Incommensurable, astonishingly anomalous, radically displaced and divergent – fantastically bizarre and absurdly paradoxical – rootless, autonomous, interzonal, hyperreal – pre ontologically incomplete or partially unconstituted – perhaps irreconcilably inaccessible and unknowable – incongruous dissonance far outside understanding or myths of rationality or reason – unable to assimilate, naturalize, absorb, incorporate, co-opt, factor, classify or objectify into standard models, values, paradigms or representations (symbolic andor otherwise) – neon drenched, darkly visionary and impossibly xenomorphic

The art and ‘literature‘ of Alien Fiction is something regularly explored by “Big Scientists” in and through their daily Research

^{{phil raptor / big science}}

(safe for work)

• The nfr80s – another garish, Psychedelic Sci Fi metaphor that floats on mirrored hyper-surfaces and (generally speaking) hurts nobody
• The nfr80s – not only a (/dis)location but complex states of minds or mood tones: an energy condenser lens for super-shamanic night visions – a reflection on/of memory in relation to current (unknown) trends in unexpected techno-evolutionary change..

Big Scientists not only ask what the 80s consist of but also how Researchers may fully utilize ‘the 80s’ in their Research Projects

Luckily there are two classic in-scene phrases used to describe that ‘nfr80s’ vibe – which is always on the verge of *going to* arrive (warning: Researchers not yet fully intimate with ‘big science’ will get sucked unprepared through intense hyper-visionary dream teleportals generated by such neocultural ‘power core’ dna)

First stream of Image generating Code:

• “The Near Future Retro 80s: memories of liquid neon flicker, twist and reflect off dirty chrome pools outside random backstreet videogame arcades in old Shinjuku at some eternal 3am – electric dreams forever adrift in the crying megacity rain..”

Second classic phrase / vision-stream:

• “Wow.. the ‘Near Future Retro 80s’ – awesome like Tron on (/alien-secreted) DMT”

- – -

The 80′s: Background Theory

When modern Researchers discuss ‘the near future’ they’re talking about a unique vibe, born of an age most fans and practitioners weren’t even alive in – ie. ‘the 80s’ – yet feel they understand, deep in their artificially grown bones

That is, a ‘liquid neon vibe’ of raw emotion, out of control (alien) tech and a mildly profound sense of ‘love-on-the-run-in-a-time-of-danger’. Some think the ‘nfr80s’ are only about or spring direct from ‘the 80s’ era but that’s not quite true

One of the stranger properties of this so-called ‘nfr80s’ is that it’s actually-forever yet to occur; broken off, unhinged from local spacetime – the near future as a cusp, an between-dimension unlinked from any specific cultural period

Indeed, this unique moment never quite arrives – rather the nfr80s describe a non-specific ‘mood-tone’ – an always just on the verge of going-to-be arriving ‘retro 80s’ style or approach

The actual 1980s – that bizarre period of global Amerikan (future) history dominated by haunted video arcades, mom and pop video stores (with those bizarro / psychotronic top-shelf titles which used to freak you out) and the lonely canyon echo of rolling zaibatsu thunder – are the cultural source but not quite the full implied meaning of the ‘nfr80s’

Let’s break it down:

In the 1980s: it was as though nobody fully realized what was happening (aesthetic wise) and so their fragmented mtv-attention-span electro-media culture was totally ‘sincere’ with (arguably) little sense of itself

Some explain this by suggesting the special (cultural) effects of / implied by ‘the 80s’ are really be considered a shadow or wave – cast from an imagined (hyper-alien) future back into our (/missing) sense of ‘the present moment’

In the 1990s: by the time the 90s rolled around people had caught on to / started fully realizing that an “80s aesthetic” existed and was something-in-itself to be used and played with / inside;

This is why a lot of early 90s TV programs have a strong ‘nfr-80s’ vibe to them – lots of neon afterglow combined with dry ice fog in their neural dna, the lo-fi psychic backwash from previous (and future) eras

That weird state called ‘Now’: what we’re experiencing when something we see has an ‘nfr80s vibe’ might be the psychic aftershocks of ‘the 80s’ coming back out of collective cryogenic storage – out of an all too hyperreal, forever tears-in-rain type dystopian megacities and downloading onto our (internalized) holoscreens

- – -

Psychology of the ‘Near Future Retro 80s’

The mainstream-underground movement of the nfr80s seems mostly about one thing: ESCAPE (to some private version of the imagined-80s)

This is despite or even due to its highly techno-dystopian / ‘neuropink’ nature -

That is, people want to escape to a personalized spacetime where the seductive neon lure of the midnight dangers of endless vertical-megacity streets is (somehow) a cool / viable imaginative ‘tech-noir’ backdrop or extreme psychic augmentation to their current (imagined) western turbo-capitali$t e-lifestyle

NFR80s-feeling electro-culture is highly escapist and one of its main messages seems to be: you have to ‘hold on to your dream’ – and if you do you’ll ‘get your rewards and become online tv-queen of the dark paradise skies’ (??)

How To ‘Hold On To Your Dreams’:

1. Play / immerse yourself inside your favorite nfr80s soundtrack / biopsychic vibe-aesthetic

2. Suddenly stand up straight, looking up at a 45% angle while bringing your two closed fists (together) up to your chest while a ‘forever distant megacity horizon’ look of extreme longing (andor confusion) passes across your blandly handsome face – or flashes across your “[..] extremely futuristic looking hyper-mirrored wet-look, bio-quantum superblack hyper-combat neuro-plastic wraparound data shades w/ the thin neon-blue outline”

Seen as a whole, perhaps “the near future retro 80s” are an experimental construct – a vitally important way for researchers to describe, generate and emulate ‘big science’ – ie, the true experiential experimental feel-sense / ambiance, atmosphere, aura, attitude, impression, quality, semblance, sensation, surface tactility – personal symbolism, implanted near-future memory, sociocultural import, psychological impact etc. of one’s modern hyper aliveness of being fully immersed in uniquely techn0-psychedelic electro-vironments full of sentient machines, freaky-ass situations and astounding digital mytho-landscapes of bright information pulse & flow

In short, the nfr80s seem to be a subcultural method used to approaching (unresolved) issues of ’80s style’ or associated aesthetic research phenomena – a mode or lens to think of other poptastic aspects of ‘big science’

NFR80s methodology pseudo-reappropriates glitzy, kitschy, seemingly easily consumable Pop=Culture back as a fecund source of raw explorable / exploitable research im.materials – to be played with.in and otherwise creatively transformed for sustained improvisational Research purposes -

A chance to allow fresh understand of particularly ’80s’ modes / moments in evolution of experimental (e-media based) self reflexivity – an odd instrument with which to modify digital consciousness on the fly and (perhaps) organize new modes of critical new-media sensibility, oscillating between hidden and foregrounded ideational operations

That is, our 80s-themed emotions / 80s-esque / retro-80s pop.cult media and gamer culture often emanate and embody certain uncertain ambient vibes, untied to or from any specific era – strange and sublime ‘nfr80s’ super-subjective background emotions or hyper-futuristic mood-tones which often appear at unguarded moments eg. while researching odd theories / practising ‘big science’ – an irreal, delicate superspace, freed from ordinary time, ever deferred and-or that constantly re-manifests in/as our online dreaming

Indeed the ‘nfr80s’ may be seen as a shadowy presence and indirectly indicative of the influence of some impossibly hyper-alien near-future of infinite cosmi-spiritual potential – complete with neon megacity afterglow

Note: while virtually all modern ‘researchers’ play and hang around aspects or modes of retro culture – they also express difficulties or reservations regarding full articulation of such intense sets / scenes of highly complex, actual, shifted emotional ideational calls / responses of, and especially from *inside* Our Alien Tech and its technological super spaces – where concepts like ‘nfr80s’ often come in.to play

Note: the word “where” in such a context means – post categorical, unconfirmed, intangible, undeniable, usually unquestioned, unverified, incorporeal, insubstantial yet fleshy, sublime, animal human, immaterial, strangely sensual organic, somatic, delicate and also even sometimes spiritual

Culture tags associated with the ‘nfr80s’: #electropop / valerie / #synthwave / #newretro / #neuropink / #blood / #dragon / #drive /  #montage / #wave / #dark / #hyperreal / #virtual / #neon / #video / #glitch / #laz0r / #electro / #recyc / #simulation / #synthy / #vision / #flux

^{{phil raptor / big science}}

A Neo Cyberpunk Visual (Consciousness / Reality) Language for Big Scientists, consider the general symbolic coordinates of Neuropink as a fuzzy network of modular, co-evolving elements – for example:

• Brian Eno
• Polyhedral Soap
• “Reality Coding in a Dark-Light Liquid Scanning Mirror”
• U.H.F Dimensional test transmissions from/to the aether
• Bio-quantum pulses from a missing present, the colour of Anamnesis-Vision Superstrings
• Uncreative W/Riting on a tight (/planetary) schedule
• The imprecise (yet deadly) velocity of lime green lawn furniture
• The slippery crushing Love of Giant Baby Squid by Self-Elective C-Section of the Mutant Oversoul
• Sleeping meditations under deep data snow drifts on The Holy Mountain
• Close quarters dance routines with ontological night fever
• Black wishing stones from a river in Japan
• Self andor Identity as just another technique: “Only as Postmodern as required”
• Making understandable the Unseen Automated Dramas of Advanced Social Networking
• Xenomorphic / Superflat Corrosives (eg Blake) meets the New Aesthetic while skydiving backwards into the near future
• “Artificiality *as* Intelligence”; bio-computational polyversality; holographic ‘Source=Open’ Everything
• Baboon Television- “It Bites”: Multiple eyes of the hybrid jungle hive-mind projecting the chameleonic / shamanic predator-dreamstate
• Exploring the Omega Maze: contemplative labyrinthine pathways through the collective (Jungian) neural hypermatrix

Notable Neuropink programmers / states:

• Mahākāla: for the radiance of emptiness
• Roy Batty: for midnight megacity poetics
• Captain Blood (Amiga 500): for cool alien communication
• Shandra Manaya the Argon Queen: for raking virtual video flesh
• Cephalopods: for their surface thoughts
• Sentionauts: for being, beyond the black rainbow
• Horse_ebooks: for meta-surrealist A.I daring
• Galaucus atlanticus: for oceanic form
• Shinya Tsukamoto: for psychological character intensity
• Elias Koteas as Vaughan from Crash: for R&D drive
• Sterling’s Artificial Kid: for an instant grasp of emergent media
• Mariko Mori: for quantum colors of a Combine dropship carapace
• Yo-Landi Vi$$er: for zef rats in the walls of the worlds
• Laurie Anderson: for her Big Science
• Unmanned: for serious games in the ontological desert
• David Shields: for poking leaky literary dams
• Haikasoru & Kurodahan: for delicious sci-flavours
• SCP Foundation: for databases of the aggressively unexplainable
• Reza Negarestani: for amateur geo-traumatics
• Nick Land: for fanged noumena
• Robert Smithson: for hyper-ballardian mind-spirals
• Dr. Hans Reinhardt: for grand dinners and ego blinkers
• Blue Cube from Mulholland Drive: for acute ontological disruption
• Tetsuo Shima from Akira: for extreme psychic deformation
• Killy from Blame!: for tardigrade toughness
• Nordic Larp: for traversing narrative possibility at oblique angles
• Insilico roleplayers: for grace under information pressure
• Quantum Cathedral: for hardcore oldskool cyber-gothics
• Stephen Shaviro: for metaphysical theory laz0rs
• Omni magazine: for immense vertical vision

_{{phil raptor / big science}}

That is – consider yourself as a humalien (‘human alien’) Research Scientist from the near future, performing vital, bleeding edge R&D into vast Projects – and ‘Big Science’ is your favorite neural software toy

About Researchers

Your inner Big Scientist researcher (eg. “Phil Raptor”) is a multiple use, public domain character or thought-form

For you, Researchers are an ongoing private investigation into collective Memory / Identity / Psychology

Often emerging from the information sea, Researchers form elite teams (of as little as one) on vision quests to the outer limits

Consider your Researcher’s virtual brain as a launch pad for the various experimental Projects it helps evolve – reality code fragments of its parallel universe

Using Big Science

Big Science is a vision mode that helps Researchers to think about Consciousness / Reality – aka Alien Fiction

When you’ve generally no idea what you’re doing, and/or you’ve nothing but ideas – “Big Science” is a way to encounter and survive a rapidly evolving and (thankfully) out of control Present – and express the Psychedelic Sci Fi feel, experience or state of Now

Players or Researchers of Big Science often treat it as:

• An Open Art Platform
• A Live Action Role Play
• A Game Engine or Scientific Model
• A ‘Dark Virtual ARG’

_{{phil raptor / big science}}

The term “Crapolaware” is being defined here in the general sense given by Jim Sterling (gaming journalism god), who referred to one of the worst games of 2012 as a “F# jar of monkey anuses”

For reference purposes, here’s such a jar:

A Jar Of Monkey Anuses

Defining ‘Crapolaware’: “Demonstrably dull, barren, sapless and desiccated, profoundly derivative, lazy, rehashed and generally shoddy-ass video games.. often featuring washed out, muddy or murky textures, little to no style (art or otherwise), a terminally boring pace and loads of padded out filler – which seem to have been casually farted out by roving hit-and-run bands of shady, self-hating, violently apathetic fly-by-night cowboys with a near-pathological interest in cheap knock-offs and weightless, hyper-generic, misanthropically cynical cash-ins.” – Phil Raptor

Would you buy a videogame from this guy?

