Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
These
performative games integrate ubiquitous computing and toy devices by taking them to the point of absurdity.
In the words of some of the new Ludic socialites (Bubaris/ Myrivili) such a conceptually pervasive game is
“a free-associative interaction with the in-game, the meta-game and the
non-game worlds of the player. It encourages the players to recall and interrelate different
levels of information, making connections.” It is played as a “bricolage, which is characterized
by associative, highly contextual, experiential, constantly negotiated, non-hierarchical, non-linear
approaches to scientific information and the creation of meaning in general.”
This Xtra issues topic is Real Players in Real Cities: a “Real Play” is played in 1st Life,
the Reality Engine! A Real Play is designed in this best game engine available. Such a
play constitutes a contingency game concept. It appears as classifiable in the genre
of computer games, although rendered in the full city reality. Adhering to mercurial
thievishness (=to steal from computer games) as a massively Real Player
authenticator obviously constitutes the first constraint of the distinct level of Real
Plays that is hereby entered. Real Play was introduced by the Ludic Society as an
ouvroir (=garage) for the unexpected, for contingency and imaginative solutions.
Roy Ascott
Note: The following text written on paper headed Prop occult organizations, including the Golden Dawn, the
erty of Plymouth Sanitary Service was found in a Argenteum Astrum, and Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.)
Jajan bowl in the Plymouth Municipal Museum, smashed None of these have yet been released to the gaming
by chance during the celebrations of Taith-picking, an public, but ludic rights have been purchased covering
old Devonian festival. A partially eaten pasty (see be- most of these esoteric practices, which actually mask
low) was also interred with the document. Signed by a kind of ludic eroticism or lewdic erotericism as it is
one Ludovinci it has raised speculation on the pos- known in Third Life critical discourse.
sibility of solving the long sought-after Ludovinci code. Crowley gained much notoriety during his lifetime,
The base of the vase carries the inscription “TESCO” and was famously dubbed "The Wickedest Man In the
which in reverse reads OCSET. World." No doubt the greatest accolade one could ac-
quire from a Christian society. Ironically, both of his
OC is known to refer to Occitania, South of France parents were Exclusive Brethren, an extreme wing of
home of the mediaeval Cathars, and “SET” in the old Plymouth Brethren. Plymouth is a dangerous place for mind
Cornish Tamarese dialect, referring either to the pro- games. This may be why the Pilgrim Fathers left. It is
cess of making jelly by allowing it the freedom to “set”, also a dangerous place for maze games. Think of the
or “group” as in being a member of a fast “set”. In both new Shopping Centre where the lost are now
cases it signals a deep affinity, perhaps political, per- estimated to number hundreds – innocent citizens,
haps spiritual, with the Cathars movement. turned gamesters, lured into the ludic mysteries of its
gilded maze, only to disappear entirely.
... Playfulness here is the cultural practice of What is outwardly seen as urban amenity and good
construction of meaning, in an ambient envi- civic design is really that savage form of population
ronment, rather than towards certain perspec- control known in First Life as “shopping”. At the more
tives. Play here, is the cultural practice of being per- profound level, it is of course the Maze-Game Centre,
plexed, of posing questions, rather than choosing its true nature to be navigated with 3D Game O mouse.
among given answers. Play is at its best when it
provides an experiential mode of experimenting The significance of Crowley, this Great Disturber and
with the norm, trying to find its limits. The more Esoteric Game Master, to the Rapture is his connec-
obvious the limits the less fun it is to play. tion with Jack Parsons. John "Jack" Whiteside Parsons
(born Marvel Whiteside Parsons), was an American
Nikos Bubaris & Eleni Myrivili, cultural rocket propulsion researcher at the California Institute
scientists, University of the Aegean, Greece of Technology and co-founder of the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) and Aerojet Corporation. He was
also an enthusiastic occultist.
