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.

World Without Oil (alternate reality game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Without_Oil
World Without Oil (WWO) is an alternate reality game (ARG) created to call attention to, spark dialogue about, plan for and engineer solutions to a possible near-future global oil shortage, post peak oil. The game sketched out the overarching conditions of a realistic oil shock, then called upon players to imagine and document their lives under those conditions. Compelling player stories and ideas were incorporated into the official narrative, posted daily. Players could choose to post their stories as videos, images or blog entries, or to phone or email them to the WWO gamemasters. The game's central site linked to all the player material, and the game's characters documented their own lives, and commented on player stories, on a community blog and individual blogs, plus via IM, chat, Twitter and other media.

Experiment 23 Jan

Link to RPG 1: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/tash-documentation01