New research has now proven that all modern Crapolaware (see below) has its feeble roots in “Expect No Mercy” (1996) starring Billy Blanks. Notice the appearance of the Oculus Rift:

• Aliens: Colonial Marines – it’s fascinating to witness the unfolding / crumbling of the often dark, internal logic which governs the modern postmodern videogame publishing industry

• Dead Island: Riptide – brings even more natural, healthy hatred to the term ‘franchise iteration‘

• Dead Space 3 – in which the notion of the ‘dumbing down‘ of video games is a perhaps an unfortunate oxymoron

• Far Cry 3 – it’s often healthy not to believe the hype

• The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct – when incompetence is the art

• Star Trek The Video Game – Teh Fail is strong in this one

• WarZ – The 600ton ‘big rig‘ sitting in the middle of the room. (And yet the levels of righteous indignation generated by this (admittedly) public toilet floater of a game are also highly impressive and potentially amusing)

On Buying Into Crapolaware: “Unfathomably dull, sapless and shoddy-ass arguments for feeling righteously angry at one’s disappointing holy purchase – featuring washed out, muddy or murky scenes of shameless moaning and simulated bereavement, no style, a terminally boring pace and loads of filler – farted out by self-hating, violently indignant, cry-by-night consumers™ with a pathological interest in weightless, dangerously naive, misanthropically pious displays of po-faced public whining and entitlement“:

• Afterfall: InSanity Extended Edition / Mars: War Logs (essentially the same game) – despite being ‘brown games‘ and of generally poor quality, these have smalls spark of  creative potential in them which – if only the industry wasn’t so locked down in its sharing of ideas, assets and source code (and its dismissal of the Modding Scene) – might somehow ignite into exciting fires and more truly ‘abstract encounters’

(Talk about samey, Jebus)

_{{phil raptor / big science}}

Cheap Sex, Bad Drugs and Ambient Music: My English University Life ebook

An exciting cheap, mildly cynical, lowest-common denominator expose of “English University Life” via Twitter. When of sufficient length it will hopefully be published it for free under a Neo Patronage model

Project Status Update: Deader than Elvis. Ran out of things to say and interesting ways to say them. In fact it turned out this particular university project was really about an inability to talk about university in a way that anyone really cares about

Anyhow, here’s the tweets we did manage:

Project Introduction

#Ebook: “Cheap #Sex, Bad Drugs and Ambient Music: My English #University Life”: fictionalized scenes from Phil Raptor’s time as a UK student

- – -

Personal Motives

Hello. I’m a skint postmodern philosopher, writing this ebook to pay off my Student Debt, now almost £10K. Compared to some this is #peanuts

- – -

Upon Arrival

Drive up a leafless avenue in dad’s work truck. Jump down, stretch, breathe in the scale of the place. Greeted by an unimpressive #silence.

- – -

Cheap Decisions

My good friend Dr. O.K refers to University as “#Dole Postponement Activity.” Fact: everyone I knew who didn’t go is richer / less in #debt.

- – -

Unnecessary Stationery

Queuing for overpriced texts, ruler, folder. A stunning young #blondie laughs nearby. “You know you don’t need all that crap, right?” *Gulp*

- – -

Modern Comparisons

#University as Social Media: repeated, extreme over-specialization of the micro-management of useless trivia for #capitalist purposes only.

- – -

A ‘Jackson’

‘Beat It or Eat It’: the only 2 sexual options available at this lousy UK uni. Most male #student nerds opt for the first, creating friction

- – -

Online Ontology

Anything that can fit into an instant message isn’t worth knowing. Uni however drags such knowledge into three years of #terminal boredom.

- – -

Class Pseudology

Stuck inside “Socio-Media.” Random jokers off the street pulling one out of their #dirty #hole could invent better uni courses than this one

- – -

The Screws

Oh, the joyless old faces of #UK university college porters. Their deadpan, ‘seen it all’ prisoner-guard look is legendary. Covered in moss.

- – -

Exotic Strangers

Morning sunlight n’ shower steam. Met her at a local pub. This rabid #tongue probes deep inside. Any stiffer and the scene is Cronenbergian.

- – -

Plastic Charity

Headless student idiots during Rag Week: a cheap, dim #spectacle that few w/ functioning neural hardware or #irony glands can afford to miss

- – -

Hollow Promises

They give out balloons, bags full of swag; mouths full of lies, eyes shiny n black. Welcome to the student (b)lands of Please Join Our #Club

- – -

Accomodation Blues

It’s the cheapest accommodation on #campus. Cold and draughty; the impression of a billion #souls having passed through chills the bones.

- – -

Communal Services

Workaholic #mothers would flip if they saw the state of our shared kitchen. The oven looks like someone’s had Baked Trilobites for dinner.

- – -

Worth 50c

Irony: UK #students get bad cultural rap for being lazy; yet few adults ever grow up from dangerously naive immaturity / kebabs / fart jokes

- – -

Campus Foraging

Tuesday. We go on a ‘Can Run’ thru open storage cupboards of students now on holiday. Shocking amounts of old #spam and no-brand #beans.

- – -

Bad Tunes

Student jukebox fools selecting the same popdross song ten times in a row? 1: Unplug and Replug. 2: Stick on #Zappa’s “Bobby Brown.” 3: Duck

- – -

Personal Decoration

Two posters guaranteeing max-zero student cool: Che The #Guava / anything by Quentin Tarantino. (Choose Rodney Matthews “Heavy Metal Hero.”)

- – -

Questionable Foodstuffs

Two weeks in: Convince yourself you’ll remain healthy, simply by Saying “#Yes” To ‘The Salad Option’ on your kebab. Learn to cook, laze-boy.

- – -

English Rose

#Campus town: as tho a filter you didn’t know existed has been inserted over your cornea: suddenly the world is full of bright, young #women

- – -

Gastric Ceremony

Stepping on carroty beer-#puke (w/ bits of half-digested kebab meat): not just an occupational hazard but a student rite of culinary passage

- – -

Standard Fair

#Uni – it’s all true: getting up late, feeling like death after drinking too much, broken hearts and smelly socks you get your mum to clean.

- – -

Magic Roundabouts

One of the first odd things you hear: that all the #grass gets sprayed, preventing the natural growth of #mushrooms. Campus #anthropology.

- – -

Insider Knowledge

Today two students from #Greece let you know how to get clothes cleaned for #free from the ‘Happy Wash Laundry’. Suddenly you feel initiated

- – -

Uninformative Masses

Being #lost in Uni crowds is no joke. Try asking for directions; you’ll quickly overcome any feelings of universal #educational brotherhood.

- – -

Future Managers

This is not the 50′s; don’t walk these windy anonymous corridors with your #books under your arm like you’re gonna give teacher a smug apple

- – -

Listless Tutoring

First days at class; you look over at your fellow inmates, smiling to hide the fact you don’t want to smile, be here or listen to ideologues.

- – -

Oblivious Desire

“Late for class; everyone stares as she offers me the chair next to hers, but like a #noob I decline. She fancies me, despite my blindness.”

- – -

Silenced Parrots

Try asking questions from an inquisitive mind but get quickly told to “Please be quiet for a while so I can get on and #teach!” Understood..

- – -

Paid Amateurs

He strolls in twenty minutes late in his #cheap suit, obviously half-cut and hung over and even says “What shall I teach you today?” Oh boy.

- – -

Zizek Reversal

(This is) nothing like feeling you belong to a community of like-minded people vitally interested in expanding brain capacity for #knowledge

- – -

Forward Movement

People on the move; hard lessons to be learnt. Campus movement w/ educational intent. And you – in that #CosbySweater your mother knitted.

- – -

Party Time

Young #men drowning in cheap aftershave. “Highway To The #Danger Zone” on Volume 11. Yep – it’s #Saturday Night on Campus again. What next?

- – -

Weekend’s End

#Monday Morning: knowing you have to get up to be lectured. Feels and smells too much like having a #job. Heaven knows we’re #miserable now.

- – -

Ontology

For what strange purpose are we gathering here / for whose bizarre sense of theatrical display? Look around; these nice people are #clueless

- – -

Lone Wolves

“Ghost Hummingbirds”: they sit alone in ugly #campus bars with a book, pretending to casually fit in. But the look in their eyes says #alone

- – -

Older Learners

Mature University Students are hilariously uncool. For many, any second chances at #teenhood must be grasped too tightly before they #escape

- – -

Crashcourse

You quickly learn to fit in with the dominant uni #Culture – or sink. Walk around, take in the sights, but remember – this is not your #home

- – -

Groin Furnace

Stare n swell as barely contained / varnished coconuts rise and fall w/ silent breath in midday classroom #heat; hard lessons still unlearnt

- – -

Life Loans

Campus banking systems greet you with firm handshakes and friendly smiles. Need a temporary #loan? Why of course – just sign here. #Ruthless

- – -

Scene Departure

1st time at a #party in town; soon left, feeling greasy and impure (like temple #Jesus) by the student #drugs being snorted off sideboards.

- – -

Anatomy Class

Her absent boyfriend was a trainee pilot; her #Biology however was good enough for any large student #body to feel sparks pop in their eyes.

- – -

Long Roads

Macho man 1: Me 0. Left the party; broke my bracelet against a tree; brought chips; waited for the bus in the #rain, desperate for company.

- – -

Natural Emergency

Worst #hangover so far (this week): woke up under the sink w/ one shoe missing and leg cramps like they’re going to snap off. What an #idiot

- – -

Cash / Flow

Disgusted to find out we have to pay for today’s dull course #handout. Had no idea photocopies were so expensive. Feel #horny and dislocated

- – -

The Trick

Knowing the art of ‘not looking and acting like a complete #bellend’ after 7 pints of gassy campus larger’ exists.. and failing badly at it

- – -

Personal Motives

You soon start to pick up Standard Bad Student #Habits that will mold the rest of your three year university sentence: 1. Getting up at 5pm.

- – -

Stupid Cow

Hot Tip: don’t sprinkle dill pepper on a student #Stoner’s dumb / instant noodles – even as a free culinary favor. They’ll hate you for it..

- – -

Remembering Deckard

The seeming diversity of campus life; it’s like wandering through the markets in Blade Runner but without the steamy, neon drenched futurism

- – -

Bar Fly

Smiling / keep on smiling / as though what’s going on in clear / the stink of aftershave lets you know / heat rises off #shallow surfaces

- – -

The Sleeper

To wake up in the middle of a lecture with the rest of the class staring – it could define university life as a whole: “Embarrassed Surprise”

- – -

Amateur Traumatics

Life is learning: picking the scabs off yer pole for a week, after a slightly toothy and naive B.J leaves you all but skinless in #ecstasy.

- – -

Deep Structure

#Alone together. The Library as a Kafkaesque maze of useless data. Worker-monks buzz away in the Information Hive: a homogenizing frenzy.

- – -

China White

A ceramic, emotional-blackmail bargaining chip for her rich a-hole parents. All her friends in #Drama Class: 2% body fat, deeply histrionic.

- – -

Little Else

In the face of overwhelming unspoken confusion: seeking Student Sensation for its own sake: stars wheel above / you chicken-choke; #nothing

- – -

Can’t Sleep

#Existential microadventures @ 3am: Happy Wash Laundry feels like a #Jarmusch movie. A guy with dirty pants no friends and too much homework.

- – -

Troubled Responses

No campus map for the #heart. Currently oscillating at 7hz bet. Terminal Boredom, kebabs w/ salad, ontological dislocation, teen horniness.

- – -

Spring Break

Young minds in rapt, misguided attention. On days as fine as this – to slump in class – to be outside nature and away from any #living truth

- – -

On Learning

#Einstein once said: “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my #education.” Couldn’t agree more, Bertie.

- – -

Clowns and Jokers

He strolls in 20m late to #class, rubs his hands – says (no lie): “Right.. what shall I #teach you today?” WTF are you making this sh1t up?

- – -

No Joke

And there’s you, sitting there thinking your dealing with qualified experts. These jokers make rank amateurs look like Aristotle. #Buffoons!

- – -

Goddess

Hir bio-cybernetic softslot is liquid artificial #silk on the swollen tongue of virtual love. One cannot eat faster w/out melting into flame

- – -

Typical Humans

Oh, the paltry little sacrificies made for blind #sexual instinct. As tho if “Would you…?” by Touch And Go is on universal #cheese-repeat

- – -

Mix Tapes

People on your floor: a motley crew of deadpan jesters keen on FUN. Older ones jaded, younger ones friendly yet empty. And you – the #mutant

- – -

Choice Procedure

You arrived at this University by sticking a pin in a map of Endland, choosing the one nearest to the pin – yet furthest away from #Parents

- – -

Unnecessary Qualifications

Your first choice of Uni wanted too-high #grades; this one however just asked you if you had your own pencil. “Yes”. “Great – come over!”

