Utrecht University

Faculty of the Humanities

Degree program: MA New Media & Digital Culture

Student: Mark A. Jansen

Title: Immersion through mimesis: the case of Kinect

Month and Year: November 2011

Supervisor: S. Derijcke

Abstract

The active role of the player in, and influence on, what’s happening in the game is a defining

feature of digital video games. Differing from older, traditional media such as cinema, the player

gives input to the game and the game gives feedback back to the player based on this input. Since

the advent of digital games, the controller technology through which most players gave input to a

game has not changed significantly. With the launch of Kinect, this change came about. No longer

give players input just by holding a physical controller and pushing puttons; now they can jump up

and down, kick their legs and swing their arms. In other words, the gamer's body becomes the

controller. The player is no longer sitting passively, but instead giving input to the game in an

active, full-body way. What is the influence of this change in input device on the gameplay

experience? With Kinect, the player is more 'in' to the game due to mimetic immersion, which

collapses the distance between player space and the virtual space of the screen.

Keywords

kinect, haptic, visual, immersion, mimesis

Table of Content

1. Introduction

2. Theory and analysis

2.1 Haptics and haptic visuality

2.2 Immersion and mimesis

2.3 Impact of haptics on the visual

3. Conclusion

4. Bibliography

1. Introduction

The active role of the player in, and influence on, what’s happening in the game is a defining

feature of digital video games. Differing from older, traditional media such as cinema, the player

gives input to the game and the game gives feedback to the player based on this input. With the

passing of time, the technology through which the players gave input to a game have not changed

significantly. With the advent of Kinect, this change came about. No longer give players input by

holding a physical controller and pushing puttons; now they can jump up and duck down, kick their

legs and swing their arms. In Microsoft's words; the gamer's body becomes the controller. In

addition to using gestures, gamers can also give commands through their voice. Microsoft's

promotion for Kinect is all about immersion. Does this mean that the gamer is more 'in' to the

game? In this article I will analyze whether the Kinect makes games more immersive and if so, in

what ways. In order to arrive at a conclusion, the research employs the method of comparative

literature analysis. Now, I provide a descriptive introduction to the Kinect technology.

Kinect is a new game controller for the Xbox 360 and more recently Microsoft enabled Kinect to

function as a more general user input device for the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system (OS)

for PCs. In order for the reader to more fully grasp the features of this technology, I will now

provide a technical introduction to Kinect. First, however, it is worthwhile to analyze the

(brand)name 'Kinect'. Microsoft has tried its best to provide a descriptive and suggestive name for

this new piece of technology. What's in the name Kinect? Kinect seems to be a contraction of

'kinesthetics', or “The ability to feel movements of the limbs and body” and 'connect' (Memidex,

2011). The latter suggests the connection between the player and the game, through Kinect. Kinect

in a single device combines a tactile sense of movement with a new type of bridge between user and

computer.

Kinect, formerly known under the code-name 'Project Natal', is a peripheral input device developed

by Microsoft with a budget of $ 1 billion (Alexander, 2011). The device was first positioned as a

controller for Microsoft's video-game console, the Xbox 360. Kinect features motion capture and

voice recognition. It does this by means of its webcam-like color (RGB) camera with a resolution of

640x480 pixels that captures the visual spectrum of humans, a infra-red (IR) projector, a IR depth

sensor camera and four microphones (Kotaku, 2010; Smith, 2010). Kinect also incorporates a motor

that enables the cameras to tilt by circa 30 degrees, in order to calibrate. Kinect enables users to

interact with the Xbox 360 console by means of 1. spoken commands and; 2. gestures. According to

Tim Carmody, who writes for Wired Epicenter, the infra-red camera transmits invisible near-

infrared light, which reflects off objects (Carmody, 2010). The human body is such an object for

Kinect. The measurement yields “time of flight”, which works like sonar; in case Kinect can

determine how long the light takes to return, the device's processor can calculate how far away an

object is from the sensor.

Figure 1. How Kinect Works. How Motion Detection Works in Xbox Kinect (2010)

The on-board processor of Kinect uses algorithms to process data and render a three-dimensional

image from it. Kinect can distinguish movements, human body parts, joints and even individual

human faces. Kinect tracks 20 joints of a user's body by a process called 'skeletal tracking'.