Ludic preparation for Third Life is all that Second Life
should be about. This means treating Second Life as NOW GET THIS
if it were virtual, an illusion, or as contingent and incon- Parsons was an avid practitioner of the occult arts,
sequential as First Life. Whereas we know that First and a follower of Thelema. He saw no contradiction
Life is a corrupt version of ludic reality, even as we between his scientific and magical pursuits: before each
recognise that Second Life is life everlasting. How- rocket test launch, Parsons would invoke the god Pan.
ever, Third Life is where the real action will be. But first This is good news for all Ludicians. It’s worth noting
we have to be gathered up by the Rapture, and that that Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) was one
can only come from good practice in spiritual rocketry: of the best films of 2006, a fabulous and moving
Lift-off comes from you mixing the right chemicals, mixture of fairy tale, realistic historical drama, fantasy
whether it’s TNT or DMT. Dedicated ludicians prefer and thriller. The film is in the proud Spanish-language
DMT every time. TNT can be rather terminal. DMT is tradition of magical realism, as in the work of ludic,
ecologically OK, though illegal. :-) fantasy-besotted Jorge Luis Borges. Pan is the play-
For this to be possible, you’ve got to know about the er´s god, ludic beyond measure, particularly in pursuit
early emergence of space rockets in First Life. And of the erotic.
that involves knowing something about the Ludic
Grand Master, the Great Beast, 666, Edward Alexan- Jacko was chosen by Aleister Crowley to lead Agape
der Crowley, known to the public as Aleister Crowley. Lodge, the Thelemic Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) in
As the wise wiki points out: Crowley was a chess California in 1942, after Crowley expelled Wilfred
master, mountain climber, poet, painter, astrologer, Smith from the position. Parsons shacked up with one
drug experimenter, and social critic. He is perhaps Betty Northrup, after his wife (Betty’s half-sister) Helen
best known today for his occult writings, especially Northrup left with the Pan-propelled Smith. Betty later
The Book of the Law, the central sacred text of Thelema. married L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology
Crowley was also an influential member in several and sometime magickal partner of Parsons. Parsons
2
RFID Terminator One: Judgement Day
and Hubbard participated in a ritual known as the Babalon pasty in Cornwall is found in the Cornwall Record Dadaism was born from the notion that the world With Dadaism as the shifty foundation of contem-
Working which is famous in occult circles — loosely, it Office, where they have a pasty recipe dated 1746. sucks. This correct assessment was followed by a ser porary civilization and its latest dowdy emanation, so-
was an attempt to summon a living goddess and Pasties had evolved to meet the needs of the ies of weak attempts to pass judgement on the world. called participatory websites with user created con-
change the course of history. And it’s Ronny Hubbard Plymouth Brethren. Tradition claims that the pasty Berlin Dadaists depicted army officers as pigs, Zurich tent and whatnot, every day has become judgement
Scientology Shop that stands sentinel at 41 Ebrington was originally made as lunch ('croust' or 'crib' in the Dadaists tried to violate their host country's most im- day for everyone. Almost every visual interface we
Street just thirty yards from the maze-game edifice Cornish language) for the Brethren who were unable portant rule ("ARRBEITEN!") by simply loitering play or work with gives us a simple option to judge
that in First Life passes for the Plymouth City Centre Mall. to return from the Third Life to the surface of First Life around. Everything the Dadaists did or did not do was what's going on. Click a button on the photo sharing
to eat. The story goes that, covered in dirt from head to show the world what they thought of it: nothing. website Flickr and make it a "fave". Mark your favour-
Ronny’s DNA, with his parents roots amongst the Ply- to foot (including some arsenic often found with tin), ite music in iTunes and give it five stars. Vote for the
mouth Brethren, led to him assuming the title of "Com- they could hold the pasty by the folded crust and eat biggest asshole on "Big Brother" and kick him out.
modore" of a small fleet of Scientologist-crewed ships the rest of the pasty without touching it, discarding the Tagged City Play activates the city as a Evaluate your teacher. Click your boss. Play with your
that spent eight years cruising the Mediterranean Sea. dirty pastry, shouting Jesus Croust! Jesus Croust! game-level, one whose dimensions expand be- Hugo Balls. Every Day Is Judgement Day. It's simple.
