fisharepeopletoo

What a story is, is a complicated space.

"A story is a complicated space."

A computer scientist, Stephen Cresswell, who specialises in AI planning, said that to me in the pub yesterday while we were talking about the sort of AI related things we've been talking about for a few months.

At first, thinking about a story as a complicated space, I thought that a Chekhov short story, for example, was a much more complicated space than a ghost story.

But maybe they are just different kinds of complication.

A Chekhov story has more depth, or density, of complication, or, each "agent" in the "society of agents" has more history, or more potential for characteristic but emergent behaviour, so the complicated space can be mapped onto a much smaller plot landscape.

As you can tell, I'm making this up as I go along now!

And of course in a Chekhov story the potential for characteristic but emergent behaviour is an illusion, the agents behave how Chekhov makes them behave - it's the illusion that provides the suspense? - but no less brilliant or truthful for that.

But, Stephen and me are going to write a complicated space, to see what happens in it.

Playmakers and Rule Sets #playmakers

I watched the documentary Playmakers last week.

It's a very entertaining and funny film that brings together lots of good reference points for "pervasive games" or "playful social experiences in public space".

(The subject is still so happily undecided that there is no name to cover even Barg/iglab/Sandpit and all the things that could be at home there.)

One of the questions the film asked was "Why now for this stuff?" and answering "why now?" was a part where I might have added more than is in Playmakers.

The reason being that I think the answer to "why now" is portable gadgets, going right back to the Sony Walkman and ghetto blasters (and for fun why not include skateboards?), because they've made people sharply aware of the unsaid, invisible, unconscious rules of acting in public spaces.

Everyone has these experience daily - the rules are being negotiated, or not, on the fly.

I was in a cafe the other day where there were lots of people working on laptops, me included, with phones on the tables, so this was a place where the agreed rules clearly are "this place has been colonised by people who come here to work, which means they'll need to talk on phones sometimes", but when one bloke's work-related conversation went on past what seemed to me, without having any idea how long it had been, like a reasonable length of time I started to get pissed off, thinking "why don't you go outside? There are people trying to work in here!".

But how on earth were we going to find out exactly what the rules were in order to stick by them, or not?

The rules aren't new, they were always there, and we don't need them written down, we never have, but portable gadgets make us conscious of them, everywhere, all the time.

A mobile phone is an X ray machine for the rules of public spaces.

Quiet coaches on trains are an example of what happens when these negotiations on the fly come up against rules to make the rules non negotiable.

I hate sitting in quiet coaches because you always know that someone is going to break the "no mobiles" rule, which means everyone else is going to feel like they ought to say something to them, not because they are bothered by mobiles, but because of an instinctive sense of fairness - if I have to stick to the rules, so do you.

That makes it sound like mobile phones challenge the "rules" in a trivial way, and that not using your phone in the quiet coach is just bowing down to The Man.

But in fact it's the other way round.

This emotion of wanting to punish rule breakers connects with game theory as it's understood in biology, economics and politics - that we've evolved to cooperate, and are very good at it, and don't need anyone except ourselves to police cooperation, but one of the conditions of cooperation is to punish "defectors", people who try to get the benefit of cooperation without paying the costs (for example if you want to conserve and share irrigation water amongst small farmers, what you need is either lots of policemen with guns and a legal and prison system, or a long standing traditional rule set for making clear, agreed quotas and for publicly shaming people who break them - this year's nobel prize for economics was for the study of rule sets for collective action).

One of the things that I like about Charter Cities is that it brings an awareness of the power of rule sets, and the way they operate - that the outcomes are always emergent, and you can never write enough rules to proscribe all the possible outcomes - into politics, saying (this is my sneaky paraphrase) that you can't dictate good ends, just put good rule sets (good means) in place and wait to see what happens.

And if you looked at contemporary Britain, what you'd probably say, if you were honest, was "it's not fair." The rule set has got messed up somehow. Or ignored. Or it's too easy to defect and get away with it.

In fact, once you start looking at the world through a lens of looking for rule sets, it's quite hard to stop seeing them all over the place, everywhere from nature to how we act in cafes. What is so coherent and timely about Barg/iglab/Sandpit is that they let us rehearse, and have fun with, our observation and negotiation of rule sets.

I know that is quite a lot to claim for a mobile phone to have revealed. But I guess if it's an iphone?

La Noche de los Muertos and igfest 09

I'd been waiting to write about igfest 09 till I'd photographed and uploaded the Book of Monsters, but seeings as it's nearly 2 months later and I still haven't had chance, here we go...

I played La Noche de los Muertos on the Friday evening. I'd never taken part in one of the city-wide chase games before, so there was some "always remember the first time" added awe from not knowing what to expect, but it was wonderful.

The Day of the Dead theme was the perfect clothing for the chase structure (which is to navigate from point to point across a city centre while being chased by baddies).

I wouldn't want to understate the pure joy of being chased around by zombies, but what really made it was the thoroughness and detail with which the Day of the Dead theme was carried through, and the care, wit and artistry that had been put into the little theatrical events at each checkpoint.

From the zombie Mariachi band to play us off, to the Zombie Marilyn in her grotto singing Happy Deathday Mr President to the red London bus ride to the cemetery at the end, the amount of effort that had gone into these was fantastic, and each checkpoint really did feel like a reward for getting so far.

