What is the Avatar?

What are the characteristic features of avatar-based singleplayer videogames, from Super Mario Bros. to Grand Theft Auto? Rune Klevjer examines this question with a particular focus on issues of fictionality and realism, and their relation to cinema and Virtual Reality. Through close-up analysis and philosophical discussion, Klevjer argues that avatar-based gaming is a distinctive and dominant form of virtual self-embodiment in digital culture. This book is a revised edition of Rune Klevjer's pioneering work from 2007, featuring a new introduction by the author and afterword by Stephan Günzel, Jörg Sternagel, and Dieter Mersch.

Rune Klevjer is an associate professor at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen. He specializes in computer game theory, with particular interest in player-avatar relationships, narrative, and the nature of fictional representation in virtual environments.

Stephan Günzel, born in 1971, is Professor of Media Theory at the University of Applied Sciences Europe and currently head of the Media Studies Master Program at the Technical University of Berlin. He co-founded the Digital Games Research Center at the University of Potsdam in 2008.

Jörg Sternagel (Dr. phil. habil.) works as »Akademischer Rat« at the chair of media studies with a focus on digital culture at Universität Passau. He is a member of the advisory board of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ästhetik. His research focuses on alterity, imagery, mediality and performativity.

Dieter Mersch (Prof. Dr. em.) is former head of the Institute for Critical Theory at Zürcher Hochschule der Künste and former president of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ästhetik. His fields of work include philosophical aesthetics, media philosophy, image theory, and the philosophy of music. {0000002532}Thomas Strässle (Prof. Dr.) is head of the Institute for Transdisciplinarity (Y Institute) at the Hochschule der Künste Bern and professor of modern German and comparative literature at the Universität Zürich. His fields of work include German literature from the 17th to the 21st century in a European context and the relationship between literature and other arts, especially music and material aesthetics.