With docking privileges in Plymouth. Here, Hubbard (The same cry uttered by 14 th century Cathars as yond the literal, cursive delimitation of road and It's stupid. It keeps you busy. RFID tags are the latest
formed the religious order known as the "Sea Organ- they were burnt at the base of Mont Segur. And the pavement into a read-writeable surface for action. system Dadaist-capitalist society has invented for e-
ization" or "Sea Org", with titles and uniforms. The same cry famously uttered by King Alfred as he burnt Real Players operate this surface as phenom- valuating things. The system tags an object and
Sea Org subsequently became the management group the pasties). The pasty they threw away was sup- enological play-layers; manifolds, whose re-cord assigns a price to it. The RFID tag is the symbol of
within Hubbard's Scientology empire. He was attend- posed to appease the knockers (Knockers, Knackers, is passed from their inscribed and mobile bodies judgement. Dada capitalism has passed judgement
ed by "Commodore's Messengers", teenaged girls Bwca and Bucca are the Welsh and Cornish – fleshly game-objects - to the map. By writing on the tagged object and declared it valuable.
dressed in white hot pants who waited on him hand equivalent of Irish leprechauns), the capricious Third the city with tags, it is taught to remember the
and foot, bathing and dressing him and even catching Life spirits who might otherwise lead the Plymouth players and the players it, a dot-to-dot drawing The logical step for the artist in the footsteps of chess
the ash from his cigarettes. Brethren into danger. Knockers are known to have been - waypoints - whose singular image affirms and player Marcel Duchamp -- chess is just a series of ju-
the cause of both great pleasure and great harm to returns the right to act upon the city with each dgements, too -- would be to use RFID tags to pass
It was not until the topping out of the Plymouth City the Brethren, a pair of knockers being considered the added Wunderbäumchen sign. Here, the game- judgement on the world of real objects like the cyber
Centre Mall that its Third Life identity as a hermetic maze- most potent, where playing with them over too long a server is initialised through action, suspended bourgeois does every minute within the safe and square
game domain was uncovered by an intrepid reporter period would lead to the cry “I’m knackered”. between vectors of the player in the city. Any boundaries of their computer screens. Such an artist
on the Plymouth Gazette, who at the same time uncov tattoo expresses control over the predicament would use RFID tags to de-valuate the world by letting
ered the fact that Scientology was a coded reference Chinese Knockers presented by the bodily container and so everybody know how much it sucks. Land-art disin-
to Shopping. This then made sense of the High Court The ludic view of Plymouth then is as maze-city for describes an objective demarcation between a formation projects like the (www.semapedia.org)
judge Mr Justice Latey’s statement in 1984 that the the Brethren, whose Third Life existence depends on subject and its corporeality; a relieving bind. Semapedia have only undertaken to add a redundant
big S (Scientology or as we now know “Shopping”) is a the scientological application of orificial rocketry to Similarly, each RFID tag embedded in the flesh, boring data layer to an already bland reality. On RFID
"dangerous, immoral, sinister and corrupt" and barred rite of Rapture, as seen on Mutley Plane or in the just as in the city's flesh, liberates the subject Judgement Day, we tag the world (cars, houses,
Hubbard from the UK (though not from shopping). misty headlands of Down Thomas most weekends. from the compressed thresholds of the signed monuments, clouds) in order to de-valuate it. Blank
His court judgment was: "Scientology (i.e shopping) is The Secret Life of Plymouth Shopping Centre is the- city through providing a new means to be in it. chips, empty tags put on those objects will assign to
both immoral and socially obnoxious... It is corrupt refore best understood as a product of an advanced Inversely the city is also relieved of its own con- them the value ZERO.
sinister and dangerous. It is corrupt because it is kind of Teslian machine world, such as he predicted tainment by sign; played until it confesses the
based on lies and deceit and has its real objective on Lude-Tube. It is essentially a Bachelor Machine of new possibilities it affords. Through the Situ- *Voting them to death*
money and power for Mr. Hubbard (and, inter alia, cosmic relevance. ationist's dérive the city was expressed as un-
Plymouth City Centre Mall shareholders )... It is dan- bounded, unsigned substance. Tag City Play Another possible twist on this idea would be that
gerous because it is out to capture people and to in- can be read as a literal yet reflexive conviction of everyone could pass judgement on tagged buildings
doctrinate and brainwash them so they become the This text is brought to you courtesy of LudeTube, the this expression, a 'Dérive Tattoo' on the skin of and the building with the worst score gets blown up in
unquestioning captives and tools of the cult (of site of your ludic bliss, Roÿ A 20.02.07. both city and subject. good and clean democratic consent. Everybody is in-
shopping), withdrawn from ordinary thought, living, vited to tag a bleedin' photo on Flickr or a book on
and relationships with others." -- Justice Latey, ruling Julian Oliver, artist, selectparks, New Zealand Amazon.com. That does absolutely nothing for art.
in the High Court of London.