- – -

Arbitrary Lessons

Welcome to the University of Bums-On-Seats. Like “Scheme For Full Employment” by Magus Mills, this place just exists to make up the #numbers

- – -

Angry Students

Apparently any random incompetents w/ letters after their name can set up UK #teaching courses pulled out of an #educational hat full of ash

- – -

Misplaced Protests

#Apathy #UK: a minor pseudo (political) demonstration today. Students sit in the driveway as a protest re: Something. All leave by lunchtime

- – -

Activities-Guys

Phil’s Hot Tip: being a campus juggler impresses nobody. Other students secretly hate you, and might stomp on those #balls you keep fondling

- – -

Rhizomic Pastimes

3am in Computing: few campus events can beat low-latency #Doom Multiplayer instagibbing over the midnight network. Keep the #coffee flowing!

- – -

Mainstream Drugs

Speaking of #coffee: the stuff out of the sentient campus dispenser-machines tastes like watered down #brown shoe glue with added silicion.

- – -

Matters of Taste

On that .edu edge: A decent cup o’ joe will make ya feel like MacGyver or Dale Cooper. A student with clarity of purpose and razored motives

- – -

Information Overload

The first couple of weeks are a blur of organizational logistics and bluetack for posters. Other parents cry at the gate but you cry for joy

- – -

Ballard Domes

University Campus: a dire future Fun Park where the twin (enforced) joys of #teenage #alcoholism and Worker Training mix for maximum profit.

- – -

Ahistorical Context

An Arcadian excess: wonder what Walter Benjamin would have made of the post.modern University institution in its Western cultural landscape.

- – -

Feeling Romantic

College town backstreets awash with fine, freezing rain / these windswept dreams of student escape unbound, by lessons in earthly compromise

- – -

Blakean Excess

Boundless spring leaves shake under classroom clocks / Who will sing my unsung joys / Untether me from study to masters versed in mediocrity

- – -

You Too

We’ll stop being cynical when pious tax dodgers stop milking the same enoesque chords for decades.

- – -

Bio-Mechanics

Sex seems as much about the exchange of #identity fragments as it is bodily fluids; the discovery of what – not just who we think we are.

- – -

Other People

5pm. Laying in bed, wandering what to do with your evening. The sounds of distant music and laughter fails to draw you out of campus #blues

- – -

Escaping Mundania

Imagine writing about #life at Uni would be easy but most of the things one is able to say are #dull and not worth repeating. Just like this

- – -

Project end notes: geez, that didn’t last long. Didn’t get a single follower on Twitter. With ‘social media’ (a hateful, hollow little term) you too-often feel like you’re just ‘p1551ng into your own stale wind’

_{{phil raptor / big science}}

There’s a sense in which Minecraft is a ‘good game’, only because of the boundless creativity of the unpaid gaming serfs working incredibly hard on, and for Notch’s Little (cash) Farm – and not because of any intrinsic qualities of its own

Kinda ike Soylent Green – Minecraft is literally made of the blood, sweat and tears of People

Compare and contrast with:

Question: Who’s actually *creating* the real game here?

Note the similarity with Microsoft’s “Where do you want to go today?” That is, go anywhere you want, do whatever you feel like – except that wherever you travel and whatever activities  you plan take place on lands owned by the fat Feudal Lord. Sure, you’re ‘free’ – but only to move (literally) someone else’s turf and act for someone else’s profit

Day or night, rain or shine: shut up and keep digging

Merely ‘having fun’ or ‘social props’ is, and perhaps should no longer be enough for the modern gamer, who is rapidly becoming more savvy about their rights to be “Paid In Full” for the real, hard work and countless hours they put into video games – especially those like Minecraft’s Sandbox (aka Skinner Box)

For example – say you built a replica of the entire Mines Of Moria inside a video game. That’s pretty awesome and must of taken ages to complete. But then why aren’t you getting a fair share of the game’s (huge) profits?

Listen up yall – this is a new journey into cold hard CASH 4 GAMING:

After all, it’s creations like yours that are directly selling the game to (and for) other people. Indeed you’re the one really making the game – forming its very structure – as opposed to the land owner, who after all doesn’t even provide you with a pickaxe

It’s difficult to imagine the billions of times people have hacked away at the hard digital wood and stone of Minecraft’s Happy Feudal Kingdom. Yet the reason they aren’t they sitting pretty in their own luxury offices like Markus Persson is because The Industry mainly sees gamers only in terms of cheap labor, the art they make (sorry, ‘content’ – like styrofoam packing peanuts) and perhaps their blind willingness to Click Cows all day long in an act of selfless voluntary suffering

Gaming Serfdom

Perhaps it’s high time for a few more Revolting Digital Peasants / Gamer Serfs to rise up and refuse Work aka Fun

_{{phil raptor / big science}}

Henry Rollins Sun Tattoo – click image for larger size

All hail the burning iron son of truth. Go hard!

About “Alien Man: The Iron Philosophy Of Henry Rollins” Ebook

This image is part of the artwork to be included in a free (libre & gratis) forthcoming ebook. If you’ve been following the Henry’s work for some years know and understand where he’s coming from, let Phil Raptor know in the comments below if such a book would interest you and what you’d like to see discussed in the book. (Reader contributions – poems, thoughts etc. are wanted / important!)

Here are my project notes so far – these are chapters and potential aspects for philosophical discussion (ongoing / to be updated)

- – -

Introductory analysis poems, small fictions, pointers (not just explaining, but saying where one might look for further information)

“In the (thankfully) Godless world of postmodernity’s dirty concrete, one can realize an ideal meaning only in so far as one can define and maintain The Code – that is, often with a violent inner strength, manifested through style and (‘paradoxically’) a conquest of one’s own nature.

However this effort to define and maintain ‘the code’ – being inherently limited and imperfect, is a characteristic of the inhuman efforts needed, and therefore the personal stories which result are often tragic, pitiful andor deeply disturbing..”

What is important is not “My life lived through the cracked lens that is  Henry Rollins” – but recognizing the same kind of burning passion in your own heart. This lesson however took me a long time to really put into practice. “They’ll be another messiah right here next week.”

Critic Steve Huey describes their music as “uncompromising, near-overwhelmingly intense, pseudo-cathartic fusions of hard rock, funk, post-punk noise, and jazz experimentalism, with Rollins shouting and screaming insanely angry, bitingly self-critical examinations and accusations over the unceasing grind.”

THE MAN / He’s just a man

“The dark sublime attraction of wanting to be a genius antihero”

post-apocalyptic

ongoing post-apocalypse

sky falling down

9/11 (this is the background against which all events now take place?)

combine massacre

the pain in the ass kid

rage – fury – passion – rebellion – and the will to stand

to be the alien man

neitzsche’s last man

America

fault lines

What am I doing here?

Documentation – the decay, erosion, violence

totality / total destruction

fear, & the shark

guns & numbers

desert

the great wound

cityscapes

evicted

left behind

disconnect / dislocated

L.I.E living in exile

Vietnam metaphor / the endless tour / kurtz / the treeline / decompression sickness / apocalypse now / up the river / thousand yard stare / back to the world

bones in the street

burning sun / ‘sun comes up, sun comes burning down’

search and destroy / tattoo – break life into its component parts and explore the truth contained within

going flat out – life’s boring, a circle – finding meaning in the grind, in the push

the horror

clenched fist

knot in neck

paranoia, fear and guilt

black humor (laugh out loud)

efficiency

black coffee (oilslick)

black snake highway

out there

king snake crawlin’

square wheel rolling

the night

dirt / dirty

Nietzsche

power

part animal, part machine

iron reigns

a feast of noise

power cage

all the way live

push it!

do it

the scream

void

I tell the story

world war III in a cement mixer / black volcanic glass

too slick – too bright

the come down – very hard, very soon

I can’t wait to see it break

wreck-age

right here – right now

zero oxygen content

when the smiles fall to the floor

turned inside out (for all to see) / being naked

passion

getting rid of “decoration”

snapped off

flying in thin air

seeing till blind

illumination – in extremes; in exhaustion, fatigue

1000 times blind

killer

liar

sadist

freak

henry on hatred: “Maybe I’m consumed with it.”

all things – right now

madness

blood & brains

rip your mind out, burn your soul

the fool

learning the same lessons in pain

the monster within

hotter

so cold

touch me / make me real

almost real

entertainment

living death (dead man)

like He did (Planet Joe)

the death of joe cole (& it’s incredible importance for these times)

woman (beautiful golden angel)

meckanics

“The tapes I’m running in my head”

mindlessly and directionlessly – forward

Darwin

evolution in a lifetime

solitary refinement

rising sun

warm.. warmer.. hot

paralysed beneath the sun

underworld & overworld

the flesh / cutting / the great wound

hard / hard volume

don’t challenge The Road / you don’t break code

the nature of motion sickness

hero (ghost rider)

heavy (heavy trip)

power cage

samurai – aspiring to death and the (edge of the) sword

strength

suicide

one from none

gone / already gone

‘alonity’

role of the ‘rollinseqsue’ – answering the question “what am i doing here?”

zero

icon (the hollow nature of ‘fame’)

divine (object of hatred) – “Devine / define”

hollow glory

walk away

death / death’s steady hand

soul’s back bone broken

the straight line

straight edge

“No, I’m not an artist. Artists are.. not – it’s not my trip. I mean, what’ I’m doing is my life. I don’t do ‘art’ – as in I don’t have this thing that I do, and then take off when I leave the.. studio. This is.. I am what I do, and I do what I am – it’s just all I got. I don’t have my onstage thing and my offstage thing. I just AM. [..] I just go do it.”

lonely / everlasting sadness

bass

maximalist minimalism

one time blues

gun in mouth blues (‘pulling it in’) – “pull it.. bullet..” / ‘no answer..

one answer’

joy riding with frank

alien man (where are you?)

“Everything”

just a man

you’ve got that look in your eye

emperor rollins

“Knowledge without mileage equals bullshit”

On the back, the time listing for this song (“Tired”) is “Wolf”

“I don’t want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride. All you do is get to breathe and copulate and finally die. I don’t want to go with the smooth skin and the calm brow. I hope I end up a blithering idiot cursing the sun – hallucinating, screaming, giving obscene and inane lectures on street corners and public parks. People will walk by and say, “Look at that drooling idiot. What a basket case.” I will turn and say to them, “It is you who are the basket case. For every moment you hated your job, cursed your wife and sold yourself to a dream that you didn’t even conceive. For the times your soul screamed yes and you said no. For all of that. For your self-torture, I see the glowing eyes of the sun! The air talks to me! I am at all times!” And maybe, the passers by will drop a coin into my cup.”

“Be like the moon.”

“Autumn makes me think of women.”

“My love is a thousand French poets puking black blood on your Cure CD collection.” -Eye Scream)

civilised / civilised meat

life without the gun

bullet driven eyes

pig

One can imagine the screams of Henry Rollins reaching forever out into deep space

going out strange

the universal blues song

_{{phil raptor / big science}}

1. Life as a heavily stylized series of profoundly empty tech-noir gestures

2. You decide whether or not to read an article about Lohan’s art video

3. Pretending to visiting Wikipedia’s entry on Lindsay you imagine reading a hypertext fiction neo-antinovel by the/a combined holographic simulacrum of inventor Ted Nelson & theorist Slavoj Zizek

4. While imagining “Venus In Furs” by The Velvet Underground plays in the background of your research lab, you hear of selected press about Richard Phillips at the Gagosian Gallery site

5. You suddenly feel the trailer for “Vertigo” by Alfred Hitchcock is on a loop in your strange head

6. This teleports you to an advertisement for Chanel No.5 perfume by Ridley Scott – just for you:

“I am made of blue sky and golden light – and I will feel this way forever.” Wow..