Unfortunately, “...how located bodies are mapped to skeletal frames … is top secret to Microsoft

researchers and they seem to want to keep it that way.” (Alexander, 2011).

Figure 2. Nintendo Wii controllers.

Kinect effectively turns the body of the user into the game controller, instead of the 'traditional'

situation where the user holds a physical game controller or wears a headset. Kinect is similar to the

Wii Remote controllers of Nintendo's Wii console launched already in 2006, in that it allows the

user to control the game by means of gestures. However, the Wii controllers are still physical

controllers held by the user while with Kinect this is no longer the case. Instead the IR light coming

from the device surveys the space and touches the user. Furthermore, the Wii controllers do not

incorporate any microphones. Up till the advent of Kinect, the player would sit passively on a couch

or chair, holding a physical controller in the hands. Now the players no longer sits but stands,

actively giving full-body input to the game.

Figure 3. Playing with Kinect.

Figure 3. Tracked joints by Kinect's skeletal tracking technique. Inside Kinect: Skeletal Tracking

Deep Dive (Date & Author Unknown)

Kinect connects to the Xbox 360 console by means of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard,

although Microsoft has used a proprietary connector to network peripherals such as controllers to

the console. However, with a simple convertor it is quite easy to connect the Kinect to a generic

(Windows) PC. This allows coders to write new software for Kinect, such as presentation software,

augmented reality (AR) software, music controllers and more. Thereby, they effectively re-purpose

the Kinect beyond the realm of games. This third-party development is often referred to as 'Kinect

hacking', however Ars Technica reports that “...a company spokesman said that wasn't an accident:

Microsoft left the USB connection open by design.”, suggesting that this does not constitute

hacking (Kuchera, 2011). Doing this on purpose suggests that Microsoft implicitly invited the open

source community to contribute to Kinect, an issue that invites further research. Now I have

introduced Kinect, I will cover relevant theory concerning Kinect.

2. Theory and Analysis

In this section I will introduce and analyze relevant theory concerning Kinect, in order to determine

whether Kinect has the capacity to make games more immersive. I will start with a discussion of

haptics and haptic visuality. Hereafter I will consider immersion and mimesis. Then I will elaborate

about the impact of haptics on the visual appearance of games and I will conclude this section with

a discussion of mimetic and narrative immersion.

2.1 Haptics and haptic visuality

Near the end of the introduction to this paper I described Kinect as a tactile, haptic technology.

Before going deeper into the theory about haptics, it is worth asking 'what is 'haptic''? It is derived

from the Greek word haptesthai, meaning “pertaining to, or relating to the sense of touch or tactile

sensations,” haptics is the study of touch and how we interact with the world through this sensory

mode (“Haptics”).” (Paterson, 2008 p. 224).

Mark Paterson, Professor of Communications at the University of Pittsburgh wrot an article titled

“Digital Craft and Digital Touch: Hands-on Design with an “”Undo” Button”. Here, he writes

about haptics concerning Human-Computer Interfaces (HCI). Paterson discusses two cases of tactile

HCI's; the PHANTOM (Personal Haptic iNterface Mechanism) and the Tacitus. Paterson suggest

that with these devices, the ability to 'directly' manipulate virtual objects will lead to an interface

revolution, similar to the advent of the mouse and the Graphical User Interface (GUI): “In the

same way that the mouse shifted the computer desktop into a graphical user interface (GUI)

with windows and pointing and clicking […] perhaps we will see the onset of the tangible user

interface (TUI).” (Paterson, 2008 p. 230).

According to Paterson, users desire a more direct experience, something that most computers are

not capable of (2008, pp. 224-225). Currently, most users interact with a computer through a mouse

and keyboard as hardware, and 2D windows and folders as software. Such input is user-unfriendly

and not adequate for free-form, organic shapes. According to Paterson, this separates the user from

having direct contact with the virtual objects, keeping them from manipulating these objects in a

satisfactory way. Patterson has identified a problem to which visual-haptic technologies are the

solution; “To manipulate a virtual object with the hand and have the image change accordingly on

the screen through the haptic device produces a credible sensation of a tangible virtual object.

