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Playgrounds | Tarim | Altern8PTTP is about creating playgrounds. Playgrounds for everyone to play in. Although these playgrounds exist in the physical world, you don't play on them by climbing all over them - you play using some kind of digital interface - which gives a lot of different ways to play.
If this is too much of a nebulous and abstract concept for you to grab hold of - then the PTTP Media Sandbox commission is about making one, as an example, which will give you a much better idea of what this means in reality.
I like to think of this from the point of view of four different types of people, or roles:
- The Designer
- The Players
- The Audience
- The Geeks
The person (or people) who design the playground. Although they have some ideas of how it might be played with - they need to make the playground open. When it's finished, they're going to have to, "give it away" and see what people do with it.
People who play (obvious, huh?) - using whatever kinds of digital interfaces that are available.
The people who watch. Any player who is waiting their turn to play will almost certainly be a member of the audience. (No, I'm not telling you anything ground-breaking, yet.)
(It's ok, it's not a pejorative term if I am one myself.) These are people who design new interfaces for players to play with. It might be an interface that lets more than one person play at once. Or that uses some aspect of the environment to control the playground. Or some new physical interface, (dance mats?), which players can play on. The interesting thing from a geek's point of view - is that they don't have to ask permission from the designer to create a new interface. They simply queue up like any other player. Sometimes, the geek might be the designer in a different role or sometimes they will be a player who has an interesting idea about how they want to play.
Great! (but what is it?) | Tarim | Altern8What is Power To the People? It seems it's not always easy to explain…
When I talk to people about schemes that PTTP could be used for - they (mostly) get excited and throw in lots of ideas. Which is just the sort of reaction I was hoping for! So, what's the problem?
I then mention that the project isn't about actually implementing any of these ideas directly - it's about providing a method to help other people create these sort of schemes. That slightly confused look starts to cross their face…
Most people are quite happy to use tools: computers, phones, buildings, clothes, coffee mugs (look around - bet there aren't many things you can see that aren't tools). But how often do you think about how these tools are made (and, indeed, why should you?) Making tools to make other tools is, well, somewhat into the geek territory. PTTP is one more stage removed - it's a tool - to help make tools - to help make a public installation tool. By this time, most people have suddenly remembering they have a pressing appointment and have to leave.
Working with Nathan Hughes (new producer on PTTP) is definitely helping this process - he's the translator from what goes on in my head (a sort of green and black screen with falling characters on it) to what goes on in other people's heads (you'd know better than I would here…)
Book work | Simon Evans | Simon Evans | Simon JohnsonWe met for the first proper day's work back at the beginning of January at the Evans Studio farmstead in the Forest Of Dean. After dealing with the practicalities - setting up a work schedule, responsibilities and objectives - we started in on the theory and boy is there plenty of that. We are looking at non-linear dynamics within pervasive media systems, specifically swarms. It sounds a bit dry but it is about enabling intuitive cooperation amongst people and has loads of potential in gaming, social action, low carbon economies - all sorts of areas.
Simon J is the project partner who has done the backgorund reading on the area and he had a go at explaining some of the ideas in Manual De Landa's book One Thousand Years of Non Linear History. Simon J is keen on De Landa, whose work tries to cross breed concepts from the Natural Sciences with those more familiarly associated with the Social Sciences - for instance the notion of historical processes in geology, rock strata forming over time, and geological processes within history, social classes forming through sedimentation. Of course, this approach is not without its critics but it does offer a usefully formulaic approach to social dynamics, suggesting that the embodiment of these processes within computer systems would be possible. Again, it raises the familiar question of computers not becoming more human-like, but humans being invited (compelled) to become more machine like.
Alongside this general reading has been a more specific research path that we have followed over the last month. There are a number of applications, demos and toys online that use swarm dynamics to generate graphics, such as levitatedTentacle1 and Swarm Box We are analysing the code of these programs to find out how other programmers have have understood swarming and realised it in code.
An early objective of our research has been to identify the fundamental components of swarming. We started out with an idea that three areas would be relevant:
space/proximity - the geographic dimension.
communication - between agents
persistence - time.We then realised that persistence (ie. time) was really a property of the other two components and not something in itself. So we arrive at:
Communication is optional or compelled/controlled, but never absent or forbidden.