7. You quickly and stylistically bring this ‘Electronic Meditation Procedure’ to a close by considering (/that) “This Is What Everybody Wants” by Cliff Martinez from Solaris

In which Lindsay Lohan’s video reminds one of Eric Fischl’s early paintings as discussed in theorist Arthur Kroker’s cool sci-fi fan fiction “The Postmodern Scene” (nsfw) – Fischl described by one blogger as “observant and authentic“

Big Science Term: a ‘Lohan’: “An edgeless series of luxurious poses and enigmatic, direct-to-camera stares by a gynoid replica who looks like it’s lived in a bubble of artificial diamond floating weightlessly in the middle of a mineral-water sea its whole life, and is only now washing up on the shore of The Real World^tm – all offered without comment (or content) – advertising a persona, that feels uncanny – yet inevitable”

_{{phil raptor / big science}}

Ogami Ittō animated gif (662.7 kB)

For I am one, whose subjectivity and objectivity have integrated, renouncing self to become one with the void.. From all aspects I have become inseparable from the universe, and as such cannot be destroyed..” - Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Land of Demons 子連れ狼　冥府魔道

_{{phil raptor / big science}}

That’s right, volks – “Brutal Doom” versions of all yer’ family favourites. To be installed by default in all near-future Steam Boxes / Oculus Rifts. Lol

For ‘XXXtreme G4m3rz Only’*

• “Brutal Super Mario“: Mario goes psycho w/ a filthy toilet plunger
• “Brutal Half Life“: Gordon Freeman is sick of Science and looses it w/ his crowbar
• “Brutal Fez“: Gomez acquires dark psychic powers from a local demon & rampages
• “Brutal Minecraft“: Everything alive is vicious / capable of unexpected evisceration
• “Brutal Animal Crossing” : A cross-dimensional assault by zombie space ninjas on Tom Nook’s capitalist store-front  goes ‘bad’: much unintentional hilarity results
• “Brutal GTA“: Limbs fly off at random and pedestrians slip in teh greasy guts
• “Brutal CS:GO“: Let’s really see the true (gory) results of those tax dollars @ play!
• “Brutal Hotline Miami” (??): Makes the original game look like Mario With Mother
• “Brutal Doom 3“: the obvious evolutionary choice, really ;-)

The following video is Not Safe For Work (or maybe even Play) – minimum 18 (/IQ) only:

- Wait a sec can you smell onions?

* Ghostless 120hz x5 monitor / quad overclocked Titan playaz only – PC4EVARR!! etc

_{{Phil Raptor / Big Science: taking i.t to tha next level since ’82}}

The term “Abstract Encounters” refers to the conscious seeking out of stranger, more conceptual, mysterious or liminal psychological states and moods embodied, symbolized induced and manifested by new forms of, and approaches to Video Gaming Systems (V.G.S)

- The need to completely bypass all its conventional practices and institutions, in order to create breathing, intensely ‘abstract’ / ‘theoretical’ / unpredictable compositions (ie. not just games) unfettered by traditional concerns

- – -

In the handling of Chaos, one must understand the art of the abstract. Yet rather than being concerned with primal geometric forms per se, one encourages neurally (res cogitans) stimulating forms to appear that, by their abstract nature carry philosophical ideas concerning abstract-symbolic-contemplative / fictional space

Imagine this as eg. a grappling hook based ‘Quantum FPS’ (don’t know what that is, just made it up, sounds cool):

- – -

The Virtual DNA of such a Big Science simulation might include the following elements:

• An observation: that traditional methods of Game style Design aren’t evolving fast enough; an emphasis on ‘playing from the outset’ – on-the-fly, rather than ‘prototype vs. polished’; a need for better virtual gaming tools (see GMod’s Tool Gun)

• A notion: that the whole concept of “Game Design” sounds and feels too close to “Intelligent Design”: rather, one should talk about the processes of “Gaming Evolution”, “Sentient Gaming”, “Game Ecology”, “Organic Play”, “Living Games” andor ‘G.T.G’ – “Games That Grow”

- The feeling of “(Non-teleological ) Paida“; the ‘paidarena’

• Rule: “Make computers do the heavy lifting”: Procedural / Emergent everything

- A matter of trusting the aesthetics of computation?

• Thinking in other directions than ‘AAA’, ‘Cinematic’ and ‘high value entertainment’ – and without the bitter smell of amphetamine fueled Crunch Time sweat

• That in terms of organizing production, most (/Game) Development Teams still operate in a ‘pre-internet mode‘

• A saying: “Realism Denies Impossibility” – that is, things which could only happen in the Neoreal spaces inside a computer’s mind(/s); gamespaces with oddly postmodern / hyperreal / neo-realistic flavors; “You think that’s air you’re breathing? It’s data, dummy!”

A saying: ‘T.I.N.I’ – being “Technically Impressive = Not Impressive” (ie. stop showing off, we’re no longer automatically impressed)

- Here’s Unreal Engine 4′s coldly efficient and emotionless “Infiltrator” Real-Time demo – another exercise in Undead Realism:

• In order challenge conventions, one has to understand their ontological basis

• An argument: that over a decade of Game Studies has not resulted in *any* significant evolutionary gaming leaps (or even punctuated hops)

- “Tools, not values” (Robert Yang)

• That too many Games feel ‘arbitrarily different’ – their structural and stylistic elements almost randomly interchangeable:  so why not make games whose styles and modes are fully interchangeable and exchangeable at will

• An idea: “The active creation of Gameplay suited to one’s immediate, changing tastes”

• Evoking “Moods” and atmospheres rather than a “Style” as a more interesting Design challenge

• Concept – “Maps (as we think we know them) Are Obsolete”: moving from Static maps to Dynamic (holistic) spaces where *everything* is ‘game-alive’ ie. inter-related and usable; thinking instead of ‘Scenes’ and ‘Scenarios’

- The sense in which The Map is too often a mere backdrop for the action, when it could be another true player / dynamic play-enabling process

Dragon Lasers on Dream Island

• A concept: “Primitive Extracts” – functional simplicity (akin to ‘functional strength’.) More about Gameplay Possibilities rather than ‘Graphics Uber Alles’

- “Looks nice.. but what can you do there?” is the new question; no more dead ‘untouchable museum pieces’

- The observation that a single 1 hour piece of modern Concept Art by a single artist usually contains more neural interest, imagination and intelligence than entire video games with millions of dollars and millions of lines of code; the idea of sketching as playing

- Artists that think like Coders

• Rapid development of elegant prototypes: S.I.S.I (‘sissy’): “Single Ideas, Simply Implemented”: a Rapid Gamespace Development philosophy. This means the minimum number of core ideas that provide the shortest pathways between Good Gameplay and The Hungry Gamer

- Thinking in terms of near-immediate implementation or emergence of ‘good gameplay’, rather than waiting years (!) to develop unnecessarily-elaborations eg. art assets, and other allegedly essential / over-hyped video game features

- “Designing AS Gaming” – the idea of the Editor as not separate from the Game; the evolution of a ‘visual language‘; the idea of Rapid Prototyping of IDEAS rather than just games (see ProBuilder) – rethinking the idea of ‘Concept Art’ as an Art Of Conceptual Gaming

A Tron-like Video Gaming Space

• To ‘capitalizes on the basic fundamentals of gaming communities’. That is, allowing quick and easy access to good gameplay eg. the kind often seen in ‘social’ games

• Meta-Gaming as Game: reconsidering *all* activities of the players as realtime in-game elements / processes

• Hot Coders wanted: “It’s all in the Deep Code”

- – -

Other Interrelated Aspects of ‘Abstract Encounters‘

• Brian Eno: probably the answer to every important question still not being asked eg. about Design (eg. “It’s all in the interface / at the surface”; a return (again!) to cybernetic systems theory; less – and more interesting / ‘alive’ options
• “Increase the quirkyness”: deliciously uncanny, uncertain, biocosmically delightful
• “Source=Open” (p2p / kopimi attitude from outset)
• “Holographics”: Transparency – true Modularity – Exportability – Recycling – a sense of Infinity / “Interactive Everything”
• All features and elements embedded into a ‘modeless game interface’
• “Breaking (/open) the FPS”: ‘NFCOSBH’ – No F# Crates Or Short Brown Hair
• A de-emphasis of the Human Form / de-centering the player
• “Serious Fun”: decreasing the ‘novelty-factor’
• Consider Notgaming
• Gaming as improvisational theatre

- – -

Good Examples Of (Potential) Abstract Encounters

GMod / DayZ / Love / Drivey / Conway’s Life / Pathologic / Rez HD / Proteus / A Slow Year / Killer 7 / Noby-Noby Boy / Leos Carax / Genius Party Beyond / Echo Night: Beyond / David Cronenberg / J.G. Ballard / Magnus Mills / The Amiga DemoScene / The Witness / Radiator / Receiver / Memory Of A Broken Dimension / Sub Rosa / Naissancee / Siseon / 0x10c / A New Zero / Starforge / Warframe / The Swapper / Tangiers / You Are Empty / Virtua Racing / The External World

- – -

Other (Dynamic) Elements for Abstract Encounters

• The notion of “Controlling the uncontrollable”
• Live Streaming / in-game internet cameras
• Integrated Hosting as simple as Youtube
• Free-switching between personalities / viewpoints
• Hypernovelty – ‘providing sensation through play’; ‘true nonlinearity’
• Strange ongoing relationships; forced drama; the mis.relationships between the ‘characters’ / world-processes (incongruity between immediately perceived and internal meanings); emergent, interlocking (surrealist / absurdist) narratives
• Nothing Superfluous; every single object / process inter-acts (semi-expectedly)
• Total absence of normal understanding / repeatedly re-undermining expectations
• Feedback loops, potentiality and consequences: eno-ambient slider bars (basically generative-everything)
• Extreme sensitivity to initial starting (ie. ongoing) conditions
• Non-Real ‘physics’ / visual scripting as the game mechanic (like Source Filmaker)
• Summaries of on-screen action via Natural Language Processing: “3:30pm LGT (local game time) – Liza’s crossing the road to buy a present for Justin Beaver from HappiGift; suddenly a giant Laser Dinosaur drops on her head [..]“; providing facilities for Words as much as Movement
• To evoke feelings of an undefined presence of the past or of a larger world still to be discovered

An entire universe on a 3.5″ floppy diskette:

A Sublime Sense Of Unreality and Bio-Cosmic Delight:

“[..] It was as though the school and the children’s song were set apart from the rest of the world. At the same time my eye encountered a field of wheat whose limits I could not see.

The yellow vastness, dazzling in the sun, bound up with the song of the children playing in the smooth stone school barracks, filled me with such joy that I broke into sobs. I ran home to our garden and began to play ‘continue making things seem as they are usually not’ that is, to remain in this unreality.

It was the first appearance of those elements which were always present in later sensations of unreality: illimitable vastness, brilliant light, intense colors, and the surface gloss and smoothness of immaterial things” – (from) Autobiography of a Schizophrenic Girl by M.Sechehaye (paraphrased)

- – -

Chatting With The #merveilles Group

Was invited by Devine Lu Linvega for a chat on irc.esper.net – met some cool people

