Matteo Bittanti

This essay examines Codes of Honor ‒ a narrative-based machinima on arcade culture produced by Jon Rafman (b. 1981) in 2011 ‒ through the lenses of Vilém Flusser (1920-1991) and William Gibson (b. 1948). Specifically, Bittanti suggests that the Canadian artist exemplifies what media philosopher Flusser called “envisioneer”, “non-spectacular revolutionary”, and homo ludens in Into the Universe of Technical Images, published in 1985. According to Flusser, in the emergent telematic society, a new generation of artists ‒ envisioneers ‒ will create novel images in unexpected ways through playful, global dialogue. Likewise, in his 1984 novel Neuromancer, Gibson described a new kind of subject that manipulates images in a rhizome-like electronic universe, subsequently revealing that the inspiration came from watching arcade gamers. The essay investigates the surprising affinities between narrative and theory, videogames and Game Art. In this context, Code of Honor is discussed a paradigmatic text in which these threads create a meta-dialogue.