It would be much more effective if we had writeable
To any Third Life player, the significance of 41 Dada then quickly faded away, eagerly absorbed by RFID VotingChips which could register everybody's
Ebrington Street, Plymouth as Scientology’s Devon early consumerist society, only to be replaced by opinions on objects in public space. If something gets
base in relation to the Maze-Game Centre , becomes Marcel Duchamp, the last true genius of Western art. voted to the ground, then it should disappear. All you
clear. If a line is drawn from Nº 41 across to the Old With his concept of the Readymade, Duchamp re- would have to do is to dispense Kill Signal Emitters to
Town Street entrance, and then to any one of the sixty duced the process of creating art to a simple act of the general public or release a Java software for mo-
four pasty shops within a six radius of the Sun Dial, judgement. The artist would encounter an object and bile phones to send the Kill signal via Bluetooth or In-
the power of I Ching is not only invoked but N-veloped judge it to be art. Confronted with the art of judge- frared. Every little impulse would be a subtle nudge
[hermetically sealed] in a form of psychic containment ment, art critics and the public then could judge them- towards the abyss. A myriad of invisible signals will let
that is symbolically incorporated in the Cornish pasty. selves whether the object was an object of art or not. the real world crumble.
The secret sign [known to all Cornish Scientologists There comes the double bind. For the trick to work, at
and Third Lifers in the Maze-Game Centre] is that of least the professional public's judgement had to be We need an asocial contract, and a modern-day RFID-
the “Braeken Pasty”. The origins of the pasty are identical with the artist's. In Duchamp's world, every Rousseau should formulate it. In a scenario where
largely unknown. The earliest written evidence of a day was judgement day. everyone is constantly passing judgements, two-way
3 4
Judgement Day for 1st Life Game Figures
WE SELL PLAY - NO GAMES!
5 6
A Borges'ian Psycho-Active 'Pata Play Map! point of view it needs a HUD style, a game-like
This map is a collectively en-played graphical graphical Heads-Up Display over the satellite map.
machine. The display shows the score of each player The look of the map as game score and display for
depending on objects tagged and de-tagged. The subjective play data, forms the uncensored on-line map of
scoring function opens a variety of possible game- “the Internet of Things”! A stencil-style satellite game
plays, as “Last TAG standing” or “Capture the TAG”. map unmasks the satellite truth as construction by
Depending on each player RFID-cipher, the map certain geographical data companies. The images
software generates an individual graphical element to given to the public are more of a political decision, a
display the routes between tagging actions. purposeful set of rules. A game interface appears as
the adequate choice for these new maps of the world.
7
Playing Less Stupid Games
kurator.org, Plymouth
It is common to think of computer games as 'approximate theory') where the player acts with
analogous to the neo-liberal marketplace where the caution to avoid defeat. However, many examples of
individual strives for reward and the annihilation of tactics would demonstrate that caution is only one
competition[1]. In such a narrative, the market is a game such tactic and suitable to particular circumstances,
with clear winners and losers. Writing in 1948, Norbert and against particular opponents. Thus, to develop a
Wiener describes this ultimately as a no-win situation: sophisticated playing machine, it would need to adapt
‘We are involved in the business cycles of boom and its behaviour and tactics according to the part-
failure, in the successions of dictatorship and revol- icularities of the circumstance (bearing in mind how
ution, in the wars which everyone loses, which are so literal its operations are otherwise). As has been
real a feature of modern times.’[2] demonstrated in recent world events, without reliable
intelligence, a pre-emptive strike based on false infor-
mation proves disastrous. An intelligent system needs
Commodified play: Are MMO worlds ideal to learn against failures and successes across a
late capitalist machine based on the social series of games and adapt itself accordingly so as not
interaction, play and cultural simulation, or are to reproduce exactly the same moves under the same
MMO worlds ideal social laboratory based on circumstances but to do so against learned criteria of
social interaction, play and cultural simulation? success and failure. Machines can easily be adapted
Virtual worlds are the new factories in which to the rules of the game. But the issue is how they can
workers/players are working and play, and online usefully modified, made better and less stupid? Is ‘total
games are huge manufactories where work conversion’ still possible under contemporary conditions?
