User:Tash/grad prototyping2

Prototyping 14 Jan

Discussion with Andre:

• research on self censorship habits in Indonesia in last 5 years. Focus on informal silencing mechanisms
• urgency: different actors using social media to promote certain ideologies and suppress others, in an organized way
• large scale tactical media
• first idea: series of workshops where people could talk back to these problematics and learn how to resist them - can we suggest ways to view social media as a collective practice?
• problems: how to manage my role? as facilitator? educator? outsider? then – logistically, how to perform these workshops from NL?
• also, how to maximize the chance that the project goes beyond the workshops I host?
• Instead of workshops: developing an RPG, which presents several different strategies for performing and participating in social media environments that are especially hostile toward women.
• the game is multiplayer and has both online and offline aspects
• through roleplay, it invites you to engage in the manufactured arena of social media, but not as yourself – allowing you to experiment with a new relation to the medium
• the game and its outcomes (profiles created, comments left behind, accounts reported) are different every time it is played; consecutive games and gamers may interact with each other
• Plus point: "Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements."
• also: "Together, the players may collaborate on a story involving those characters; create, develop, and "explore" the setting; or vicariously experience an adventure outside the bounds of everyday life."
• Plus point: game development and gameplay can be collective, but the game is in itself also framework which can be used over and over without me

• think of: mechanisms that allow the collective to be aware of itself (hashtags? codes?)
• the 4 aspects of games: goals? rules? challenge? interaction?
• how can the game to be distributed? in a physical space? across virtual network?

References:
The Game: The Game by Angela Washko
The Game: The Game is a multi-choice videogame which takes the form of a dating simulator, pitting you against six men who are aggressively vying for your attention at a bar. Composed entirely of scenarios, techniques, and language from texts and instructional videos created by these seduction coaches, The Game: The Game flips the script on the iterative processes of some of the world’s most prominent pick-up artists. If their techniques are systematically manipulative, The Game: The Game allows you to tactically explore, expose, and defuse them.

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Gabriella Coleman book
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/19/hacker-hoaxer-whistleblower-spy-many-faces-anonymous-gabriella-coleman-review
https://gabriellacoleman.org/

ORES wikipedia editing workshop by Cristina and Manetta
https://pad.vvvvvvaria.org/trust%3Cin%3Eformation.workshop

Constant Dullart
The Possibility of an Army
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bmvged/an-artist-is-creating-a-facebook-army-out-of-dead-soldiers-names
https://vimeo.com/145450925

Python Libs to track instagram:
https://instagram-engineering.com/web-service-efficiency-at-instagram-with-python-4976d078e366
https://github.com/facebookarchive/python-instagram

To do next:

• start with small scale, start developing the aims, premises of the game
• document the development of the game
• context: instagram
• central meeting space
• tracking mechanism:
• rules
• goals
• publishing mechanism
• my role: setting up the rules and then observe

16 Jan

Discussion with Aymeric:

• look at existing game cultures: e.g. ARG (alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions)
• look at counterculture / revolutionary manuals, as a medium to accompany the game (a guide / rulebook to this practice you are developing)
• plus point: good to frame the project as a response to the already-existing game that social media has become. Therefore it is not the creation of a new game but an invitation to play it differently
• still unclear: the parameters of the game, how you would win / why
• important to explore the tension between 'real life' and the game

References:
Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steal_This_Book

The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anarchist_Cookbook

Assassin (live action game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin_(game)
Gameplay occurs at all hours and in all places unless otherwise disallowed by the rules. Since an elimination attempt could occur at any time, successful players are obliged to develop a degree of watchful paranoia.