(Paterson, 2008 p. 226). The haptic technology is needed to finally unite the artist, or user, with the

computer: “When using a visual-haptic technology, the potter feels no separation between himself

or herself, the virtual clay, and the task at hand.” (Paterson, 2008 p. 231). Being able to manipulate

virtual objects in such a direct way allows a sense of being immersed, where the user is completely

engaged in the task at hand (Paterson, 2008 p. 223).

Laura Marks, a professor of philosophy at European Graduate School, has written the article

'Haptic Visuality: Touching with the Eyes'. Here, she contrasts optic and haptic visuality. Optical

visuality sees “...objects as distinct, distant, and identifiable, existing in illusionary three-

dimensional space.” (2004, p. 82). In contrast, she argues that with haptic visuality the eye can also

be used as an organ of touch (2004, p. 79):

“Haptic visuality has a strong sense of the material connection between vision and

the object. It thus is mimetic: it presses up to the object and takes its shape. Mimesis

is a form of representation based on contact, getting close enough to the other thing

to become it .” (p. 83 emphasis mine)

Paterson suggests that haptic-visual technologies such as Kinect allow a sense of being immersed,

as there no longer is a separation between the player and the player's avatar on-screen. Marks

supports this argument by stating that with haptic visuality, through mimesis, the subject and object

become one. It is important to note that Paterson discusses two cases of tactile HCI's; the

PHANTOM (Personal Haptic iNterface Mechanism) and the Tacitus. These devices both employ

physical devices which the user holds and manipulates by touch. Although Kinect is continuous

with some properties of these devices, it is worth mentioning a remarkable discontinuity in the

developent of (game) controllers. With Kinect the user no longer touches a physical device; the

relation of touch in HCI is reversed. Now, Kinect 'touches' the user with IR light.

In the next section I will go further into mimesis and how the Kinect provokes a sense of

immersion.

2.2 Immersion and mimesis

Paterson claims that the user of a visual-haptic technology feels no separation between him- or

herself and the virtual object (Paterson, 2008 p. 231). This is due to the mimetic quality of the

technology, which Paterson defines as “...the modeling of real-world tactile properties.” (Paterson,

200? p. 224). Here, using the body, the user manipulates a virtual object and the image on screen

changes accordingly in an immediate way. The difficulty with the concepts of immersion and

mimesis is that they both know various and varying definitions. Research after these two terms and

their definitions is outside the scope of this text. Therefore, I employ working definitions

concerning both concepts. Mimesis, from the Greek μίμησις (mīmēsis) and μιμεῖσθαι (mīmeisthai),

means 'to imitate' or 'imitator' or 'actor', from μῖμος (mimos). In the two classical definitions by

Plato and Aristotle, they both saw in mimesis the representation of nature. In this research, mimesis

relates to how the Kinect 'reads' the surface of the user's body and how this is represented as visual

form of an avatar on screen. It is important to note that 1. this representation serves as feedback to

the user, which entails a significant change in the visual appearance of games, as I will discuss later;

and 2. Kinect is not only able to recognize the surface of human bodies, but also of other objects.

In a way similar to the concept of mimesis and the more infamous example of the term

'interactivity', it is often not clear what immersion means and whether the scholars use the term

consistently (Brown & Cairns 2004, p. 1297). What is immersion and when can we say that one is

immersed? Can you be immersed in a game in the same way you can be immersed in a book?

Immersion is a powerful experience in gaming and other media. It is an experience where the player

in “...'in'', rather than before an image that is expressed” (Lister et al., 2009 p. 114). This definition

is rather visual, while immersion is not exclusive to one sense. In her influential text Hamlet on the

Holodeck, Murray describes immersion as;

...a metaphorical term derived from the physical experience of being submerged in

water. We seek the same feeling from a psychologically immersive experience that

we do from a plunge in the ocean or swimming pool; the sensation of being

surrounded by a completely other reality; as water is from air, that takes all of our

attention, our whole perceptual apparatus. (p. 98).