interplay with enjoyment. In questions over the viability of a revolutionary
subject (someone who feels they are able to change
Kristian Lukic, artist, kuda.org, Novi Sad the larger game), Herbert Marcuse forces together the
personal and the political taking into consideration
what people do, especially to each other, at all levels
Although it is an exaggeration to consider the indivi- as political acts.[4] To Marcuse, the power of sexuality
dual game-player as completely ruthless or stupid, and desire unsettles the repressive work ethic that
there are disturbing tendencies and clear analogies to sustains capitalism. In Marcuse's terms ‘Eros’ had to
the callousness of the political, economic and social be unleashed and not partial or directed onto norma-
system in which they play their part. These are ten- lised objects (such as the opposite sex).[5] Present
dencies that encourage certain choices in the en- reality is enslavement that desire unleashes. Play
tertainment game of consumer capitalism, persuading allows for this.
the ‘player’ to buy certain products, and ‘buy into’
certain views. Players tend to make ‘interpassive’ To play is taken to be a political act and is potentially
choices from the game interface on offer. If this effective as it opens up what is otherwise repressed –
sounds rather negative, then thankfully, the overall particularly in adulthood. For Félix Guattari too, sub-
game is more stupid than its constituent parts. Large jectivity is manufactured following a conservative pa-
systems are remarkably inefficient, according to radigm: ‘Capitalism mobilizes everything to halt the
Wiener’s cybernetic approach: ‘That system which proliferation and actualization of unconscious potent-
more than all others should contribute to social ialities’.[5] These psychic antagonisms are political -
homeostasis is thrown directly into the hands of those both individual at the level of desire and then
most concerned in the game of power and money, collective and social. Capitalism is a repressive sys-
which we have already seen to be one of the chief tem that organises power to hide desire. The failure of
anti-homeostatic elements in the community. [Tragically] social revolutions thus far is accounted for by the ob-
the State is stupider than most of its components’.[3] servation that they have failed to liberate desire suf-
ficiently well – and replaced one form of repression
A lack of stupidity is best demonstrated within smaller with another. So what of computer games? Are they
social groups where relative homeostasis can be made better by the influence of desire, made less re-
discerned. Under such circumstances, the system pressed and less totalitarian? Perhaps like work, games
self-organises into a relatively equitable one. Against can never be totally unrepressed, but in play, the sub-
this, larger communities protect these interests by ject is somewhat freed from the alien quality of objects:
privacy, property rights and individualism. The prob- ‘While playing, one does not conform to the object’.[6]
lem is that the larger game seems to lack intelligence
and the capacity to learn. The learning aspect is de- Those (like Ludic Society) who wish for a more ludic
monstrated in games theory, where strategies and world use play to explore the possibilities of social
tactics to win, or not lose, the game are developed transformation. Despite the many failed attempts and
through experience. This is not a complete strategy glitches so far, total conversion remains a possibility
but an approximation (according to von Neumann’s and something still worth playing for.
10
playing is believing
our emotions are always about objects in the world. possibilities to act, and those which can be denied
$ludic->sell( there cannot be anger without there being an object without such consequence. the player who denies the
$games--, for the anger. even descartes described love as "the need for speed, i.e. making it to the next checkpoint in
$play++ desire to be with the beloved object". the emotions do time, would soon be no player at all. it would be in line
); not care whether their objects exist or not, but they with the miami vice aesthetics of the game that the
depend on the conceptions we have about their ob- blonde shares the need for speed with the player and
jects. as sartre said in his sketch for a theory of could be impressed with fast driving. nothing prevents
emotions (1939): if emotions are a game they sure the player from thinking about her like that, but on the
“Karl Marx wrote for posterity. Thanks to his are a game we believe in. other hand, nothing forces him to do so either.
