[-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23

[Irina Contreras]

Hello,

I have been trying to follow this month as gaming and game creation (though
through a more performative lens perhaps?) is something that interests me
and guides my work quite a bit these days.

Just wanted to point people towards this LOL, which is a queer person of
color maker/hacker space in Oakland. I have been meaning to do the
programming workshops that happen there and I know as many spaces they are
always looking for help/donations etc.

http://oaklandmakerspace.wordpress.com/

What this also brings me to partially around this question of inherent
politics and thus maybe who does gaming and who doesn't, which I think is
some of what I was reading...?

Another huge part is I wonder where secrecy fits? I know that a lot of
people, I think might be coming from angles of academia and tech world
nuances/gaming culture etc but what about the places of possibility that
may not lend one's self to being visible.

Not sure anyone will have anything to say about that but I wanted to put it
out there! As a novice, this is something I think about or wonder about.

Thanks!

Irina


On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 7:53 AM, Felan Parker <felan.parker at hotmail.com>wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> I'd like to hear more from the practitioners on this, but a few thoughts
> in response to Rob.
>
> First, while Twine is clearly part of a longer tradition of interactive
> fiction and hypertext, I don't really see how that constitutes a
> "recapitulation of the status quo." These have always been marginalized
> practices, and don't represent any kind of hegemonic force.
>
> Second, the Twine new wave has been constituted in distinct communities of
> practice and reception from those early text-based gaming traditions. For
> the most part these are new artists are adopting these tools, and new
> audiences are being exposed to text-based games (thanks in part to the
> accessibility of the end product compared to a lot of earlier IF software).
> Kara's earlier post clearly demonstrated the value in this accessibility.
>
> Third, I think it is insufficient to say that Twine games are "the same"
> as these earlier traditions or merely a "recapitulation". Sure, there are
> plenty of Twine games that operate in familiar IF genres (The Matter of the
> Great Red Dragon for example: http://fearoftwine.com/14.html), but the
> games that have become most strongly associated with the platform are
> weird, queer, honest, and experimental. In the broadest terms, these games
> may share the "forms" of earlier IF and hypertext, but their content is
> distinct and they have a specific aesthetic sensibility and political
> orientation.
>
> Consider porpentine's Howling Dogs (
> http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/howlingdogs/howlingdogs.html#2o)
> and HIGH END CUSTOMIZABLE SAUNA EXPERIENCE (
> http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twine/sauna.html), or Merrit Kopas'
> Conversations With My Mother (
> http://mkopas.net/files/conversations/conversations.html), or Hannah
> Epstein's PsXXYborg (https://www.facebook.com/PsxxYborg), or Kara's
> recently-released Cyborg Goddess (http://cyborg-goddess.com). I could go
> on, but you get the idea. Why would we want to dismiss these weird and
> wonderful works? I wouldn't dismiss a new comic artist because she
> "recapitulates" the form of earlier comics. I am honestly confused.
>
> Felan
>
> > Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 21:00:05 -0700
> > From: rob at robmyers.org
> > To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 112, Issue 23
> >
> > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> > On 28/03/14 07:48 AM, Felan Parker wrote:
> > >
> > > Twine is a very different beast from Game Maker or Unity.
> >
> > It is. It is however not a very different beast from Storyscape. And its
> > users recapitulating the forms of 80s interactive fiction and 90s
> > interactive multimedia using it is a good example of my argument.
> >
> > - Rob.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
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>
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