Geography - size of game world has as yet undefined relationship with number of participants.But isn't geography really another way of discussing communication? Swarm behaviour involves a range of relationships between agents; chemical messages between ants, for instance, or spatial awareness between fish in a shoal. In many cases communication is indirect, the fish merely try and stay within a certain distance of a given number of others. The key principle, however, is the communication of information, in the fish example it is a visual clue at offers the relevant information. What matters is how far the given form of communication can travel, so geography (or extent of swarm space) is a property of communication. We can see this with Seekers - changing the call radius (range of communication) and number of seekers (agents) has a powerful affect on swarm efficiency and stability.
Clearly, modern technologies of communication will have an impact on the potential of swarm applications in social groupings, enabling swarm like behaviour over extensive geographic space. Pervasive media will enable highly dynamic groupings out in the world. It is in this intersection of ubiquitous communication and physical space that we want to work. We are both very keen on creating networked experiences in varied geographic space, to get games away from the desktop or console in the way the Blast Theory have so successfully done.
So there we have it: communication. Does this insight help much? It is a huge area and without an exact philosophical definition, impossible to explore. However, we have decided to accept a very broad definition of what human communication is and to focus not on the content but it's effect. A swarm is the manifestation of emergent behaviour from within the relationships of a group of individual agents. The behaviour is not dictated from any top down control but emerges out of communication, direct or indirect, between agents. Our goal is to establish what is needed to create emergent cooperation between people and to use these insights to build a pervasive media tool for other people to create games and experiences based on cooperation between people.
Overlaying Digital Realities… | Jon Williams | Licorice FilmProject initial concept:
Harmonize (or the project previously known as ‘Harmonize’) is a site specific collaborative team game.
One player takes the role of the seeker, armed with a PDA and two way radio they play outside on the street. The other members of the team work together using a large screen installation. This screen shows an interactive display of the game area highlighting goals and obstacles that they must direct the seeker to. The seeker can not see these obstacles, so communication is vital to success.
The team must work together in a race against the clock, harmonising their virtual and physical actions to overcome the challenges of the environment. Once the time is up, the team’s score is recorded and posted to an online league table for all to see.
Inspiration:
As well as being inspired by my time spent devolving Mscapes with Hewlett Packard, Inspiration for this project also comes from fond memories of watching cult 80’s kids TV show ‘Knightmare’ and the online/RL cross over of Blast Theory’s ‘Can you see me now.’
Knightmare:
"Knightmare was a fantasy adventure game show, shown on Children's ITV in the UK between 1987 and 1994. It was created and produced by Tim Child and was a Broadsword Television production for Anglia Television/ITV. The show made extensive use of the 'Cromakey' (blue screen) technique to generate rooms and scenes with different backgrounds and graphics.The adventure was set mostly in a dungeon, and there were three 'levels' corresponding to difficulty. Teams of four took it in turns to challenge the dungeon to complete a 'quest' - usually to retrieve a symbolic object, such as a Crown or Shield. The dungeon master 'Treguard', and his assistant occasionally helped teams along their way as they solved problems, puzzles and riddles The 'dungeoneer' is the one person of the team who is guided through the adventure, and wears a helmet to blind them from reality. He or She is guided by the three other members of the team, known as their 'advisors', who sit in the dungeon ante-chamber and watch the adventure through a 'Magic Mirror'.The object of each quest was decided at the start, and teams would be awarded with a medal or FrightKnight trophy upon successful completion.”
(http://www.knightmare.com/introduction.htm)
http://www.youtube.com/v/bxvuLyMGxLw&rel=1 -Video documentation
Can You See Me Now? –Blast Theory
Can You See Me Now? is a game that happens simultaneously online and on the streets. Players from anywhere in the world can play online in a virtual city against members of Blast Theory. Tracked by satellites, Blast Theory's runners appear online next to your player on a map of the city. On the streets, handheld computers showing the positions of online players guide the runners in tracking you down. With up to 20 people playing online at a time, players can exchange tactics and send messages to Blast Theory. An audio stream from Blast Theory's walkie talkies allowed you to eavesdrop on your pursuers: getting lost, cold and out of breath on the streets of the city. “(http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/bt/work_cysmn.html)
http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/bt/mov/mov_cy.html -Video documentation