mania for scrupulously citing his sources, the
remark of an anonymous contemporary was to play a game we have to accept the meanings the a voluntary player of a single-player game has no rea-
recorded in Volume 26.3 of MEW, who by game offers, for example that those pixels make up a son to be afraid of any consequences. he can freely
succinctly summing up his own notion of eco- man and those others a woman, that is a motorbike choose to be a spoil-sport and deny everything, as
nomy, formulated what later became the and there is an ak-47. in exchange we see numerous long as he doesn't mind the play-world collapsing.
touchstone of Marx’s critique of established possibilities opening up in front of us. for humans after all, what he does with his life is his own business.
bourgeois economy: “A nation is only truly weal- these possibilities are not only possibilities to interact the ultimate consequence of denial would be that the
thy, if no interest is paid on capital; if the working with things and cause changes in states of affairs, but player would no longer be a player. after accepting
day is six hours long instead of twelve. Wealth also possibilities to have emotions and conceptions such consequences, his imagination could draw him a
means to have time at one’s disposal; nothing about things. the opening up of new possibilities con- picture of a parched nintendog panting with its tongue
more, nothing less.” [Marx, Engels, collected stitutes the ground on which playing can be seen as out. afraid of killing an innocent animal, the player
Works, German edition, vol. 4 of Das Kapital] an extension of reality, regardless of whether it is could return to the game to save the poor creature. in
At a historical juncture where time has now been facilitated by a real engine or unreal engine. this case the pup would forgive the player and they
declared the most important resource for the would both rejoice. but wait, nintendogs don't die as a
economy, technology, and art, we should not pay from this perspective there is one rule that is more consequence of players practising their free will by
so much attention to how much or how little time important to the activity of playing than any other rule. neglecting their pets.
we have. Rather, we should take heed of who or the ultimate rule makes up the foundation for the
what has the power of disposal over our time and stage on which playing takes place. it is constituted as a consequence of denying the necessity of taking
the time of others. The only efficacious remedy from the limitations of denial and disbelief (these two care of the puppy, the player does not see a animated
for melancholy as the all-pervasive attitude to the refer to the same activity; the former is the ultimate close-up shot of white maggots burrowing their way
world is to assume, or re-assume, the power of form of the latter). the pumpkin exists as a fancy into a rotting corpse that once was the beloved
disposal over our own life’s time. Only then is the carriage only because the player decides it is so. nintendog who won numerous prizes in frisbee-
future conceivable at all — as a permanent thing playing a game can constitute an extension of reality catching and was fed only with organic dog food. and
of impossibility. only to those who restrain from asking too many even if neglecting the puppies had such conse-
questions. if a player of bop'n'rumble (1987) (a side- quences, they would be pixels on the screens of
Siegfried Zielinsky, media archeologist, Berlin scrolling beat'em'up) started to question the necessity nintendo ds, which could be thrown into the gutter. the
of beating up people, he would decrease his pos- requirement of nurturing the puppies in nintendogs
sibilities to act inside this particular extension of (2005) is a requirement only to the extent that the
reality. eventually this disbelief would have more player accepts it as such.
Footnotes severe consequences. the grandmothers and fat guys
appearing from the right side of the screen would kill the undeniable meanings in games are the ones
[1]John von Neumann and O. Morgenstern, Theory of the player's character and finally, when he runs out of without which the extension of reality could not exist.