[2013-05-17 14:53:18] -!- phil_ has joined #merveilles
[2013-05-17 14:54:10] <phil_> Hello, this is Phil Raptor from alienfiction.com who sent an email to Devine re ‘Abstract Encounters’..
[2013-05-17 14:55:21] <phil_> *looks around nervously*
[2013-05-17 14:56:19] <aks> heya phil
[2013-05-17 14:56:31] <phil_> xoka!
[2013-05-17 14:57:03] <aks> xoka!
[2013-05-17 14:57:52] <phil_> So is this the hangout of a 1337 group of renegade video game designers from the near future, right?
[2013-05-17 14:58:30] <Karuji> Something like that, but you flatter us too much ;)
[2013-05-17 14:58:43] <phil_> Heh
[2013-05-17 15:01:18] <phil_> Context: wrote a blog post about .alt video game-like *systems* – Devine said he liked it & invited me here..
[2013-05-17 15:01:46]  * Karuji clicks link
[2013-05-17 15:01:59] <aks> the abstract counters writing on your page is super interesting
[2013-05-17 15:02:07] <aks> encounters*
[2013-05-17 15:04:02] <phil_> Cheers – my main interest is really philosophical – postmodern theory -  Baudrillard / Zizek etc. as it relates to video games / systems development
[2013-05-17 15:05:16] <phil_> Was wondering if you were all working on a collaborative mega-project atm..
[2013-05-17 15:06:10] <aks> i can tell – its like you’re putting into words all sorts of thoughts and notions i’ve had about what computer “games” could be
[2013-05-17 15:08:28] <phil_> Thing is – and this goes for me too – you have all kinds of ideas but too-often end up with something all too conventional because.. otherwise nobody will play it ;-) ..and then b1tch about ‘art games’ heh
[2013-05-17 15:11:47] <aks> they’ll play it, maybe buying it is the tricky part, for me at least, the ambitious ideas are all on the side while i just try to support myself financially
[2013-05-17 15:13:35] <phil_> Do you have web page or devblog, asks? Always interested in seeing what others are doing
[2013-05-17 15:13:37] <aks> man i feel inspired right now after reading the text
[2013-05-17 15:13:52] <aks> theres really no reason not to pursue these projects and make them real
[2013-05-17 15:14:36] <aks> andrewken.com
[2013-05-17 15:15:08] <Karuji> aks, financial burden is the reason.
[2013-05-17 15:15:13] <aks> yeh
[2013-05-17 15:15:29] <aks> i know..
[2013-05-17 15:15:44] <Karuji> I would love to do some more theoretical games. But I just finished my first ‘artsy’ game and I am kinda meh about any real prospects
[2013-05-17 15:15:52] <phil_> Yep, tell me about it – at this rate I’ll have to reinvent Minecraft to pay off my debts ;-)
[2013-05-17 15:16:04] <aks> in that moment a little nugget in the back of my mind was saying “but even with financial burden, you could still work at a secret project 15mins a day and get there eventually”
[2013-05-17 15:16:27] <Karuji> aks, the thing is I doubt 15min a day will be enough.
[2013-05-17 15:16:44] <Karuji> I don’t really want to spend 20 years working on one project.
[2013-05-17 15:17:03] <phil_> This sounds a pretty cool game w/ ‘abstract’ ideas: naissancee
[2013-05-17 15:17:13] <Karuji> I mean the primary game I am working on right now has been in dev for two years, and that just feels like an eternity.
[2013-05-17 15:17:41] <aks> i feel ya karuji
[2013-05-17 15:18:29] <Karuji> And now I am looking at picking up monogames so I can get it onto the vita so I can actually make some money.
[2013-05-17 15:18:32] <phil_> I concur, Karuji – was Fez really worth the wait? ;-) I put my hope in stranger ‘game modes’ like those you see in Garry’s Mod..
[2013-05-17 15:19:14] <Karuji> phil_, haven’t bought Fez yet. Haven’t even played Monaco, which I bought, and played the beta for.
[2013-05-17 15:19:34] <aks> what’s ‘monogames’?
[2013-05-17 15:19:44] <aks> NaissanceE looks cool, phil
[2013-05-17 15:20:11] <Karuji> aks, it’s like XNA but works on multiple platforms. It’s what Unity uses to build it’s stuff.
[2013-05-17 15:20:12] <phil_> Those top-down Hotline Miami-likes are becoming popular it seems
[2013-05-17 15:20:40] <Karuji> phil_, once one avenue is shown to be profitable other will follow to be lazy.
[2013-05-17 15:21:06] <Karuji> While I am a lazy as programmer, I refuse to do something simply because other thought it was a good idea.
[2013-05-17 15:21:24] <phil_> Agreed
[2013-05-17 15:21:42] <Karuji> The main problem I see in your article is that the programming required to build these kind of simulations is immense.
[2013-05-17 15:22:59] <phil_> Yes and no – by ‘simulation’ I mean the idea that the game itself is ‘simulating’ something wider than itself.. by it’s ideas – if not actually through it’s gameplay and gfx. (I hope that makes sense)
[2013-05-17 15:23:33] <aks> it does
[2013-05-17 15:23:39] <Karuji> Kinda, my latest game is actually not really that much about the game.
[2013-05-17 15:24:21] <Karuji> I require the players to place their fingers in an weird arrangement to try and provide a kind of social anxiety
[2013-05-17 15:24:22] <phil_> Eg. Linvega’s Siseon is pretty remarkable for the *sense* of the exploration of near-infinite space
[2013-05-17 15:24:39] <phil_> Lol! ala Painstation ;-)
[2013-05-17 15:24:53] <Karuji> Never heard of it >.>
[2013-05-17 15:25:05] <Karuji> I was more inspired by BUTTON and Fingle
[2013-05-17 15:25:19] <phil_> Painstation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painstation
[2013-05-17 15:25:39] <Karuji> But I wanted to recreate a certain social anxiety I feel when I interacted online with certain people.
[2013-05-17 15:26:14] <Karuji> Their reaction to the game was really weird, and I spent most of yesterday in bed feeling rather depressed.
[2013-05-17 15:26:28] <phil_> Robert Yang does a good line in social anxiety games
[2013-05-17 15:27:25] <aks> is the game available to play, Karuji?
[2013-05-17 15:27:30] <Karuji> Ye, I kinda met him at GDC rather regret that I didn’t talk to him more. But then I barely got to speak to some of my old friends.
[2013-05-17 15:27:38] <Karuji> aks, ye digging up a link now
[2013-05-17 15:28:00] <Karuji> My net is just being uberslow
[2013-05-17 15:30:11] <Karuji> Just remember it is heavily advized to play with another human ;)
[2013-05-17 15:31:17] <phil_> Sw33t, free warez – thank you, Karuji
[2013-05-17 15:31:41]  * Karuji doesn’t even know the meaning of warez
[2013-05-17 15:31:49] <Karuji> And I am being serious ;)
[2013-05-17 15:32:01] <phil_> Software ;-)
[2013-05-17 15:32:19] <phil_> An (old) Amiga Demoscene term – you know, like ‘teh l8est’ ;-)
[2013-05-17 15:33:21] <Karuji> Ah, the first console in country (legally) was the PS1
[2013-05-17 15:33:36] <Karuji> That and I’m like 21 I think
[2013-05-17 15:35:03] <phil_> Heh – some cool games for that, tho my fave game for that era is prob. Killer7 on Gamecube
[2013-05-17 15:35:25] <aks> which country is that Karuji?
[2013-05-17 15:35:34] <aks> oh, i always wanted to play Killer7, never got a chance
[2013-05-17 15:35:47] <Karuji> aks, South Africa
[2013-05-17 15:36:08] <aks> was that made by the guys who made No more heroes right?
[2013-05-17 15:36:17] <Karuji> yep
[2013-05-17 15:36:30] <phil_> Suda is doing a new one, Asks – http://kotaku.com/5898977/new-game-killer-is-dead-isnt-a-sequel-to-cult-hit-killer7
[2013-05-17 15:36:49] <aks> re:south africa – ah yeh i remember. gosh i had no idea you couldn’t get consoles there before the PS1
[2013-05-17 15:37:21] <aks> nice
[2013-05-17 15:37:30] <Karuji> Well we had these things called “Golden Chinas” which were SNES system basically so tones of bootleg carts
[2013-05-17 15:37:37] <aks> phil: (its a-k-s btw :)
[2013-05-17 15:37:39] <Karuji> tons*
[2013-05-17 15:37:54] <aks> haha nice name
[2013-05-17 15:38:03] <phil_> sry aks I’ve not had enough coffee today
[2013-05-17 15:38:14] <aks> i was looking to get Sin and Punishment II, any of you played that?
[2013-05-17 15:38:29] <Karuji> Never even heard of it.
[2013-05-17 15:38:44] <phil_> Do you mean Sin for HL2?
[2013-05-17 15:38:48] <aks> no
[2013-05-17 15:39:00] <aks> its a Treasure game, the 1st one was for the N64, this new one is a Wii title
[2013-05-17 15:39:15] <Orihaus_> You might like the “Mistake of Pythagorus” mod for hl2 phil_ :>
[2013-05-17 15:39:26] <aks> its a sort of flying railshooter (like starfox) except you’re a human and you also have a sword
[2013-05-17 15:39:47] <phil_> Yeah been meaning to play that but don’t you need to buy one of the Hl2 Episodes?
[2013-05-17 15:40:04] <phil_> Ah, this you mean - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin_and_Punishment_2
[2013-05-17 15:40:51] <aks> yes
[2013-05-17 15:41:12] <Orihaus_> The’re worth it just for the mods :>
[2013-05-17 15:41:25] <Orihaus_> Radiator + Minerva: Metastasis
[2013-05-17 15:41:27] <Orihaus_> So good
[2013-05-17 15:42:18] <phil_> This mod’s pretty cool imo, aks: http://www.moddb.com/mods/research-and-development
[2013-05-17 15:43:43] <aks> i’m curious to try out all these mods you’re both linking to, i don’t have hl2 though
[2013-05-17 15:43:54] <Orihaus_> Get ittttt
[2013-05-17 15:43:58] <Orihaus_> City 17 <3
[2013-05-17 15:44:01] <aks> is it cheap on steam nowadays?
[2013-05-17 15:44:08] <aks> haha im saving all these names
[2013-05-17 15:45:42] <phil_> HL2 is £7 on steam – bargain
[2013-05-17 15:46:15] <aks> btw, do any of you know if the mods are platform independent (will they work on mac versions of hl2)
[2013-05-17 15:46:40] <aks> yeh, i just saw phil. *considers getitng*
[2013-05-17 15:47:11] <phil_> That’s a good question – probably, I’d say – tho I’m a Linux gamer and have to put up with what we’re given! lol
[2013-05-17 15:47:39] <aks> i feel ya, the mac scene was just as bad a couple years ago
[2013-05-17 15:51:07] <phil_> OK thanks for the chat everyone – if you ever want to talk about games, game development or general strange ideas.. – xopa
[2013-05-17 15:51:36] <aks> nice meeting ya phil
[2013-05-17 15:51:45] <aks> : )
[2013-05-17 15:51:49] <Orihaus_> :0
[2013-05-17 15:51:49] <Orihaus_> :0
[2013-05-17 15:51:51] <Orihaus_> :)
[2013-05-17 15:51:57] <phil_> l8ers..

_{{phil raptor / big science}}

1. “Physical assault by McDonald’s for wearing Digital Eye Glass” is the name of a post over at Steve Mann’s blog

- Shouldn’t that title more specifically include ‘in Mcdonalds’ or ‘by McDonald’s employees’? (A lot of people on this beautiful alien ark-planet consider good ol’ McCancers as one of the largest aggressors against good taste, human health and Alien Ark-Mother “Earth” as a indivisible whole)

2. Perhaps the title also implies a false David Vs. Goliath situation which might not necessarily exist:

- A Little Guy Called Steve: “Here I am, just going about My Daily Business, trying to save the world through Building Better Tech’™ – when suddenly, out of the blue I find myself assaulted by a random fast food hypercorporation

- What’s odd, Steve, is the fact that you say you’re concerned with ‘helping many people see_better’  and ‘improving the quality of their lives’ (both noble causes on the surface at least) – and yet you’re in McDonalds. Talk about ironic blindness

Steve Mann as A.I

3. “McDonalds” is not some abstract corporate entity, but a direct way of un-thinking  about Earth; it’s a set of social mis-relations and a form of Technology, just like the one bonded to Steve’s apparently idiotic skull. Why dislike one and like another when what’s important is to be critical and attentive to the mind / society which produces them both:

- One is reminded of paid assassin and all-round Company Man / willing patsy “Deckard”, busy running around paraphrasing (and falsely assuming) in dystopian sci fi movie Blade Runner: “Fast food and mil-grade augmented reality eye-wear are like any other machines. They’re either a benefit or a hazard. If they’re a benefit, it’s not my problem”

- Wonder to what extent anyone still believes in this old dead myth of ‘the neutrality of Technology’ (given the fact that even PH7 is a still a position on the *same* scale – and the realities of Sweden’s dubious past)

4. “Attached to my skull”: the (pervasive) idea or paradigm of Technology as somehow parasitically ‘un-attachable’ from one’s mind or overall thought  processes

5. In which Steve’s story brings to mind a farmer from France called José Bové and the protests of the Humanity Front in Deus Ex

- Knowing of such contested positions, its easier to imagine overworked employees of Macs confronting Steve for similar sociopolitical reasons – eg. “I might have to suffer the daily indignities of this lousy job – but I’ll be damned if some Freedom Fry sucking Yank Borg is going to stick his stupid digital eyeball in my face”

That is to say, perhaps they’re (somehow) being critical about people who enjoy, support and embody (/Western) Technology uncritically, perhaps even mindlessly and automatically

A dull example: simply check out any mobile phone users nearby. By slavishly using
those childish objects, they too often act like profoundly inattentive zombies.  Guaranteed, some of these people will ‘text’ themselves off a cliff -

Though considering the massive environmental destruction such consumer electronics need to exist and cause in their wake, both in their inhuman manufacture and their planned obsolescence  perhaps they’re pulling off everyone else with them..

5. Compare and Contrast. Steve Austin – The Six Million Dollar Man:

- We have separation.. from one another
- I’ve got a blowout.. argg, too much techno-hype
- I can’t hold altitude.. Steve needs attitude adjustment
- Steve Austin.. astronaut.. “a man barely alive” (ie. capable of critical thought?)
- Gentlemen, we can rebuild him – (we have ze Will-To-Tech)
- 00:45 see Steve’s augmented borg vision
- In the pilot episode, a suit refers to him as mere expendable “Scrap” – charming

6. Project Glass: One day..

Google State states “We believe technology should work for you – to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don’t.” For me – really? Wow. (Like Cole from the movie Twelve Monkeys:  “It’s an advertisement, Mr. Cole. You do understand that, don’t you? It’s not really a special message to you”)

Perhaps “[..] to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don’t” means ubiquitous – totally transparent ie. unquestioned – the invisible background and presumed ‘neutral’ base from which one is supposed to make one’s critical analysis of the vast technological ocean they’re currently embedded / drowning in

“Google Glass changes the way we will look at computers” – interesting. Not only is this a Zero Oxygen Content statement, perhaps it’s true in that once you wear them, your ‘view(point)’ will instantly become entirely happy happy joy-joy and ‘positive’

*** by-frame breakdown ***

Someone called GhettoStarFresh on Youtube said: “I saw this embedded in someone’s website and immediately thought it was a joke. Everything in this is vid so ridiculous that  it becomes hysterical and must be mocked.” One could go further and say it’s essential:

0:00 A fade from black – from life giving nothingness and down into the Big Dream – and we know nothing about this alleged ‘person’ (but will soon know plenty about his tiny private world)

0:01 Nice, well-lit morning apartment – huge television, slick laptop – boxes (just moved in) – human model on coffee table (an unconscious reflection of the state of his own blankness?)

