This post on The New Gamer Journal (via GameSetWatch) about Lars Von Trier’s experimental camera work on some of his films just tied in so neatly with what I was just writing about games as documentary. He has a computer selecting random objects & shots partly as a means of removing his perspective from shots. So could games in fact be a way of achieving (more) objective documentary?
Given my perspective as an AI programmer, I’d say probably not. The subjective perceptions that affect the system merely become indirect – the programmer’s subjective decision of what rules to include in the AI, instead of the filmmaker’s subjective decisions of explicit framing. But it would make for an interesting experiment nonetheless.
The rest of the bit about Lookey trying to inject more active participation into film’s passivity just strikes me as windmill tilting. Make games, Von Trier!