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Commercial Gold Rush in Second Life

A critical mass seems to have been reached over the past six months with regards to the popular online 3D social networking platform, Second Life. Having passed through the initial word of mouth/blogosphere zone, the SL meme now makes regular appearances in mainstream magazines and newspapers from Wired to The Guardian. All this attention has solidified the virtual world’s place at the forefront of what SL “residents” sometimes refer to as “the 3D web.” In what might be the most impressive stamp of approval to date, the Reuters news agency has gone so far as to set up a bureau inside the game. As Richard Siklos notes in today’s New York Times, a mini gold rush is on amongst large media companies to establish themselves within Linden’s virtual economy:

…now, the budding fake world is not only attracting a lot more people, it is taking on a real world twist: big business interests are intruding on digital utopia. The Second Life online service is fast becoming a three-dimensional test bed for corporate marketers, including Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Sun Microsystems, Nissan, Adidas/Reebok, Toyota and Starwood Hotels.

The sudden rush of real companies into so-called virtual worlds mirrors the evolution of the Internet itself, which moved beyond an educational and research network in the 1990’s to become a commercial proposition — but not without complaints from some quarters that the medium’s purity would be lost. (New York Times)

See also my earlier posts, Realtime Performance in Second Life, and Second Life: First Impressions.

Minesweeper World Records

Minesweeper is a game of extraordinary longevity. For most of us, it’s an old friend that we call up from time to time when we have a minute or so to kill between tasks. But for some, Minesweeper is an obsession, less an old friend than a needy co-dependent lover. The focus and determination of “serious” Minesweeper players is on exhibit at Planet Minesweeper, where you can view YouTube videos of world-record performances, such as Dion Tiu’s masterful 38-second solution of an expert-level minefield. Watching Tiu’s mouse pointer as it floats across the board revealing tiles is like observing a factory worker assembling a circuit board for the ten thousandth time — except, of course, in this case, nothing is really being made, either for Tiu or the factory. And it begs the question: is this kind of obsessive skillz-oriented game mastery the omega point of all gaming experiences, or is Minesweeper truly as outmoded a design as we would like to think it is?

No More SMS From Jesus

Gumption presents a nice digest of Genevieve Bell’s (cancelled) Ubicomp presentation, “No More SMS from Jesus: Ubicomp, Religion and Techno-spiritual Practices:”

The title derives from a Reuters headline announcing the demise of a Finnish mobile service that offered text messages from Jesus, in response to prayers received from subscribers. Genevieve goes on to highlight a range of other techno-spiritual practices, including

• online genealogical services (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints)
• religiously inspired web pages, portals, bulletin boards, dating sites and chat rooms
• podcasts (or “godcasts“)
• religious ringtones
• Christian gaming services
• wireless calls to prayer for Catholics and Muslims (and GPS-enabled pointing toward Mecca)
• other text messaging services, including a Virtual Bible service in South Africa through which one can download the entire bible to a mobile phone via SMS [this was not in the paper, I discovered it in searching around for other relevant links]

Genevieve notes that “religion shapes ideas about time, space and social relationships” (very much in line with obserations Brenda Laurel made in her closing keynote on day 3 of UbiComp regarding the influence of art and music on our understanding and representation of time and space in nature), and the importance of ritual and magic in many primitive religions (calling to mind some of Bruce Sterling’s condemnations of magic on day 1 of the conference). (Gumption)

Predestination: Loca and mobile surveillance

Imagine that you are walking down the street when you hear a beep from your phone.  You see a message reading:

“You were in a flower shop and spent 30 minutes in the park; are you in love?”

The thing is – you were in the flower shop an hour ago and then you did go to the park for half an hour!

How would you react to this message? How would it make you feel? (loca-lab.org)

Well, I’m not sure how I’d feel. “Creeped-out” comes to mind. But as soon as I found out that these strange stalker-like text-messages were part of a city-wide art project, I’d probably feel pretty cool and want to learn more.

Loca, “an artist-led interdisciplinary project on mobile media and surveillance,” uses a network of Bluetooth nodes scattered around the city to track the movements of anyone with a Bluetooth-enabled device. The tracking data is fed into a database, which is then parsed according to “urban semantics” to make guesses about what the tracked individual is up to. The system then sends a potentially relevant message to the subject, such as the “are you in love?” question above.

See also: John Krumm’s talk at Ubicomp 2006, “Predestination: Inferring Destination from Partial Trajectories” (.pdf).

If it Bleeds, it Leads

Caleb Larsen’s Monument (If it Bleeds, it Leads), scans XML news feeds for references to deaths and death-tolls, then “memorializes” these events by squirting little yellow BBs onto the floor of the gallery where the project is installed. Larsen describes the project as a playful exploration of the “media’s fixation with tragedy:”

In this piece a computer program continuously scans the headlines of 4,500 English-language news sources around the world, looking for people who have been reported killed. Each time it finds an article, an algorithm determines the number of deaths, and instructs a ceiling-mounted mechanism built from Legos to drop one yellow BB per person. During the course of the installation, BBs will accumulate on the floor, contributing to an ever-growing constellation, ultimately forming a sort of monument. At the beginning of an installation the pellets will be sparsely scattered around the space, and by the end they will form a dense and chaotic arrangement, with errant BBs traveling throughout the building.