0:02 Our hero stretches, alpha-male apexing – life is easy when you’re breezy – no doubt ready for more Business-As-More-Of-The-Usual

0:04 Yet another filter pops up over the first reality simulation – and then the music starts: “Life’s go great – I’m great – everybody’s just super great.” Great!

0:06 Hooray its the dancing icons – round shapes are so human – so friendly;  don’t you think

0:08 Italian stove top coffee being poured – those things are often made of aluminium, careful – also makes you wonder who else is seeing and recording This..

0:11 See Jess – why, is she in on this too?

0:14 The poster across the street says “Live here now” – what is potentially some of the highest Buddhistic wisdom is warped into the ugly parody of a perpetual airless present of nothing but endless Consumption – plastic products, coffee, relationships, music, art, books

0:21 Wanna meet up today – what, with a nerd that looks like that?

0:29 One of those ‘superstar DJ man bags’ in effect – gosh I’m so neat and ready and functional for the urban(e) environment

0:33 Just another day.. yeah, in the #g Matrix, cyber punk – you think  that’s air your breathing.. but it’s just the dead space of global capital gone viral

0:34 Helvetica – Technology as Helvetica: “a bastion of the rise of the
practice of corporate identity“

0:39 The Subway’s closed – “Oh man, really?” First Word Problems with (what a
surprise) patented First World Solutions following in their toxic wake – bet the guy who lives over the vents near the subway (not shown) doesn’t have quite as many casual options as the drone currently wearing these augmented Hypercorporate Reality Spectacles

0:49 Saying hi to the little guys, bless – probably being taken for a walk by some underpaid wage slave

0:53 No d0gsh1t in sight, how nice (and unbelievable) – an airbrushed city for airbrushed citizens of tomorrow – “Monsieur Gayno” – give me a break – “Remind me to buy tickets” – “Remind me to punch you in the neck if I ever see you (make sure recording is switched to
‘on’) so you can replay it back whenever you want” – considering he’s going to buy an Uke, don’t be surprised if he’s actually Monsieur Gayno himself

1:04 “Where’s the music section?” – wonder where the section is in such a skull where non-trivial thoughts take place – note this guy doesn’t cares to browse even for a second or two (gotta be places, gotta see people,  gotta Be Someone – anything other than what he is ie. utterly shallow)

1:13 “Ukulele in a day” – yeah, and ‘Babylon Rome’ as a single, unstoppable moment of raw consumption where nothing unexpected, genuine, authentic or spontaneous can happen. Also reminds one of that dim Mockney in that awful film who said he’d “Beaten Yoga”

1:16 That music is getting on my bloody nerves already – “Is Paul here yet?” -  imagine a bunch of idiot space monkeys happily chirping to themselves like this in public; how utterly annoying would that be.. oh wait

1:23 The Bro Dudes hi-five. Alone together again. Paul is such an undiluted Hipster one’s back teeth ache – though one suspects not quite as much, if someone were to provide him with a free right cross to complement his smug mug

1:28 “Hey just a second” – even a second is rude; imagine a whole day with this guy – “Wait a sec.. sorry, what were you saying, I was busy talking to my imaginary corporate friend in the cloud”

1:43 “Woah, cool..” – given the state of the city as a whole, I’d say his life is an expensive holiday through other people’s misery

1:48 “Share it to my circles” – grief.. imagine sharing a circle with this  caz-u-el store front mannequin – like he’d ever think of painting a picture – “Sweet, another homeless person on fire – another one for the ol’ Instagrammatic archives”

1:56 “Music.. stop” – thank # for that – the way he says it, even he’s annoyed at his Uninterrupted Plastic Lifestyle Soundtrack

2:00 Jessica wants to talk to you – Yes or No, Deckard, accept or reject – where
‘reject’ never means ‘the only winning move is not to play’ – false  reductionist binary pseudo choices – perhaps its neither about ‘benefits vs hazards’, nor both; what then

2:05 “You want to see something cool?” – He whips it out (and his Uke), jumps
off the ledge and repeatedly plays the same six lame notes on the way down; his augmented reality feed (complete with emotionless emotional states and strangely organ-
less body data) is at least a 1.5 minute hit among the wireheads downtown, which they immediately sell to the fellow coffee shop cool for a dirty dollar a pop

2:16 Those six particular notes of the tune “Lover’s Carvings” by ‘Bibio’ will henceforth ever be  directly symbolically indicative of a tiny toilet bubble of polite, lite, empty-headed hipster nothing; an aggressively happy death-void where only profoundly derivative, dull, flat, watery and generic corporate muzak (ie. only ever capable of being licensed for commercial campaigns) exists

-  – -

7. Augmented reality as another apparent utopia – shared with the dulled citizens of Logan’s Run, who relinquish freedom for the sake of general (seeming) survival, safety and security. Imagine this scene through Steve’s cybernetic eyewear: why, you’d be able to
see every one of the cool, vital meta-stats of the bodies of the about-to-be-vaporized while joyfully screaming “Renew! Renew my annual subscription!”

8. Religious cybernetic totalist  co-founder and Editor of Kurzweilai.net – whose work includes positions with the fourth largest Attack Contractor in the world (nice) pipes in, calling the incident (bizarrely) the “First Attack On A Cyborg“

- Regarding such ‘attack’ – in most sci fi it’s usually the other way around, as fans of Robocop and transhumanist wet dream / video game antihero Adam Jensen remind us in another typically violent and misogynist, rap-inspired youtube video (nsfw)

Note that the entire game is tinted by Adam’s weak Nuremberg defence that “I never asked for this.”  Yet he is entirely blind to the fact that everything about him – his skin color, his willing choice of job (head of security for an evil faceless near-future hypercorporation / cliche) – indeed his entire life is already totally embedded in the aggressive Western technological datascape

- – -

In short.. One wonders at what point we’ll ever be able to ‘see’ the true (ie. deeper, real, non-augmented) facts behind this case more clearly

_{{phil raptor / big science}}

Actually modern Researchers don’t appear to have any choice – and, while they (/often only) faintly mistrust and even mildly despise ongoing trends back to mere Victorian ‘utility‘, ‘practicality’, ‘accessibility’, misplacing-notions of ‘convenience’ or general ‘benefits‘ – will often admit to strolling around the Lab seemingly “Freely admitting that there ‘really is something to be said about using plain text / files’ for research projects, don’t you think, Phil..”

With this in minds (eg. as a tmp.buffer storage-process), set up the initial operating parameters for a Research Lab Log entry on why “Plain Text Files Rule”, perhaps unnaturally gravitating towards the following:

• Tasty (super.Flat) Ingredients
• Folksonomic metadata tags
• Conceptual nodes?.. ie.eg

1. - Plato’s Theory Of Forms: Something to do with G(/r)eek architecture / the philosophy of perception and where Minds draws the (artificial  virtual) boundaries for what it considers seemingly ‘outside’ teh Minds: note this is obviously not really a starting point but actually ‘another starting point’.. just another textual fragment

2. - The Absolute Minimum (unicode & character sets): Often consider the absolute minimum to be absolutely Everything at once. The notion that everything about humanity is ‘already pre-encoded’ in a certain way gives rise to thankfully disturbing questions about free will, block universes, and oranges which run like clockwork – andor a ‘locus of a set of innate possibilities‘..

3. - Neurotransmitters leaping across the synaptic cleft: text as visualizations of nonlocal structure (answering one link with another – call & response between two non-existent parties – hmm.)

4. – Postmodern Detritus; Materialis (pdf file) & History (magazine article).. gladly lost in the deep data. Sifting for fool’s gold, or rather perhaps – tuning in to the higher (deeper) frequencies of a-historical time while taking small notes in the margins along the way.

5. – Text Files throughout virtual digi-history: If there was ever a way out of the Basement Archives, the House Of Asterion considered as the human brain itself -

Text: Aesthetic Measurements Of Cultural Units Of Information-Presentation

6. Despite increasingly wider bandwidth, Text Files (/equals sign) Rock. There’s something about the form which is not only neat and efficient, but innocently neutral. As if they belong in some naturalistic ‘continuum of usefulness’ which includes mothers, pencils and paper, rulers and pen knives

In terms of the social perception of their specific ‘form’, you feel Text Files are seen (/by non-programmers) as mere scratch-pads for half-baked ideas or marginal mental doodlings – and little else. That, they’re too often actively shunned for being ‘non-professional’, and are culturally associated with viagra spam and polite ‘advance fee’ emails from Nigerian princes

Text files have their place – andbut it seems this place is somehow ‘fixed’ in the cultural Hierarchy of presentation of Information (‘lower’ forms / format-processes first):

• (Non-political) graffiti on the walls of public toilets
• Student-based impromptu desk-etchings
• Wobbly demonstrator placards
• Backs-of-postcard scribbles in thick purple crayon
• Text files (‘utf-8 no-bom’ 4tehwin)
• Carl Linnaeus index cards
• HTML5 files (?)
• PDF files
• Strictly limited edition leather bound grimoires with hand-set type
• Sanitary electro-totemic tablet computers (Steve Jobs as Moses)

Text files are everywhere – in the virtual spaces which form our current imaginary Research Labs, they form deep digital snow drifts that Researchers can happily mush through for hours at a time. They look fully crystallized, but are always actually on the verge of crystallization and materialization – sets of potentialities rather than ‘actual’ forms..

Text Files.. just look that those beauties

Whenever one ‘clicks’ on them with a semi-pleasantly obsolete ‘rsi-mouse’ pointing device, feel like a l33t h4x0r, surfing the Great Tubular Interwave and exploring the Gibsons for ‘raw’ information – something primal, unseen, the underlying source=code of an infinite online multiverse:

Well no, not really. But the ‘low-rent’ nature of .txt often comes pretty close

10 Things Plain Text Excels In: the blog’s title is interesting – “Invisible to the eye.” Taking about a use-focus on the ‘content’ of a text file, it’s ‘logic’(/s) – that it’s a ‘universal interface’

• All this suddenly bringing to mind what fellow Researcher Zizek is talking about when he discusses the ‘mythologisation of technology‘ – ie. that the more transparent and ubiquitous it becomes, the more the horizon of our understanding of it’s Hegelian materiality shifts – and the more we need hardcore internal Philosophy-fu to untangle ourselves out of its (apparent) simplicities

//Note: thinking of ‘materiality’ in the artificial context of “Text Files & Why They Rock”, you’re suddenly reminded of quiet moments in Tarkovsky’s timeless meditation “Stalker”:

There’s something about the ancient (spiritual) heaviness of Earth, the paradoxical weightless of Text Files – the ingenuity of people from Russia who one imagines might well admire their well constructed sturdiness. Compare and contrast:

“[..] on the contrary, when he abandons the hold of his intellect and engages in an intense relationship with material reality” (Zizek: The Thing From Inner Space) – and

“These reconceptualizations thus act as an imaginative and speculative mediator between [..]” (Lillemose: Conceptualizing Materiality)

More on this later. Now go off for a slow insta-coffee and chew some organic banana cake slowly, while listening to a looped tape of tropical morning jungle birds in the empty auto-dispense cafeteria. [Scuffing sounds of a designer office chair on brilliantly white industrial hard-flooring are heard]

The ideology of ‘plain english’ and its connection to ‘plain text’

Perhaps the ideology in the word ‘plain’ is precisely because it appears to be a nice, plain, seemingly ‘neutral’ word – a word you could take home to your ailing grandmother, a word you could trust not to suddenly display its flailing alien space genitals.

Thing is, the ‘white’ of a freshly opened text file is never a ‘neutral’ space – the ongoing myth of the ‘tabula rasa’ often lies in (silently) disavowing previous knowledge of the ‘eraser’ and what was in.exactly erased – Henry, imagine the ‘clean’ milky whiteness of a post-industrial toxic spill, smoothly and efficiently leaking into the nearby cursed graveyard and deep into those dirty polished bones

It’s not the alleged clean simplicity of the form which gives parallel rise to thoughts of conceptual ‘purity’ – rather it’s the unexamined search for ‘innate purity’ of form which creates – as if out of thin air – forms which precisely conform to their ‘plain’ (ideological) construction ie. “What other way would it be?”

// Talking about ‘plain english’ – why not talk also about ‘plain chinese’

Sure – in computing, plain text is the contents of an ordinary sequential file readable as textual material without much processing, usually opposed to formatted text. But ‘ordinary’ – ‘sequential’, ‘readable’ – ‘textual’ and ‘material’ – in what ways are these ordinary, sequential, readable, texturally material..?

// “Format: a particular way that information is encoded”

// The Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension “text/plain”: perhaps from the Greek mimos, “imitator, actor”: someone who acts “textually – plainly” an active actor in a ‘plain role’ – a lovely film star from Germany, perhaps ‘merely observing’ the passing of ‘just some’ Plain Text on pass by on the far wall of the geostationary cafe via his augmented data-shades. It’s all an N-man show for the cameras and the floating cyborgs. Yet nobody quite realizes – andor really wants to..

Jaron ‘Not A Gadget’ Lanier on Files

Quote: “Entrenched Software Philosophies Become Invisible Through Ubiquity“

An even deeper locked-in idea is the notion of the file. Once upon a time, not too long ago, plenty of computer scientists thought the idea of the file was not so great.

