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Revision as of 19:05, 20 February 2023
01 Kick-off: Candles Tarot Joysticks
We had a brief intro session where we talked about our relationship to (video) games and rituals. Shared memories and thoughts about those two things. I remembered a couple of the rituals performed in Bulgaria (it is common in Greece too):
The first one is called Nestinarstvo, traditional barefoot fire-walking ritual:Visual documentatrion
The second one is Kukeri, elaborately costumed men (masks, clothes, bells, etc.), who perform traditional rituals intended to scare away evil spirits. Visual documentation
Next, in pairs of two, we read, annotated and later discussed a chapter from "The Bare Facts of Ritual" about elements of rituals described which we thought were particularly insightful.
The author talked about rituals and bears (bare <-> bear). While reading, again I recalled a memory from my childhood where there were (usually) Roma people walking around towns and villages with a chained brown bear, or as they called them "Dancing Bears". Basically, once the bears learn to obey, the next step is to teach them to "dance". Then, the Roma person (aka gypsy master) would play music on the gadulka or another traditional instrument. In case you're interested, watch this video.
Steve suggested watching "White Noise" (movie on Netflix) which I'm going to do tonight.
ONE SENTENCE RITUAL TASK: Every week to write down a ritual. Next, one of the rituals from the list will be performed or assigned to a person. Make them thematic, reflecting the content of the week.
Week 02, Jan 16: Rituals
Morning | Aglaia's ritual: coffee fortunetelling
An intriguing discussion on the nature of rituals was sparked by Aglaia's coffee fortune-telling ritual. I was fortunate enough to have my future revealed by a former professional fortune-teller. hehe
Afternoon | Mapping out common characteristics and differences between games and rituals
We divided into two groups of three and engaged in a discussion about the similarities and differences between rituals and games. Aglaia, Irmak, and I had a productive conversation and compiled a comprehensive list of observations. Here is the list.
Week 03, Jan 23: Reproductive technologies
Pad: Games and rituals as reproductive technologies
Morning | Ritual
Stephen's ritual - "Hard Drive Purification", a ceremonial cleansing of not only our browser history and cookies but also the trash or recycle bin. This is an ecumenical (?) service, all operating systems are welcome.
After that, we talked about the 'Superstructure-Base' visualization that Steve showed us last week. We ended up drawing a few new versions of it because most of us had a different view.
Afternoon | Exercise
Stephen and I worked together on reading and annotating Stuart Hall's 'Notes on Deconstructing The Popular'. We extracted the first and last sentence of each paragraph from Hall's original version and, without reading his content, composed our own paragraphs in between. The process of connecting the sentences was at times deliberate and at other times influenced by subconscious forces.
Week 04, Jan 30: Fan fictions
Last week Aglaia had a birthday and this Monday was my turn to perform some form of ritual. So I thought it would be great if we have a ritual that involves food and eating, so I baked a cake (Ada also made jellies) and brought it this morning so we all can enjoy it and wish Aglaia a happy birthday. I called it "The Cake of Birth" ritual.
Next, we begin writing fan fiction. Ada and I teamed up again and started working on the Papa Louie: When Pizza Attack online game. Ada's favourite when she was a kid. We agreed on a new concept in which there is no need to fight the pizza monsters. We are creating a whole new story around Papa Louie, the prequel let's say, that revolves around rituals, and we are also building a Wiki HOW page. TBC next week.
Side note, MYTH OF THEUTH - a media-philosophical board game developed by the Austrian art collective qujOchÖ. Smartphones, newspapers, Lego bricks, sleeping masks, stamps, liqueur and other media are used through twelve unique stations. You can purchase the game from here.
Week 05, Feb 6: Quizes and Maps
Pad: Putting everything on the table
Morning | Individual tutorials
We started the day with short 15-minute discussions about the direction or focus we would be interested in exploring further; how we feel about working towards making a playable oracle deck as the format of the SI; and whether or not we are experiencing any particular difficulties. Having such moments is great because we can reflect on what has been going on and where we are heading.
Afternoon | Ada's ritual
Ada's ritual was about tarot reading of the faith of SI20. The cards have spoken:
- Embrace creativity and lose the reins of control of the Special issue, it's about rituals (traditions)
After this, we spent the rest of the day creating contact points between rituals & video games as a collective. Basically, we put every single topic we have discussed in class so far and connected most of them through straight lines, curved lines, dashed lines, and even portals. It looks messy.
Week 06, Feb 13: Witchcraft
Pad: Witch-hunt, Oracle decks, Tarot cards
Morning | Ritual by Cara & Intro to witch-hunt
Cara's ritual was very relaxing. It was a 15min long guided meditation of Cara reading a few short excerpts from books while listening to the sounds of Rotterdam she had recorded herself. After that, we talked about the origin of the witchhunt and its link with the development of capitalism, while also referring to Silvia Federici's work and sharing some critical notes on her radical views about erasing certain historical records.
Afternoon | Intro to oracle decks and group work
After the break, we looked through some oracle decks Lidia and Ada brought. The games covered a vast range of topics - classic tarot, one centred around plants, and another about self-care. Lidia and Artemis then asked us to modify an oracle deck to our liking. Cara and I developed an idea about holographic oracle deck that plays around crystals as energy-storing materials in an attempt to address the global energy crisis we now face. The idea would be for it to be an educational experience, and for the prism and visuals to serve as an immersive environment to learn.
Links we referred to during class: * Woodcuts and Witches, The Public Domain Review - a not-for-profit project "dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas"...
Week 07, Feb 20: Summary
Morning | Irmak's ritual
Irmak's ritual was about how to ease our worries. We wrote down our worries on a pink piece of paper and we shared them with a super cute, hand-made tiny doll, Irmak brought. Secretly.
Afternoon | Summarising and Planning
The rest of the day went really fast and we had very productive conversations. There's nothing more to add at this point. Everything is on the pad.
Prototyping a holographic oracle deck! Sooo, I finished the aquamarine x LNG example on which I was working on Wednesday. Made a very basic website to illustrate the idea of making a digital deck of cards.
Here are a few links that were helpful for me during the process: * Nice library of videos about crystals - https://www.superbminerals.us/products/483-carat-multi-terminated-aquamarine * App that makes holograms from videos and images * Text-to-speech generator
Week 08-09, Mar 06: What? we have
[TBC]