Wii are Out of Control: Bodies, Game Screens and the Production of Gestural Excess

Abstract

This paper looks at the ways that the Nintendo Wii might shift the locus of game analysis away from the screen and more towards players' corporeal relationship to the screen. The Wii hardware and software, the television screen, the physical space and players' bodies constitute an intriguing form of kinaesthetic play that borrows from cultural fantasies about virtual reality. This play, while conditioned by the goal driven and control logics of gameplay nevertheless leads to a production of 'gestural excess' as bodies twist, contort and perform in ways that the game as such neither demands nor necessarily accommodates.

Keywords: digital games, screen culture, gesture, control, play