(..) The file is a set of philosophical ideas made into eternal flesh. The ideas expressed by the file include the notion that human expression comes in several chunks that can be organized as leaves on an abstract tree – and that the chunks have versions and need to be matched to compatible applications.”

Phil: Imagines breaking open / apart the ‘file’.. a nonlinear, file-less, window-less Operating System

_{{phil raptor / big science}}

/ Weekday Diary. Decide to do some Tai Chi down at the local park. (Amazing Fact: in ‘other’ parts of the world – which actually exist – it’s No Big Thing)

Beautiful early (late) Spring days in the UK reminds one of an imaginary New England never visited – something to do with the leaves and over-saturated blue skies

Arise in cool early afternoon – sip several cups of organic green tea

The body tells self to “Exercise, fatbody” so you thread your way through busy streets and eager shoppers to the local park

Ten minutes into your routine, notice the loud arrival of several Players Of Football. Remember this is ‘their’ public field by default, pal

You (Phil): “..No Tai Chi today, then”

Trudge up the small grassy hill with a sigh – sit on bench and realize to do or ‘play’ Tai Chi in sunny / leafy public parks somehow always provokes d1ckh3ads to come over and scoff before beating you up

Cultural Note: anything not immediately recognizable in massively limited (playing) fields of modern (‘Endland’ based) experience must face immediately ridicule and hatred and be destroyed, utterly.

Oh, to sit on a bench imagining Exciting And Unlikely Close Quarters Chinese Internal Combat Scenarios, eg. a random lanky kicker of plastic spheres and Team Believer opens his gob to express a typical reaction – “Hey Jackie Chan, what’s that f***** s*** you’re doing?”

You simply look in his direction and say “Cheng-style 37 step Tai Chi Chuan-fa”

According to legend, the plastic sphere-kicker in question then starts to suffer an inexplicable (at least according to current false Reality-based models) nose bleed – just like in “Story Of Ricky“

- – -

Over the years it seems many UK park-based Tai Chi practitioners have faced little but

• Soft Drink Cans: thrown in their general direction
• Derisive Laughter: “Look he’s doing I’m-A-Little-Teapot LOL”
• Outright Racism (if you had a pound coin for every time you’ve heard the phrase “Jackie Chan” or “Bruce Lee” half-whispered.. you’d have more than enough to fill a leather sock)
• General Underwhelmism: “Pfft. That guy couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag,” etc

‘Luckily’ most Endlanders regard the delicate, flowing movements of Tai Chi as (somehow) so utterly bizarre and alien, that they imagine the performer to be insane – and therefore usually leave them well alone (the ‘random lone-nut in the park waving his arms’ syndrome)

Another Problem: researcher Phil Raptor often talk to himselves as though he’s somehow more ‘spiritually advanced’ than his fellow Space Monkeys – when he’s really only advanced in his capacity to talk near total b.s

Until now in life he’s only ever ‘done’ Tai Chi – as something hard and external ie. yet more aggressive psychological armoring against a world he (too-often) perceives only as a vague, strong threat

- When in fact Tai Chi more truly concerns ‘nondoing’. Not-doing as its profound living essence.. perhaps he should go back down the hill and stand near these footballers and just continue (not) performing

If nothing else, he might soften their hearts through slowly moving in non-deliberate, non offensive and non threatening manners – thus retuning minds dulled through Western Terminal Entertainment into progressive ways (‘tao’) of ancient Eastern mystic Flow (or something like that)

Don’t be an Angry Teapot..

- – -

(Foot) balls to that. Instead you make a quick Western (as in cowboy) judgement call and simply decide you can do without any hassles from fellow chimps heavily into Team Sports

Sit quietly slumped on that rough wooden bench trying to admire the trees – listen to the sad brown leaves and rubbish blow across bland public lawns of hollow recreation

- It seems humans afflicted by Culture will go to any lengths to deny everything that’s not inside their massively limited sphere of immediate misunderstanding

This goes both ways however. Phil Raptor doesn’t feel he could learn much about mass team based recreation – and ‘The Lads‘ on the field certainly couldn’t care less about anything their can’t either ‘Leer, Cheer or Beer’ at

- – -

Just then some bloke walks up to you and your favourite bench. You immediately look around for more signs of trouble. (Old habit.) Apparently he’s a Theology Student *rolls eyes* and he “Couldn’t help notice you were practising The Martial Arts™

He says he’s “Doing a paper” on something or other and he wants to know about ‘Chi’ and how it relates to.. whatever he’s studying

He’s got all sorts of esoteric theories on hand about Chi as it regards “Pantheism.” You feel awkward and do your best to explain what you (think you) know, mentioning one theory about how people once studied the movements of animals in order to remain healthy in cold, damp places (eg. miserable little backwater islands ;-)

This comment alone seems to confirm his preexisting theories and he gives thanks, strolling off with a smile to complete his little academic task. “We were destined to meet!” he says. You just shake your head and think “B******s..”

Physical and verbal threats, cruel laughter born of willing ignorance and fear. But perhaps what’s even worse is trying to force something vital and living into the neat, square holes of one’s personal worldview

There’s you, walking in a circle in a field of grass, flapping your idiot arms about. Imagining you know what you’re doing. And then there’s Theology Man, skipping over to examine you with his cool, epistemological microscope and say “..Fascinating” – as though studying some rare and exotic insect

“Entomology” – from the Greek ἔντομος, entomos – that which is cut in pieces or segmented. Breaking up life and holistic movement into atomized pieces so they fit nicely within the positively Victorian museum cabinets of idle curiosities and useless knowledge

To do anything but simply try something new for oneself. Not to truly move – but merely kick and hack away at the continuum of Existence, merely for the continued, automatic confirmation of unchallenged mental models

- – -

Yes the old ways are utterly dead. They’ve not evolved as fast as the need for better mobile phone ring tones, hair styling gel, ‘release your abs’ magazine articles or regular Fakebook updates. Better find an ultraviolet garden in your mind to practice, Phil, because that’s only one of the few spaces left

- – -

Followup Question

- What are your experiences of ‘Tai Chi in the Park’? Does your mere existence in the great Social Field generate anything other than negative verbal feedback and brainless looks of disbelief?

_{{phil raptor / big science}}

You’ve often said this before to friends you pretend you’d like to have – the first thing to get right is the coffee. If it’s organic fair trade, black – and there’s large slabs of home made carrot cake w/ soft white icing available – you’re on the right track for another successful Midnight Sea Crossing

There’s little to be heard outside. Your postage stamp-sized nowhere town makes abandoned slate mines in Wales feel like Brazil during carnival. Kinda how you like it. With little noise except distant passing hyperway traffic, the mind(s) drift and wander

You often feel (though you never do) like you might slip / step outside at any time, stare upward at the lonely stars and (with the lightest of naked steps) depart from the old ground of your troubled birth – to float upward and join them in their grand, bio-cosmic dance

_{{phil raptor / big science}}

Undead Realism: Nividia’s “Ira” Tech Demo (Faceworks)

1. “Realism Denies The Impossible”: the idea that it’s the Impossible we’re after in Gaming and not the Merely Realistic
2. The ideology of Realism generally: that you already think you know what Reality ‘is’
3. To meditate on the (seemingly) inevitable artificial nature of aggressive technological development
4. Compared to the forever-creepy “®ealism™” offered by Ira, going in any and all directions other than this seems a positively healthy, even life-affirming thing for Games to do..
5. To consider “Ira” as an evolutionary cul-de-sac: a blank, soulless, dead-behind-the-eyes automaton who spews hateful, unquestioning phrases like “Take my money!!” on queue whenever it’s demanded. There’s nobody at home, here
6. It’s babble about “HALF FRUIT / HALF YOGURT” merely indicates what passes for brains in an otherwise frozen, empty skull: “Ira” symbolizes the dire condition of all beings willingly afflicted with “Profound (perhaps even inhuman, evil) Stupidity”
7. Note the disturbing degree to which other disembodied heads talking jive online are also often automatically impressed by such philosophically dubious demon-strations

The Unreal Engine 4 “Elemental” Demo is a particularly good example of this dead-headed thinking:

There is no joy to be felt or seen in such scenes of technical videogaming proficiency; only the slow decay of empty eons, as an undead king rises from his Realist slumber in his hollow fortress of barren data. (This guy’s so old, he farts pixelllated dust)

And what about this poor fellow, extolling the Realist virtues of Unreal Engine 4 to.. what appears to be the computer in front of him. As though even the computer needs convincing how automatically wonderful and obviously necessary it is to have real lighting fx:

Perhaps what’s needed are forks of this narrow path, into explored regions of ‘Abstract Encounters‘

{phil raptor / big science}

• Trailers are allegedly windows into a movie’s soul – but the one for “Welcome To The Punch” seems the exciting equivalent of Windows Vista. Nicely laid out on the surface but with serious flaws soon apparent throughout

• Trying to rip off Michael Mann’s “Heat” (1995) and failing laughably is in itself not a big thing; the true crimes this trailer commits however are bland storytelling and bizarrely uninteresting camera work. That director Eran Creevy’s previous efforts include a wildly sexist pop video and some ads for Nike should provide adequate warning for the wise

• While Mark Strong understands the concept of Character, James McAvoy hasn’t had a different expression on his dim mug since “Wanted” (2008) and here looks less a Cynical Hard-Nosed Detective than a Constipated University Student – as though “Stern Looks And Sharp Suits” (idea for Yet Another Cynical British Crime Thriller^TM?) are all anyone needs to be ‘Gangsta, innit?’

• The Hospital Scene where student-boy takes an officer’s pistol and runs off after the Bad Guy With A Sensitive Side is a Stone Cold Rehash (Seagal DVD?) of.. any number of uninspired flicks. They even have poor Mark doing one press up in a feeble attempt to show what a Badass he is

• The overuse of Blue is forgiveable – but whereas in “Heat” the tension is palpable throughout, in “Welcome To The Punch” (perhaps one of the most uncool, oddly passive-aggressive titles ever slapped on) the result is a pasty, washed out Icelandic zombie of a flick that’s seen one too many late nights in an over-lit downtown megacity office block, populated by cheerless Arbitrary Geezers who look tired of pretending to be tuff, and of appearing like they care what’s happening

Updates

1. You watched the film (despite having seen the trailer.) Luckily you’ve already forgotten it. What a feeble ending

2. Some people must have money to burn. Utterly mind-boggling how some are even able to green-light nearly £6M for such poor material

3. Regarding the concept of “Character Motivation” in modern film making generally: ok you definitely need some – but here psychological motive seems positively welded to the dumb, dumbing-down concept of “High Concept”

_{{phil raptor / big science}}

Description: A virtual boy learns to play the piano. Chaos ensues

Such a game would allow “The active creation of Gameplay suited to one’s immediate, changing tastes”

1. Imagine Garry’s Mod Vs. Itchy and Scratchy on a wraparound landscape – similar to La Petit Prince but with pseudo-arbitrary gameplay and emergent narratives

2. It might feature Suwappu-like character-toys (that bite) and Interactive Meaningful-Everything: a ‘Superflat Katamari Damacy version of The Sims crossed with Deadly Premonition on heavy Surrealist downers’

There’s definitely a game in here somewhere – an ‘Abstract Encounter‘..

visual scripting the external world

In essence: a browser-based kind of Persistent World Theater – kinda like the always (potentially) profoundly awesome Noby Noby Boy – just with everything playable in-game, psychological ‘motivation’ – and strong ensuing emotional / physical consequences. Surrendering oneself to the fanciful, unstructured joys of striking, gleeful absurdity

Full-screen this mutant baby and dream – the Internet as Playable TV:

Recommended Links

• Abstract Encounters
• David O’Reilly
• Augmented Reality “Swappu” toys
• Paida: ‘unbounded’ or ‘free’ play
• Notgames not-manifesto
• Unauthored emergent  narratives

_{{phil raptor / big science}}

All Hail Baron Von Newell!

