019). Wrong warping, sequence breaking, and running through code systemic continuity and narrative architecture in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time any% speedrun. Journal of the Japanese Association for Digital Humanities, 4(1), 7−36.
RichterG. (2006). A matter of distance: Benjamin’s one-way street through The Arcades. In HanssenB. (Ed.), Walter Benjamin and the Arcades project. London and New York: Continuum.
33.
RichterG. (2007). Thought-images: Frankfurt school writers’ reflections from damaged life. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
34.
SchillerF. (1993). Essays. In DahlstromD O.HindererW. (Eds.), New York, NY: Continuum.
35.
SharpJ. (2015). Works of game: On the aesthetics of games and art. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
ŠvelchJ. (2014). Negotiating the glitch: Identifying and using glitches in video games with mircrotransactions, New Perspectives in Game Studies: 2014 Proceedings of the Central and European Game Studies (pp. 55−70). Brno: Masaryk University Press.
38.
SzondiP. (2006). Hope in the past: On Walter Benjamin. In: BenjaminW. (Ed.), Berlin Childhood around 1900 (pp. 1−36). Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
39.
ToupsZ.CrenshawN.WehbeR.TondelloG.NackeL. (2016) The Collecting Itself Feels Good: Towards Collection Interfaces for Digital Game Objects. CHI PLAY’16 Proceedings of the 2016 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (276–290). Available at(Accessed January 2022)https://doi.org/10.1145/2967934.2968088
40.
VertovD. (1995). Kinopravda and radiopravda. In MichelsonA. (Ed.), Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov. Berkeley: University of California Press.
41.
WeigelS. (1996). Body- and Image-Space. London and New York: Re-reading Walter Benjamin Routledge.
42.
WeineckS. (2002). The Abyss above: Philosophy and Poetic madness in Plato, Hölderlin, and Nietzsche. Albany: SUNY Press.