There is an inherent dichotomy between the playfulness of the materials: the Legos, the bright yellow balls, the cake-pan BB hopper, and the sobering reality of the subject matter. This tension is combined with the viewer’s natural inclination to expect and desire activity from a kinetic sculpture. However, that desire represents a morbid reality in that every time the mechanism drops a ball, a real person has died. Thus a confusing ethical situation exists; the viewer finds himself secretly and selfishly waiting for someone to be killed only so that he can watch a little yellow ball bounce around on the floor. On the same note, there exists a certain reassurance when the piece displays little activity. (caleblarsen.com)

Via Rhizome.org

Secret Banksy Show Location Revealed

Well, it’s “official.” If you’re in LA, go check it out:

Night Swim

This is right around the corner from where I live, so I’m definitely going to try to make it out. September 30th, 7pm to 7am, at the Trinity Bellwoods Community Centre swimming pool in Toronto:

NIGHT SWIM is a cross between a sound and light installation, a music festival and a swimming pool party which will be held from sunset till sunrise at the Trinity Bellwoods Community Centre swimming pool in Toronto on Saturday September 30, 2006. Architect and artist Christie Pearson, co-organizer of the highly successful WADE festivals of performance art in Toronto’s public wading pools, has transformed this much loved downtown public swimming pool into a shimmering, reflective dream-space for one night only. Wire contributor Marcus Boon has invited sound artists, musicians and DJs to produce site specific works and sets in a sound environment designed by sound designer Darren Copeland, which will include underwater microphones and speakers. The event is free and open all night – visitors can swim (bring your bathing suit, towels provided!), lounge in the kiddies’ pool, or hang out in the bleachers and around the pool, soaking up the sound and light. 120 people in the pool at a time maximum – first come, first served!

Sounds: Montreal dirty beats by Ghislain Poirier and colossal drone-scapes by Tim Hecker; loops by Beijing-based creators of the Buddha Machine FM3; heavy ambient sounds by Boston-based Keith Fullerton Whitman a.k.a Hravatski; turntablist-composer Marina Rosenfeld and experimental tribal rhythmist Raz Mesinai from New York; from Toronto, electronic composer and improvisor Sarah Peebles, Sandro Perri/Polmo Polpo’s indie funk, sexy nocturnal grooves with Luis Jacob, baile funk, grime and dancehall from Geoff Snack, a.k.a. DJ Showcase Showdown, and ecstatic sustained tones by Orixasound.

Semiotic Disobedience: Anti-Advergames

Persuasive Games has carved out a niche for itself making distinctive educational, political and promotional game experiences. Their most recent effort, an “anti-advergame” called Disaffected!, “puts the player in the role of employees forced to service customers under the particular incompetences common to a Kinko’s store.” This playful anti-corporate agit-prop recently caught the attention Rob Walker in the New York Times Magazine’s Consumed column:

Skepticism about, and mockery of, the claims of commercial persuasion has a long history. And “Disaffected!” shows how the sophistication, goals and tactics of both admakers and anti-admakers have escalated in tandem. It can also be seen as an example of what Sonia Katyal, a Fordham University law professor, calls “semiotic disobedience” in an article to be published this fall in the Washington University Law Review. (NYTMag)

Persuasive’s other games suggest a deep commitment to mining the activist potential in interactive “diversions.” Here’s a small sample from their website:

Airport Insecurity – a game about inconvenience and the tradeoffs between security and rights in American airports. While the government wants you to believe that increased protection and reduced rights are necessary to protect you from terrorism, the effectiveness of airport security practices is uncertain.

Take Back Illinois – Sponsored by the Illinois GOP, Take Back Illinois challenged players to explore four issues surrounding the 2004 state elections: Medical Malpractice Reform, Education Reform, Grassroots Activism, and Economic Reform. Take Back Illinois was a 2005 Slamdance Independent Game Festival Finalist.

Activism, The Public Policy Game – Sponsored by the DCCC and released during the height of the 2004 general election, players are challenged to balance six public policy issues with limited time and resources. (Persuasive Games)

Via Grand Text Auto

TorGame’s Waking City

TorGame’s Waking City project is about to kick off, and looks to be a pretty thorough ARG effort set in the Big Smoke:

Waking City is a game unlike any other game you’ve ever played. Its setting is your everyday life. It takes place over phone calls, e-mails and letters — but more than anything, it takes place on the streets of Toronto. For two weeks in September, teams of 4-7 players will pound the pavement, solving fiendish puzzles, uncovering Toronto’s secret history, and interacting with the agents of a vast and ancient conspiracy. They’ll feel the tug of mystery, the fun of exploration, and thrill of being part of a dynamically unfolding plot. Watch the trailer! (TorGame)

Panthea at BlogTO has a good interview with TorGame founder David Fono. Here’s a snip:

What was the overall driving vision behind Waking City?
Our overall vision is to encourage exploration of public spaces, and to help build community through fostering a better understanding of the city. And to do that in a very fun way. From a game design perspective, we’re very focused on finding ways to convey a narrative that seamlessly blends into “real life.”

What do you think players will get out of the experience?
1) A better sense of the city, from having explored it.
2) The feeling that they’re the protagonists in an exciting story.
3) A lot of unforgettable memories.

Will there be interaction between the teams?
Not so much at first. But as the game progresses, teams will be brought together more and more. Part of our driving vision is the idea of fostering community, and that’s very much a part of the way the game will play out. (BlogTO)

There’s been a lot of coverage about this in the past month or so, and according to TorGame’s website, registration is now closed thanks to a healthy public response. I wasn’t planning on being in Toronto for the game, but now that it looks like I might be there after all… (registered teams in search of a member can email me at remotedevice at gmail dot com)