Disclaimer: sometimes Phil likes to imagine working for Valve as a “Narrative Designer” / “Alien Philosopher In Residence.” But then what philosopher would be a member of any billion dollar organization that would have them as a member

- – - – -

Notes Arising

/ Despite the clearly stated nature of the talk, you’re still surprised to hear an overwhelming emphasis on the Business of Valve. It’s no great surprise that perhaps the only true single (serious) Game being played here is Global Turbo Hyper Capitalism

Also suspect that few people want to be turned into “Internet Services Platforms” – but that’s what’s happening: gamers are becoming “Steam Boxes” – mere processing units at the fringes of the network, assigned with gaming tasks of generating and exchanging ‘value’

Consider Steam’s interior (outwardly projected) ideology as “Everyone’s Happy In Our Steamy Empire” – yet rather than some neutral statement perhaps this is more a direct instruction and demand; a warning. For Valve, keeping gamers happy means ensuring they get a fair slice of that steamy Capitali$t (horse meat) pie / cake / whatever

/ The talk takes place at the LBJ School

/ Gabe (apparently) relates his experience of how the  passage from standard video game manufacture to creating online communities of gamers changed his views on the meaning of productivity, shaped his understanding of interconnected economies, impressed upon him the need for  new international governance institutions, and led him seriously to question the proposition that near future evil neo cyberpunk hypercorporations will resemble those of today

/ It’s been snowing here and the sky above the brown slate rooftops is alive with a searing, unexpected blue – the colour of summer. I’ve just run out of organic ‘fair trade’ coffee and will have to switch to English Breakfast with soya milk – a revolting combo

“Vagabond and Estrogen”, the seagull pair which usually come and peck the moss off the lawn for worms have not been seen for days and I miss their amusing antics. Update: damn, I wish I had 10k for a hot new 120hz quad Titan / no-ghost gaming rig #firstworldproblems

/ 12:15 and Nancy Regan introduces Gabe: “I want to thank all of you for being here and for being early” – wonder about the benediction of (alleged) Existence, Location / Nowness / Temporalilty

/ 00:31 Gabe’s head is bowed. He looks nervous, like he doesn’t really want to ‘be here’. One is reminded of Orson Wells as Father Mapple in the movie Moby Dick (1956) – ready to cast today’s heavy sermon over the gathered faithful from the prow of his corporate ship / church of gears and steam

/ Seagulls as symbolic signifiers for the sudden possible near-presence of the (sublime, benthic leviathan absence) of the white whale of Reality..

/ The “I’d like to thank (on behalf)” – introduction Nancy busts out – like some unexpected Oscar win

/ 00:50 “We are obviously very honoured to have Gabe Newell, founder of Valve Corporation.” An obvious non question – but why ‘obviously’ honoured’? Prey tell from whence exactly doth this self evidential honour spring?

/ About Gabe: Everyone likes Gabe – andor like enjoying that we imagine we like him. (Apart from – or rather perhaps because of) the things seen and read on-nets) we only know of him. He’s like some big friendly bear of an uncle your family mildly disapproves of, because he lets his hair grow out, wears steel toe-capped boots and enjoys inventing things in his virtual shed

A quiet chap who minds his own business yet is unafraid to help the weak – and who once every couple of years romps naked around the great woods near his house for days at a time while tripping balls on magic mushrooms. An expert in the Russian martial arts, the game of Go, knife throwing, bathroom tile arranging, coffee making and the electro-acoustic free jazz guitar (or so they say)

/ 01:08 The way Nancy busts out “Around” – like sassy Kate Pierson from the B52′s. Work it, gurl

/ 01:18 “Mr. Newell” – said like “Mr. Smith” from The Matrix. Gabe looks up as if suddenly waking up (back into the Game Grid) – and upon finds himself in front of a crowd has to give an impromptu talk

/ 01:30 “Urm.. So I’m Gabe” – the gathered unseen crowd laughs – perhaps because the incongruity between the stiff formality of Nancy’s introduction and his own geeky slackness. It’s interesting to imagine that the people who really know him and are his friends know him in a “Just Gabe” type way

- Idea for a Internet TV series called “Just Gabe”: starring a regular humble billionaire who irregularly gets into a heavily scripted series of amusingly low key existential video gaming meta-adventures

Thing is, he’s never “Just Gabe” – perhaps nobody’s ever ‘just’ themselves. Notice how people you know, who regularly leave messages on you phone often passively-aggressively say “Hello – it’s only me.” Yeah right – ‘only’ – as if people weren’t often simply uncontrollable forces of some deeply bizarre and Artificial Nature..

/ 01:36 Despite what seem like initial ‘angstzeity’ (angst + zeitgeist) at giving the talk, Gabe positively springs into action – like some well practiced role or Gamer Face / Power Suit he slips back on or into: “That’s actually a consequence of other decisions we’ve made that I’ll touch on later”

One recalls “Rising Sun” (1993, great movie), when The Senator (so stiff he might as well be wrapped in plastic) denies a bare faced reversal of his previous position – stating instead that “It’s simply a.. refinement of my earlier views”

Notice the ‘retroactive’ nature of how Gabe’s brain is functioning / perhaps how Value works: its ‘Now State’ – as an forever indirect consequence of – Decisions made into / from – the Near Future

/ 01:59 “So the question would be – other than my charming personality – is Valve interesting – right like why is Valve an interesting company?” Maybe some detectable false modesty there – rest assured Gabe knows his relative coolness or-does-he? He then however immediately mentions ‘Super Gross Metrics’ as a way of measuring Interestingness. (His own interestingness?)

Sounds like it could be Interesting.. not the first thing many would think of but then not everyone’s in the dirty business of Economics. Some unconscious parallel link suggested between ‘charming personalities’ and ‘super gross metric interest’

/ 02:17 “We tend to make people very productive and they add a lot of value” – this is what it’s all about

Thing is: the (non-irony that) much of modern Gaming is already too much like Work – and what big Uncle Gabe / Baron Von Newell is talking about sounds a lot like Snow Crash Franchising, where territory (ie. Gamers) ceded to the Empire Of Steam get carved up into sovereign gaming enclaves, each run by its own big business franchise stake holder

Now if that’s your idea of innocent Gaming Fun you must wear wacky(tm) Hawaii Friday shirts like Valve economist Yanis Varoufakis (channeling Dr. Jacoby from Twin Peaks), who apparently wants to ‘reintroduce a modicum of reason into a highly irrational global economic order.’ Hey, don’t we all, Doc. (A tall order if there ever was one, Mr. Varoufakis. Note: this name brings to mind ‘Fakir’)

The seductive / steamy power of Neural Capitalism lies in the – forever deferred, Vegas slot machine like – possibility that we too might get a slice of that tasteless, most likely toxic global (virtual) e-dollar pie – when all that’s really happening is that the religious market ideology of “Gamerfication” has been directly applied to our Matrix-embedded neural jacks – and (just like the character Cypher in the Matrix movie) we’re all too ready to give ourselves over to the Great Gaming Cause in return for a little of that good / fast action, baby (see above Disclaimer)

Thing is: when the only (inherently fixed from the outset) game in town is Capitalism, you can be pretty sure the House (of steam and mirrors) always wins

Which is nonsense of course, I mean this is Big Uncle Gabe – friend to all Gamers. How can we not trust Our Benevolent Benefactors? Yet – as psychoanalyst / philosopher Slavoj Žižek states, the stories we tell to others about ourselves are always in fact a ‘zero level ideology’ ie. a lie

One way to think about this ideology of steam or fire – something vaporous and seemingly mystical which enfolds and chokes – is to watch Valve’s “Meet The Pyro”:

Quote: “There is no ideology that does not come into being without asserting itself in the guise of one ‘truth’ against another” (The Žižek Reader, p.54, 1999)

That is, note there’s really no real gap or schism between the (seemingly false) ‘cute’ inner life of Pyro – that is, as seemingly opposed to the ‘actual cruel’ reality of his outer inhumanity. (In fact he is “human, all too human.”)

Both ‘outer cruel’ and ‘inner cute’ are both part and parcel of the Game matrix being played / presented as a whole – something which our inner Pyro is always fully embedded in – a quirky, endlessly happy electronic nightmare. Exactly what Zizek says about Silvio Berlusconian politics and Hunter S. Thompson about Vegas: “It’s what the whole hip world would look like if the Nazis had won the war.”

Note that Pyro’s inner ‘cute’ life story actually appears no less warped than his cruel ‘outer’ reality

/ 2:30 “We generate more internet traffic than most countries.” Gabe states ‘we’ (Steam / Valve) are the 4th largest bandwidth consumer in the world. Wonder what the environmental impact of being so large might be (Steam, not Gabe.) This again points to the aggressively dominant force of modern Gaming Culture: play or die – everyone in the steamy empire has no choice but to have FUN™: “Spaß ist pflicht”

/ 2:48 “So that says something is happening here.. but is it interesting, er, beyond just being another company that makes a bunch of money.” Again – the word ‘just’. (And with an alleged enterprise value of $3 billion, that should be “A whole bunch of money, Uncle Gabe”)

Again, the distinctly indistinctly psychological image of steam rises – ‘something interesting with an uncertain or un-graspable nature.’ Something amorphous, ethereal – atmospheric and dreamy.. however, valves exist to control steam – to channel and direct it for the needs of (in this case) global post-industrial virtual Capitalism

/ Quick theory test: “Capitalism Capitalism Capitalism”.. nope, simply repeating it doesn’t make one critical or change anything for the better

/ 2:53 “Well my path.. which I’m going to sort of use to illustrate.. I’m going to sort of walk you through what – how I learned and what I learned, that applies to Value, and hopefully use that to motivate your own understanding of the choices that we’ve made, and what if any significance they have”

• To what degree the path anyone follows is truly theirs
• “How I learned”: a question of epistemology and (any) universal ‘claims to knowledge’
• Motivate your own understanding of our choices.. because (only semi-consciously) I also need motivating

- – - – -

/ Sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher “Wah Wah Wah” – look, you’ll never finish reading at this rate. Basically:

0. Gabe says you need a different way of thinking about what you’re (/more actually) doing

1. The incongruity between the fact you think or hope Gabe’s Talk will be about Videogames and the fact that it’s (really) more about Capitalism as The Only (True) Game In Town
2. Ways to measure ‘Interestingness’ ie. Meaningfullness – the possibility that what makes Valve truly interesting is only ever people – like Gabe himselves – and how they (/think they) think
3. The importance of “Heuristics” – ie. one useful way to Valve is as a realtime Computing Experiment
4. How “Real World”™ models are far more psychological sci-fi states of Simulation than whatever else they’re usually known as
5. Understanding what is more-really being Exchanged – ie. (human) Values – the precise Meaningfulness of what’s /who’s being ‘Played’

Follow Up Links

• Pragmatism / Steam Box / Leviathan / Fakir
• Horse meat in hamburgers
• LBJ School typo apology
• Valve Corporation / Gabe Newell, friendly billionaire
• Gaming: too much like Work
• Snow Crash Franchising
• Yanis Varoufakis on TF2 economy
• Ian Bogost on Gamerfication
• Is Valve too good to be true?
• Herzog: the cold, impersonal indifference in the eyes of bears

“I ask you, what greater endeavor exists than that of collaboration?” – Dr. Wallace Breen

_{{phil raptor / big science}}

“Illusions of Depth” (in all senses) : it’s all about the Boundaries —> Ballard’s Death of Affect —> Depthlessness /  —> considering Video Game graphics as (somehow always) Two Dimensional —> Oldskool Shaded Polygons —> Bilateral Filtering / No Noise —> that dry ‘Repo Man’ type light in Half Life 2 —> experimental simulations in/as the Deep Ontological Desert / Spec Ops: The Line —> ‘Edge Detection’ / X-Ray vision —> Emergent Gameplay —> Everything within the frame (existential coordinates) as an interrelated (Objectless) system —> extreme ‘Z Buffering’ / Hidden Surfaces

Illusions of depth in video games (960 x 600, 16cols)

[..] consider all modern gamers have at some point felt everything on-screen was suddenly without depth or substance – no objects, just a single airless pane – the listless boredom of a hot afternoon, watching the interfaces between – fully absorbed by light, dusty asphalt, the ideology of concrete: an endless road trip desert sense without emotion, far outside common knowablilty or dissecting analysis

To imagine more intensely / strangely-abstract andor ‘theoretical’ games – no symbolism – zero time – dissolution (“Fana”)

_{{phil raptor / big science}}

When younger, if the subject of politics ever came up in social conversation I’d often make a small joke. I’d say “Did you know I was the first ever person in England to be made unemployed by Margaret Thatcher?”

People would then ask me for details and I’d tell them this (true) story: that I had a steady job as a ‘Milk Monitor’ at my Primary School

My role was to hand out bottles of milk and straws to the other children. It was a steady gig with real prospects, and I was proud to hold this exulted meritocratic position of responsibility

But then one bright morning Teacher walks in to class, and tells us very calmly that “Margaret Thatcher has taken your milk away” – and all the tiny children cried their eyes out

I then say it was only because of my “transferable skills” that I landed my next plumb job – this time as ‘Window Monitor’

Everyone would then laugh*

- – - – -

*Note: even now only part of me understands the searing ironies in such a joke – only too visible to anyone actually forced to exist through the 80s under her (iron) rule

The North: Not Impressed

Anyhow I was once chatting to this bloke from Scotland when the subject of politics came up, and I tried telling him my amusing school-day anecdote about dear old Maggy

His eyes immediately took on a steely glaze; “Don’t talk to me about that woman,” he said, barely above a whisper. I thought for a second he was going to bop my nose. “She utterly ruined the lives of untold millions”, he replied

“The day she leaves this earth, you’ll find me in the nearest bar with a raised pint in my hand”

- Apparently few tears are being shed from ‘our friends in the North’, then..

Today, upon hearing of her tragic death I feel unhappy for all the bitterness and resentment that remain in her grey wake, and – considering the number of people crawling out of the woodwork to bathe her name in holy praise – for the uninterrupted continuation of right wing thinking which dominates *all* politics. Peace

_{{phil raptor / big science}}