Gamers, designers and scholar alike mention the concept and how it is a significant experience of

interaction. Therefore, Brown & Cairns have attempted to define immersion based on gamer

experience. The result is a division of immersion into the three levels: engagement, engrossment

and total immersion, where “...the barriers to immersion act to define and scope the level of

involvement with the game.” (Brown & Cairns 2004 p. 1298). Interestingly, the authors conclude

their article by stating that the features of immersion relate strongly to Csikszentmihalyi’s concept

of flow;

“...central to flow is attention. Any distraction from the task at hand causes the feeling

of flow to be erased. Flow has some parallels with immersion in the fact that attention

is needed, sense of time is altered, and sense of self is lost. Also, the use of skill and

knowledge is the same in immersion as in flow.” (2004, p. 1300 emphasis mine)

Earlier in this article I quoted Paterson who also mentions immersion in the task at hand: “When

using a visual-haptic technology, the potter feels no separation between himself or herself, the

virtual clay, and the task at hand.” (Paterson, 2008 p. 223 emphasis mine). Without further research

into the specific situation of Kinect in one or more of the three categories defined by Brown and

Cairns, it is not possible to make a convincing statement about which of the three levels of

immersion Kinects contributes to. Unfortunately, for this research the three categories of Brown and

Cairns for now have no predictive power and are therefore not informative in how Kinect would, or

would not, make games more immersive. Therefore, I follow Dion, a university student in cinema,

who splits immersion in two categories that are instructive in analyzing Kinect:

“...immersion in the narrative (the kind you could get watching a movie, reading a

book, or playing a good narrative-driven game), and immersion in the system (feeling

that you have full, direct control over your avatar).” (Dion, 2010)

This working definition of immersion acknowledges that 1. one can be immersed in a game as well

as in a book, and; 2. that these types of immersion differ from each other, they are mutually

exclusive. Dion's 'immersion in the system' touches upon the mimetic quality of Kinect, where the

user through feedback gets the feeling of having direct control over his or her avatar. Therefore, I

describe Dion's categories as mimetic immersion and narrative immersion. Again, it is striking that

Paterson who we have discussed earlier, also mentions this direct manipulation of virtual objects,

here the avatar.

It is important to note that the two categories are mutually exclusive, but they may not be

collectively exhaustive; the concept immersion requires more research in order to make such an

argument convincingly. For the reader who is familiar with the emerging field of game studies,

breaking up immersion into these two categories may recall the 'debate that never took place',

between the so-called ludologists and narrativists (Frasca, 2005 p. 1). It is not my purpose to re-

open this non-debate, but to show that videogames are a unique cultural medium, with unique

medium specificities that separate them from other media such as books. Such significant

differences probably have an impact on the experience on immersion and therefore should be

reflected upon in a discussion of immersion of these media. In the words of game studies scholar

Ian Bogost:

Procedurality is the principal value of the computer, which creates meaning through

the interaction of algorithms. Although Murray places procedurality alongside three

other properties, these properties are not equivalent. The computer, she writes, “was

designed...to embody complex, contingent behaviors. To be a computer scientist is to

think in terms of algorithms and heuristics, that is, to be constantly identifying the

exact or general rules of behavior that describe any process, from running a payroll to

flying an airplane.” This ability to execute a series of rules fundamentally separates

computers from other media. (Bogost, 2007 p. 4 emphasis mine)

Kinect has important implications for the visual aspects of games, which we will discuss in the next

section. However, Kinect draws most attention to the concept of space; the spatial organization of

gaming. Jesper Juul, an influential theorist in the field of video game studies, argues that video-

games involve three different types of space:

“...whether sitting or standing, the player is situated in the player space, the physical

space in front of the screen. The screen itself is a flat surface, the screen space. Any

three-dimensional game presents a world inside the screen, a 3-D space. (The real

world of player space is of course also three-dimensional, but by 3-D space I mean

the world projected by the screen).” (Juul, 2009 p. 17)

Note that these space are all but new. Juul implicitly refers to Alberti's window, the dominant way

of Western pictorial representation since the Renaissance. Lister et al. describe this as a technique

for producing the virtual (2005, p. 115). Furthermore, these authors state that this is about

“...managing the relationship between the viewer's position in the physical space and the position of

the depicted figures in a kind of virtual space.” (2009, p. 116). More importantly, it is about relating

these two spaces to each other. I have quoted Juul to demonstrate that Kinect's mimetic immersion

brings 'player space' to the fore, where the concept is suddenly becoming significant, or at least

important enough for games that Juul felt compelled to re-introduce Alberti's window.

