However, unless the algorithm matches some fundamental law - if it only holds to a temporary pattern in the social construct - then eventually the reliable results of the algorithm will be invalid and untrue (Martin 2009). Algorithms keep aircraft in the air (mostly) (Heasley 2011)Īlgorithms are optimized for defined inputs and repeatable processes.Algorithms shape the development and release of books and films (Wakefield 2011).Algorithms determine whether to receive an email or silently trash it (Brownlee 2011).Algorithms refine exposure to information, serving as gatekeepers to that information, creating and reinforcing perspectives (Pariser 2011).Algorithms control financial trades without oversight, as humans toil on the ground serving the algorithms’ needs (Slavin 2011).In everyday life, algorithms surround us, and we increasingly give agency to algorithms that are too complex for our understanding: Pablo Picasso: The Arts (1923) "The cake is a lie."Īlgorithms, the step-by-step processes that permit simple and complex computation, provide powerful shorthands, allowing control and exploitation with the promised certainty of reliable outputs. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth." Keywords: Portal, Art, Algorithms, Testing, Videogame, Aesthetics This aesthetic of play speaks directly to the relevance artistic videogames hold for. Thus when the narrative pushes Chell to complete the tests by being incinerated, the player’s own yearning to escape the confines of GlaDOS’s control reaches its own breaking point, synchronizing the goals of both player and protagonist. Unlike other artworks, Portal not only communicates emotion but also allows for play to achieve it. Harmony between the game mechanic and the story ensures emotional resonance between Chell’s suffocation in the workings of the system and the player’s own frustration in moving through the game. What the companion cube is to Chell so Chell is to the player - she reappears after each failed test like a weighted companion cube dropping from a chute. Each test requires inputs to complete, with the companion cube serving as a necessary but disposable means to that end.
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Portal extends this tension, perverting the traditional relationship between player and protagonist. Both GLaDOS and the player are bound to complete the algorithm.
![portal 2 art portal 2 art](https://i0.wp.com/halcyonrealms.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/portal2art02.jpg)
The promised reward for completing the algorithm is freedom, but the promise is made by a master chained to the very facility it controls. The freedom presumed in the portal gun - which allows access where there was none - is circumscribed by creating pathways that only open back into the maze of the Aperture Science Facility. The game explores the search for freedom from such computational processes. The videogame Portal is an algorithmic exploration of human struggle against algorithmic processes that have superseded their original intended purpose. The Algorithmic Experience: Portal as Art by Michael Burden, Sean Gouglas