Radical Visuals Radu Stochita

Radu Stochita goes into personal stories about his first computer, as well as the first games he played. Throughout this episode he recalls moments when he develop a critical understanding of video games and how that has changed throughout the years.

Being set in a fictional interview room, the host tries to answer the following questions:


Video games?
How did you discover them?
How were they perceived in the beginning in Romania?
Was there a gender, class component to video games?
What games defined your generation?
Was there critical discourse around video games?
Video games, now? How do you play them?

Thank you for listening. If you liked it, share it with your friends. I had lots of fun doing this :).

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Transcript


Welcome

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Radical Visual Podcast. I am your host, Radu Stochita, and this week we bring you an introduction into our world. We are here to discuss video games, films, graphic novels and analyse them critically by using Marxist and Anarchist theories. We bring as well into use visual, film and games studies theory in order to promote a cross-disciplinary approach to studying media.
We are comprised of one person at this moment, Radu Stochita, an international student from Romania, at Bowdoin College in ME, USA. If you want to stay up to date, subscribe to our show on all available podcast platforms, visit our website at radicalvisuals.noblogs.org and follow Radu on Twitter at @stochita_radu and on Instagram at @stochita.radu
We hope you will enjoy this episode! Have a great day!


Introduction of the author

I remember playing video games since a very early age. My father bought my first computer when I was three. It was second-hand, one of those bulky ones that take up a big amount of space on one’s desk. I remember playing Tomb Raider and Zuma, without giving much thought to what I was doing.
It felt fun and a good escape from everyday’s life. I was an introvert child for a big part of my early years, often finding refuge in stories or video games. As I grew older, so did my experience with the visual world. I became accustomed to Call of Duty, Battlefield, Borderlands, Mortal Kombat.
Those were the universes in which I would escape after a long day at school in which I did not manage to achieve much. I was not a bad student, but my curiosity at that time was not very much developed. School did not encourage asking questions, as much as it did the mere reproduction of whatever the teacher would tell us. To fulfil the need for curiosity, I turned more heavily to video games with a strong desire of tip-toeing through those virtual worlds.
I remember walking through forests in Ukraine, as I was on a mission of assassinating an enemy. I remember going through mountainous areas, filled with beasts and monsters, where I would clench my fists and yell out loud: Let’s go, boys! Let’s go! I was all by myself, a hero in those games, freeing the world from the danger of the Russians, or from the Zergs in Starcraft.
After hours of playtime a day, I would get into my bedsheets, thinking of how much greatness I produced today. I was happy for saving the world and it felt empowering that everyone else trusted me to do so, a kid in the boots of a soldier holding an M16.
It took me a long time to start looking critically at games. No one around me was talking about them in a critical manner. My friends would discuss the quality of the rifles in the latest Call of Duty or the enjoyment of killing some NAZIs in Wolfenstein. When we talked about the storyline, we often focused on ideas on enjoyment.
We did not ask questions and we were not encouraged to do so. Our parents did not know what those mediums presented and the powers that they held upon us. They were more afraid that we would become violent beasts once taken away from the computer screen, but none of my friends did so, even if we had hundreds of hours spent on shooters.
The first time when a critical thought rushed through my mind was when replaying Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. At the beginning of the game, there is this mission in which you are disguised as a Russian terrorist, having to shoot up an airport. It was a massacre, you would shoot innocent people just not to be recognised as an intruder which might compromise the mission. You were the chosen one, the one to self-sacrifice, to kill those terrorists and to free the world from the Russian threat. I stopped after this mission, I felt a gut in my throat, starting to question why did I press the trigger. I tried not to, but the game said that I failed. I had to and in a hurry of getting this done, out of my mind, finishing it quickly, to move into killing the

Transcript



Radical Visuals is a platform that aims at providing a Marxist, Anarchist understanding of video games, films, graphic novels and media as such.

We believe that critical theory should be applied in the realm of everyday life, not left in the academic books only.

We will see Marxist, Anarchist and other theories solely as critical mediums to offer a deeper understanding of society. We will not advocate for an overthrown of a system in favour of an other, since we do not posses that much knowledge yet.

We believe that understanding those mediums without a Marxist analysis, leaves behind issues of class exploitation, class-based relations and alienation.

We want to offer a visual analysis and understanding of those mediums.

We will not look at the greatness of Superman and how a certain movie made him less heroic, but would rather question this need of heroism.

We will play Call of Duty, but not focus on how difficult it is to kill Russians, but rather on the need of doing that and the ideological meaning of it.

We want to ask questions, followed by Marxist and Anarchist theory that would allow others to look at games differently, question all their aspects and motives for making us to do something.

We believe that Marxist, Anarchist understandings are a work in progress, and we, as well as you, will dive deeper into discovering its particularities better. We do not hold the absolute truth and reject the notion that one actually exists.

We are learning as we are presenting those visions to you. We are not PHDs in Marxism, but rather a one-man team of a student with a strong interest in critical theories of understanding society.

We distance ourselves from oppressive communist regimes around the world and will not use this platform to defend Stalin in the eyes of the Western world. Oppression is oppression, even if it is done by a capitalist hand or by a communist one.

We want to present a theory, which is more important than ever to the wide public and make it accessible for everyone to understand.

We want to build a community that looks critical at all media projects under this capitalist system.

We want to promote intellectual curiosity and dialogue.

We want to look at games and films differently and question every aspect of the entertainment industry.

We are internationalists and believe in unity across borders.

We are antifascists, antiracists, anticlassists, antihomophobes and do not tolerate any discriminatory speech.

We will aim at making all of our content and spaces as accessible as possible by providing an accessible homepage, accessible podcast player, transcripts, and even guidance for future resources.

We believe in community and reject individual achievements without linking them to a wider spectrum.



Social Media
Twitter: https://twitter.com/stochita_Radu
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stochita.radu/
Website: https://radicalvisuals.noblogs.org
Music
Shipping Lanes by Chad Crouch (https://freemusicarchive.org/music/ChadCrouch/Arps/ShippingLanes)
Thank you for watching.
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