Games and Economic Behaviour, Princeton: lives, the game would end. from denying the neces- fulfilling the requirements described in those mean-
Princeton University Press, 1944. sity of violence in bop'n'rumble begins a line that ends ings is ultimately necessary in order to be a sports car
[2]Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics: or Control and in the dismissal of the whole extension of reality, both driver, a thug, a waiter, an arranger of colourful
Communication in the Animal and the Machine temporally and conceptually. huizinga (1949, 2001:11) blocks, a leader of a civilization, in other words the
(1948), Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press 2000, p. 159. notes that "as soon as the rules are transgressed, the player. from a human's point of view, being a player,
Although Wiener is writing after the Second World whole play-world collapses. the game is over". (= playing a waiter, a sports car driver, etc.) can be
War, recent history also serves to emphasise the point. seen as an act of self-deception; mauvaise foi, bad
[3]Ibid. pp. 161-2. contemporary video games also posit meanings that faith (sartre 1943). well before the player is able to
[4]Vincent Geoghegan, Reason & Eros: The Social don't make up rules whose transgressing would make step onto the stage, game designers have defined the
Theory of Herbert Marcuse, London: Pluto 1981. the whole play-world collapse. in turbo outrun (1989) structure of play, the choreographies and possibilities
[5]Herbert Marcuse, from Eros and Civilisation, 1972. the player drives a fast sports car on a multi-lane available, like the designers of a paper knife who have
[6]Félix Guattari (1995), Chaosophy, ed. Sylvere highway flanked by palm trees. he is in constant haste a blueprint of the object before it is realised in the
Lotringer, New York: Semiotext[e], 1995, p. 49. to pass through checkpoints in time: the need for manufacturing process (cf. sartre 1946). eventually
[7]Herbert Marcuse, from 'On the Philosophical speed comes built-in with the game. there is a blonde our player willingly accepts this kind of structure and
Foundation of the Concept of Labor Economics', in woman sitting on the co-driver's seat. turbo outrun limits his freedom to take the pre-defined possibilities
Telos 16, 1973, p.14-15. feeds the player with two kinds of meanings: those and act out pre-defined choreographies, acting as
which the player cannot deny without decreasing his though this were all there is. of course he can do
11 12
Boredom (on State of Emergency)
The handbook of the Communication Guerilla (1997) Now imagine receiving a play rule on your phone
opening gambit against history. In topographic times, by Luther Blissett prescribes disinformation and the while reading the tag at the space cookie saying Zero
the cyclic repetition of the game never quite reached variability of interpretations as play practice for po- in a coffeeshop in Rotterdam. The play instruction
the threshold of boredom, as there was still an every- litical activists. The concept of the chance for an abso- says, kiss the bar keeper and leave your lipstick
day life of work and struggle from which it offered an lutely arbitrary interpretation of the same image, text, Strawberry Mouth tag on his cheek. A dynamic group
orderly retreat. The topological, by contrast, captures message, is not new. Karl Marx already used the trick movement could start after the third kiss.
all of space in its monotonous grids and all of time in to publish faked scourges of his Manifesto. Like the This game-play is about the ornamentation of the
its repetitive innings. Boredom becomes pervasive, mysterious Blissett authors collective, You Never Know city by playing tag on objects and on people on
uncontainable – a real threat. And so the military en- (activist art group, 1993) how and who will appear their way to the dynamic im/export centre of the city.
tertainment complex invents ever-new games, with when invited for a play evening. In this artistic logical The goal is to generate an ornament of the metro-
new rules, new moves, new chances for competitors play condition, Hello World stickers are handed out polis, with the help of tags and stickers, and to
to pit themselves against each other, or against to the Players at the 2nd city play by the LS in 2007. decipher the ornament’s pattern with the aid of tag
chance itself, so as to maintain its grip on the topology readers implemented in mobile phones. When a tag is
it extrudes out of itself, incorporating all of space. It takes place in Rotterdam’s container port, playing detected its geographical location is fed back to a
Boredom with any particular game is always dis- tag with the import and export of objects. It is played game-server, which generates a giant ornament dis-
placed onto another game, before it call into question dockside with RFID stickers on which “Play Tag” is played over the satellite map of the gamescape.
