UDC 130.2
The article examines the use of mycological elements in video games from the late 20th and early 21st centuries in the context of how they represent the categories of mycophilia (love of mushrooms) and mycophobia (fear of mushrooms). Based on a structural, typological, and semiotic analysis, the article identifies five main types of representations of mushrooms in video games: mushrooms as a resource, mushrooms as part of an ecosystem, mushrooms as markers of the fantastic, mushrooms as liminal creatures, and mushrooms as agents of infection. These representations are considered within the continuum of “mycophilia, mycoambivalence, and mycophobia” and correlate with archaic ethnomycological concepts documented in the works of Wasson, Toporov, and Levi-Strauss. Video games are acting as the primary medium for the adaptation of classic mycological narratives into modern media art and allow for the representation of these mycological themes through a variety of visual and interactive features.
mycological motifs, video games, mycophilia, mycophobia, ethnomycology, mushroom as cultural code, liminality
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