Molte vite in multiversi. Nuovi media e arte quotidiana

Giuseppe Frazzetto's Molte vite in multiversi. Nuovi media e arte quotidiana (Mimesis Edizioni, 2011) is a philosophical and aesthetic treatise that places video games within a broader theory of contemporary art and culture. Written by a professor of contemporary art history at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Catania, the book expands on the author's earlier work on interactive digital hybrid entertainment, but treats games not as its central subject so much as a recurring element within a general account of "new forms of art." The reviewer notes that the text speaks to aesthetics far more than to the specialized field of game studies, and that it aims to offer conceptual categories that impose order on a fragmented cultural landscape.

Central to the book is the thesis that contemporary art and aesthetics are marked by the multiplication and fragmentation of identities, a condition Frazzetto frames as a "remix" or "mash-up" society. He introduces the notion of the "Entreverse," an entertainment universe in which everything becomes aestheticized, hierarchies dissolve, and media generate events. The author coins numerous neologisms, redefining the video game as IDHE, the avatar as "toon," and the player as "performer," a terminology the reviewer finds destabilizing and at times disorienting for readers without a glossary.

The portion of the book devoted to massively multiplayer online role-playing games draws on field research into the social relations formed in World of Warcraft, examining themes such as gender and racial attitudes, socialization without physical contact, hierarchy and rule-making within guilds, and the relationship between appearance and identity. Frazzetto reads such games as expressions of a desire for multiple lives and as a subtle, voluntary form of resistance to the totalizing pressures of collective modernity. He also builds on the concept of "the uncommon" (incomune), arguing that the visibility of the monstrous in contemporary media, including violent video game imagery, shares a lineage with the photography of Diane Arbus or Andres Serrano.

The reviewer concludes that the book is dense, hybrid, and primarily a work of philosophy and aesthetics in which video games form one variable among many. Its significance lies in its pioneering character in Italy and in its invitation to philosophers, aestheticians, and art historians to engage with games without prejudice, though its provocative and sometimes idiosyncratic terminology may challenge readers accustomed to