Figure 4. 3-D space, screen space and player space (re-printed from Juul, 2011 p. 17)

Before the advent of haptic-visual technologies such as Wii and Kinect, player space was less

relevant. This was due to the fact that the player held a controller while sitting still, passively,

usually on a couch or chair. Now, mimetic interface games afforded by Kinect “...encourage

interaction between players in player space, and in such a way that player space and 3-D space

appear continuous: when bowling in Wii Sports, the game gives the impression that player space

continues into the 3-D space of the game.” (Juul, 2009 p. 17). Lister et al. make a similar statement

when they argue that Alberti's window “...seeks to connect two kinds of space: that from which the

image is viewed and that which is viewed within the image. The former is the actual space which

the viewer physically inhabits while the latter seeks to be 'as good as' and continuous with that

space.” (2009, p. 116 emphasis mine).

Juul argues that the appeal of Wii and Kinect is that they make games blend in more easily with the

space in which the gamer plays a game. It is important to note that the continuity between player

and 3D space goes both ways. I want to stress this because Juul only mentions that player space

continuing in 3D space, as if 3D space does not continue in player space. In the next section I will

discuss the player avatar on screen functioning as feedback to te player, demonstrating that there is

also continuity from 3D space to player space. It is this continuity between the two spaces that has

implications for the visual appearance of games, an issue I turn to in the next section.

To conclude, the distance between the player and that what is being shown on-screen dissolves with

haptic visuality. Juul's line of reasoning is in line with the arguments of Marks and Paterson; with

haptic-visual technologies such as Kinect, through mimesis the separation between '3d-space' and

'player space' dissolves. Kinect draws the gamer more 'in' to the game by means of believable

mimetic immersion. However, Dion's cautions that Kinect may succesfully achieve mimetic

immersion, but that this might be at the expense of narrative immersion. Dion argues that the

narrative category of immersion is hard to maintain with Kinect, because the device puts the player

in a state of “over-mobility”:

In a movie theater, you're immersed in the narrative because you are in a state of

over-perception and under-mobility. When you play a game with a controller, you're

still in a similar situation. […] Kinect games […] may put you in a state of "over-

mobility," in which you become more self-aware of your presence as a player, as a

controller. You may be in total control of your avatar, but narrative immersion, in

turn, becomes harder to maintain. The more complex the movements you have to do to

interact with the virtual environment, the more aware you are that this whole thing is

a game that you control. (Dion, 2010 emphasis mine).

This relates to Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow which I cited earlier; “Flow has some parallels

with immersion in the fact that attention is needed, sense of time is altered, and sense of self is lost.

Also, the use of skill and knowledge is the same in immersion as in flow.” (Brown & Carns 2004,

p. 1300 emphasis mine). Immersion requires the temporary loss of the sense of self and Dion

expects that this cannot happen with Kinect, as it makes you self-aware of your presence and that it

is a game you control. This is an interesting question which invites further research. Now I have

discussed how Kinect makes games more immersive, the reader may ask whether Kinect's haptics

also have an impact on the visual appearance of games. I discuss this in the next section.

2.3 Impact of haptics on the visual

The visual appearance of games changes due to the input through Kinect, as shown by current

games that allow Kinect as input device. Currently, these games such as Kinect Sports are more

casual, rather than hardcore games. However, Ubisoft has recently announced a first-person shooter

game, which is usually a more hardcore game genre, to utilize Kinect (Crossley, 2011). Earlier I

quoted Juul, who argues that “...when bowling in Wii [or Kinect] Sports, the game gives the

impression that player space continues into the 3-D space of the game.” (Juul, 2009 p. 17). This

continuity between the player space and 3-D space and vice versa, is believable because in both

Kinect and Wii Sports the player avatar is shown prominently on screen in a third-person

perspective (see Figure 5). Showing this avatar in this way is required, because the user needs

feedback about his or her bodily gestures being 'understood' properly and carried out accordingly in

the game. Without such feedback through representation, mimetic immersion would be less

convincing, as the user would no longer be assured that (s)he is in full control of the avatar.

