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When reading both On Longing of Susan Stewart and Lev Manovich’s The language of New Media, I discovered some striking similarities between miniatures and games correlating the narrative structures of both. The narrative of a miniature and the narrative of navigable 3D generated space of computer game. To explain the narratives of miniatures, Susan Stewart starts with the literary miniature. Because the physical connection of the body with the depicted world of the miniature disappears during writing, In order to let the reader ‘enter’ the world of the miniature the distance of the situation of reading and the situation of the depicted world has to be bridged by an elaborate ‘description’, and the use of familiar signs(1). As an example Stewart takes a passage from the book Gullivers travels:

Although I intend to leave the Description of this Empire to a particular Treatise, yet in the mean time I am content to gratify the curious Reader with some general Ideas. As the common Size of the Natives is somewhat under six Inches, so there is an exact Proportion in all other Animals, as well as Plants and Trees: For Instance, the tallest Horses and Oxen are between four and five Inches in Height, the Sheep an Inch an a Half, more or less.....(2)

The action begins where the description ends. The writing about a miniature never is relating to itself, the author, or the psychology of the main character. It continually refers to the physical world. Stewart writes: “it is the closest thing we have to a three-dimensional language, for it continually points outside itself.”

When we take a close look at a miniature of Thomas Doyle, this narrative of ‘description’ can also be applied to a miniature. In his artist statement Doyle explicitly writes that he uses the scale of 1:43. His miniatures are produced with extreme precision, and the faces of the figures have enough detail to note that they lack any form of emotion. Unlike the literary miniature there is direct relation between the physical world. The all-seeing viewer is able to bridge the differences in scale in one glance. But the miniature really becomes its narrative quality when the viewer zooms in on every tiny detail. The movement of the eyes, sliding from one mini event to another, is telling the narrative. Navigating through the space of the miniature a whole world is described by its aggregation of details.

According to Lev Manovich the key component of the game play in a First Person Game is the navigation through the 3D space of the game. Manovich compares two games, popular in the 1990s, Doom and Myst. Where the player runs through the world of Doom, Myst is very slow. The player moves around, explore the world, look around her, and come back at the same place. The narrative is told by navigating through the 3D space of the game. Manovich is correlating this narrative with the ancient forms of narrative. “Stripping away the representation of inner life, psychology, and other modernist nineteenth-century inventions, these are the narratives in the original ancient Greek sense, for, as Michel de Certeau reminds us, “in Greek, narration is called ‘diagesis’: it establishes an itinerary (it ‘guides’) and it passes through (it ‘transgresses.’)” (3)

Today First Person Games are extremely rich in details, and besides the journey through space, the exploration of the space examining its details and enjoying its images, is an important part of the gaming experience. The narrative is told by the detailed description of the space. Manovich names this narrative based on description, narrative based on ‘exploration’. “Rather than being narrated to, the player herself has to perform actions to move narrative forward. Talking to other characters she encounters in the game world, picking up objects, fighting enemies, and so on. Of the player does nothing, the narrative stops.”(4). Movement through the game world is one of the main narrative actions.

When going back to the miniatures of Thomas Doyle, action is depicted in the silenced act of the figures. The man digging a hole, the man walking through a destructed landscape with his son. These silenced acts trigger the action, realized trough the imagination of the viewer. Where the action in a 3D game is literally, the action in the miniature worlds of Thomas Doyle is partly an act of imagination. Exploration through the space of the miniature with imagined action.

An interesting example of where both worlds (miniature and game) come together, is the trailer of Halo 3, a First Person Shooter game released in 2007 for Microsoft’s Xbox. Developed by Bungie. To promote the game Microsoft chose an extraordinary form for the production of the trailer. Instead of using screenshots, recorded game play actions, or spectacular animations, the producers decided to make story narrated by a journey through a physical, extremely detailed miniature based on the world of the game. With consecutive, both static shots, as well as camera movements through space, every detail of the miniature is exposed, and every shot shows an action and tells another story. Ending with a total shot slowly zooming on the main character of the game ‘Master Chief’. A spatial exploration, although directed by the movement of the camera and the cuts of the editor, but with enough space for the imagination of the viewer.
When watching this trailer I simply couldn’t stop making correlations with a registration of the epic and provocative tabletop miniatures of Fucking Hell created by the Chapman brothers, which I mentioned earlier, and exhibited a year (2008) after the release of Halo 3. With somewhat the same kind of dramatic soundtrack, consecutive moving camera shots, the viewer is introduced in the extremely cruel and destructive world of the Chapman brothers. Ending with a zoom in on a mutilated body hanging on a cross. Fucking Hell as a First Person Shooter.

From imagination in miniature to the miniature as new media object.

Notes:
(1) Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection, Duke University Press 1993, Tableau: The Miniature described, page 44.
(2) Ibid., page 47
(3) Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, MIT Press, 2001, Navigable Space, page 246.
(4) Ibid., page 247

Photo's & Video's:
Thomas Doyle, photo's taken from his website: http://www.thomasdoyle.net
Doom, source: http://www.xboxic.com/news/1694
Myst, source: http://www.tgdaily.com/slideshows/index.php?s=200904092&p=2
Halo 3, source: Youtube.com
Fucking Hell, source: Youtube.com