the imperfections of gamespace as a poor excuse for printed, with the coiled spiral antenna inside. It emits
how one could live and labor among these richly a location signal and tells a story when activated by The dynamic generation of this map during the play is
productive and seductive lines. an RFID reader phone. The message “play tag!” shown at a public theatre in the conventional city
already gives the programme of the city play: playing centre, not the Real Play centre, which is at the
24. In topological times, play disappears into the tag with tags; back to the roots and (water) roads of Im/Export port, transformed for this night into an
game, and boredom looms on all sides. The military an Im/Export location, such as Rotterdam. A trading amusement centre. The progressive generation of the
entertainment complex responds by introducing into port generates money. Play money is materialised map results in a hopefully boring map-movie, which
the game every kind of novelty imaginable – which in this city play with RFID-marked counterfeit is to be screened as “An Evening with the LS” for
isn't much, as imagination now merely repeats the notes (real Lindendollars). Water-Taxis are paid with those who decided not to enter the boats of the water
logic of the game, which doubles as the logic of the these notes and marked as a number in a bigger taxis. The film is black and white and designated as a
commodity. The game becomes less and less a tan- overview image, a “painting-by-numbers”, to draw a “remake” of the Jean-Luc Godard social criticism film
gible field outside the workaday places of everyday huge ornament over the city, which is only visible via of 1965, Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy
life. It becomes a gamespace, an intangible complex a custom made, RFID phone fed, satellite game map. Caution. Everyone is caught when playing tag with the
of lines along which all information shuttles. It’s other Real Engine Tags and Lemmying on the cliff.
scene is no longer a heterotopian playing field as a Siegfried Kracauer’s cultural analysis Ornament of the
space and time apart. Rather it is the atopian space of Masses (1963) precisely addresses the fascist orna- So in one night an ORNAMENT is generated over the
the digital game, which is more radically separate mentation of the body in the sports stadium, and its water canals and the harbour via playing tag with
than a heterotopian playing field, but which is even transfer to the American revue movies. The aesthetic tags. It uses modes of the movements of the masses,
more radically an atopian double for the whole of playsure in the ornamental forms, is brought back no longer defined by working processes or demon-
space itself. The problem with gamespace is not that after postmodernism into architectural sites, marked strations of power, as Kracauer and Godard still
it presents the world via the action of targeting. The with stylish tags. In the times of mobile toy gadgetry, observed, but by gaming cultures. Movements de-
problem is that in gamespace things target people, as RFID reader-phones, working as personal product rived from games in real life express the leading
rather than people targeting things. It is not that the scanners, the ornamentation can be directly applied productive forces, the gaming and device industries.
digital is a technology that cuts into the world and to the inscribed tattooed bodies of Real Players, Omnipresent toy gadgets, such as Wii, iPod and N-
presents it to the human as if it were always, and simultaneously numbered and marked as objects. Gage Phones are indications of this dominance. The
already cut to suit us. It is that it cuts us, renders us Kracauer continues his reflections through the pivotal moving pattern is learned in computer games. Re-
as digital bits, and presents it to the world made over idea of ornaments in the city. According to the editor place man and flag by tag and you get the gameplay
as a gamespace in which we are the targets. One’s (Reeh, 2005) of Ornaments of the Metropolis, the for generating a collective ornament over the city.
actions are superfluous, the product of a being acted ornament applied on the surface of urbanity builds a
upon by a whole complex of lines beyond one’s con- proposal of how the subject can reappropriate urban Walking through the city after a hectic introduction at
trol. In the absence of autonomous action, boredom life. Kracauer deciphers the subjective experience of the Ro Theater, the ludic socialites finally starts to be
reigns. The whole of space appears as a departure the city by viewing fragments, such as an amusement really ludic and enjoy the play on the street. In the
lounge for a flight that never arrives. park or the conversations in the street cafés in Paris, toolbox the tag-team Führer has the injection kit, a
as dynamic ornaments. sterilised EM4102 Microchip Syringe Pack, to mark
people as game characters, and a set of artisan
This is an excerpt. Full text on GAM3R 7H30RY, As a temporary amusement at a Surinam dinner in edited tags to mark toy objects. The play tag is
(Institute for the Future of the Book) , the harbour, the containers, normally bringing food equipped with a n and a brand new RFID-pimped
http://www.futureofthebook.org/gamertheory/?cat=7 from the colonies and nowadays mainly oil, are used mobile phone for “Near Field Communication” (each
as Jumbo-Lego. One of the big harbour cranes is company needs to brand the same technology with
used to build a huge “Space Invader” monument! their own terms, as we learned from reading Gibson’s
Then Real Tetris is played with the containers. A Neuromancer in the 90s).
huge wall remains – for the times after play! Come and play the IM/EX- PORT tag!
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Issue # 1 (2005)
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