Figure 5. Kinect Sports promotional material

Such third-person perspective is not new to games. However, it is currently not the most used

perspective. Kinect is less suited to the popular perspective of First-Person Shooters (FPS), due to

the need to show the full-body player avatar. This genre is quite succesful and produces many best-

selling titles, with the record-holding game Call of Duty: Black Ops selling $ 360 million worth

within 24 hours and totals of over 13 million units in the US alone (Tassi, 2011). Another

foreseeable issue is precision and Kinect's lack thereof. Kinect does not allow the precision of a

tradional controller in aiming a crosshair at something, which is a key gameplay ingredient of

current FPS games. Precision in aiming is a critical success factor, where better aim equals better

skill. In other words, it is destructive to the game if players can no longer distinguish themselves

from each other by the quality of their aiming skills.

To further complicate this, with Kinect the player can use gestures, but the position of the player in

player space is still limited to about two by two meters. With this limitation in mind, what would be

a believable mimetic gesture for walking with the protagonist in a FPS game, bearing in mind that

the move should not exhaust the player within the next five minutes? Contemporary FPS games

afford to be played for hours in a row, which is harder to sustain when the player has to perform

physical activity, such as ducking, jumping and leaning to a side. However, during the games

conference E3 2011 game producer Ubisoft announced and demonstrated Kinect support a FPS,

Future Soldier, the newest edition of the Ghost Recon franchise; (Crossley, 2011). It remains to be

seen whether and how developers will adopt Kinect and whether gamers are willing to play FPS

games with Kinect.

Figure 6. Screenshot of the first-person perspective of Counterstrike

In spite of the mentioned drawbacks, I want to stress that these limitations are not definitive nor

unsolvable. For example, the Kinect can be combined with other input devices such as the

traditional controllers, which may solve some of the observed problems. In this way, the gamer

gives input to the games with a controller as well as with Kinect, for example using Kinect for voice

commands and only occassionally using gestures. The Kinect is in this case used as a more

secundary. ambient peripheral device in addition to the 'primary' controller. In this way, the player

can still use the physical controller for aiming the cross-hair, which solves the current condition of

controlling precision in FPS games. This will also reduce physical strain, as the player is not

constantly required to be physically active.

Developers might also embrace the fact that Kinect is not that applicable to FPS games and instead

develop a whole new genre of games that takes advantages of its strenghts, while minimizing

weaknesses. Kinect and especially Wii are already credited with opening up a new target group,

aptly described as 'casual' gamers, to games (Juul, 2009, p. 2). Furthermore, Kinect can recognize

not only the shape player's body, but also other objects. This means that in addition to the traditional

controller, games can make use of additonal objects that may be packaged and sold with the game,

or employ common household objects for in-game use, for example holding a broomstick that in-

game represents a lightsaber (see Figure 7). In this way, various objects can be repurposed as game

controllers and in doing so the gamer again holds something physical.

Figure 7: Using a broomstick as lightsaber

3. Conclusion

Kinect can make games more immersive by means of believable mimesis, here called mimetic

immersion. This conclusion draws on the arguments of four texts quoted in this research, by the

authors Juul, Lister et al., Marks and Paterson. Juul states that mimetic interfaces make player space

and 3D space appear continuous, which draws the player more 'in' to the game (2009, p. 18). This

draws on the concept of Alberti's window, the technique for connecting viewer- and virtual space

(Lister et al., 2009 p. 115). Marks discusses haptic visuality, about which she says that there is a

strong, mimetic connection between vision and the object, which is “...getting close enough to the

other thing to become it.” (Marks, 2004 p. 83). In line with these arguments, Paterson argues that

haptic devices collapse the distance between the virtual object and its representation on screen,

since it is directly manipulable through the haptic interface (2008, p. 229). These authors argue as

one that by means of a sense of direct manipulation, Kinect enacts an experience in which the

perceived distance between player and avatar, viewer and virtual object is collapsed.

Kinect may improve mimetic immersion, however following Dion, the device may not be as useful

in creating an experience of narrative immersion. Dion fears that as the gestures that the player has

to perform grow more complex, the player becomes more aware that “...this whole thing is a game

that you control.” (Dion, 2010). This might break the immersive spell. Concluding this is in line

with the observation that immersion is conditional upon the loss of sense of self (Brown & Carns

2004, p. 1300). This would mean that Kinect is not well-suited in reaching the kind of narrative

immersion one may experience, for example when reading a book or watching a movie. The

question whether mimetic and narrative immersion are different experiences that are at odds with

each other invites further research. Another suggestions for further research is whether Kinect's

room requirements push the Xbox 360 console into the living room and if so, how this relates to

'family politics'.

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