At the final checkpoint we all made ourselves skeleton masks so that we could be ancestors of the dead, and this was a nice touch as well, involving our artistry in the making of the event, and making a keepsake, as well as "making" meaning to be there as an audience.

I took my god daughter Cherry along, and 14 was a great age to do something like this because she was happy to throw herself into screaming the loudest and running the fastest while keeping up just enough teenage coolness, and that made it even more unselfconsciously fun for me.

The final section was a walk through the very spooky and overgrown Arnos Vale cemetery at night, which was a great location, more of a damp, decaying wood with broken gravestones between the trees than an ordered graveyard, and one that I was glad to have seen just in itself.

Right in the middle of the walk through the cemetery me and Cherry managed a horror film moment so comic-dumb you couldn't have scripted it by slowing down because we thought we'd seen a zombie in the trees, then realising by the light of mobile phones that "it's only a statue" just as two real zombies jumped out from the other side of the track, which had us both screaming so loud (I changed mine into a  pretend  scream almost straight away of course) that it left everyone, living and undead, rolling around on the floor laughing.

The rest of the weekend I spent on Free All Monsters! The igfest base was in a great spot on a busy walkway next to the harbour, which made it very open to passers-by who just happened to be on an afternoon out and looking for something to do.  Most of these very warm pictures are from igfest and a good guide to the sunny feel of the whole weekend.




Big thank yous to the Simons and Helen for igfest and Clare Reddington for a space on La Noche de los Muertos at the last minute.

An email from a student signed with xxx

We collected some lovely, strange and sad things yesterday playing 100 Things at Sandpit at Battersea Arts Centre.

The messages reminded me of Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara

And it is surprising how much concentration is needed to think of a thing that has happened, especially a visual one, even on the same day.

You have to find a starting point and replay your day, almost like rewinding a film, but then something will jump out. It seems an illuminating process though, judging by the loveliness of some of the things.

I worked with some clinical psychologists once, and they were very keen on the difference between concrete and abstract memories. People who are feeling unhappy tend to remember in abstract terms - "That was a horrible time." - rather than remembering the detail of things that happened.

So maybe playing 100 Things is a good brain training exercise.

Try it out. Here are the rules.

And here are some things that happened on the 19th October 2009:

An italian waiter repeatedly whistling the same christmas carol. His colleague shouts at him in angry italian but he carries on regardless

A 15 year old boy in an RE lesson. He is manipulating his genitals. The teacher tells him to stop. "but i've got a wedgy sir."

I saw a workman's trench with a man's face down in it. He was very still. I couldn't tell whether he was working or asleep.

Two men stand outside a balti house. The older man teaches the younger man. 'Good afternoon gents, can i interest you in some lunch?' he says.

A man shook out a rug in a Bristol back garden.

and this one, my favourite of all:

A girl on the tube going to work falls asleep on a man's shoulder. As soon as she realises she stands abruptly and gets off a stop early.

more things on Flickr

100 things are enough for any day.

at Sandpit, Battersea Arts Centre, tonight, 19th October, more info here

Don't comment. Don't judge. The rules of 100 things.

You are a reporter. You are not a historian.

You are a reporter.

Think of something you've seen today.

Like this: a mum takes her toddler down onto the narrow strip of shingle in front of the Royal Festival Hall at low tide to pee into the Thames

Start a text with BAC then a space.

Describe what you saw.
Remember the details that only
a witness would know.
Don't comment. Don't judge.
Write no more than 160 characters.

Like this: An old lady eating a fish. A fried fish on a white tray, no chips, in a doorway out of the rain, breaking bits off. Her pink bonnet like a 40s film star’s.

Send your text to Thumbprint
(it only costs the same as texting your friend's phone)

Each text that comes in will be written
on a blackboard in BAC.
It will only last until the next
message arrives.

What you write will be completely anonymous.
You can be as personal or intimate as you like.

If we reach 100 we will stop.
100 things is enough for any day. 

You are not a historian.

[at Sandpit at Battersea Arts Centre, Monday 19th October, from 7.00pm, more info here]

Free All Monsters!

Free All Monsters! is a game for children, families and even grown ups.

You'll use a Magical Monstervision Machine to look for invisible monsters living in the streets around you, then answer questions about the monsters to show your monster spotting skills, and set free your own monsters for other players to find.

To play Free All Monsters! you'll need a Magical Monstervision Machine, a Monster Spotter's Guide for the place you want to look for monsters, and some felt tip pens and paper.

Follow the picture clues on your Monster Spotter's Guide, and they will lead you to monsters that live in the streets around you.

Photos of players at Hide and Seek, London, and igfest, Bristol by Liz Milner, Paul Coulton and Andrew Wilson.

 

When you get close to a monster's lair, use the Magical Monstervision Machine to look for the monster.

When you see the monster, look at it very carefully.

On your Spotter's Guide you will find some questions about the monster, to test your monsterology skills.

First you have to answer a question to show that you have watched the monster carefully, then you have to add scientific knowledge by coming up with a new theory to answer a question such as “ Where does this monster go on holiday and what does it do there?”

Even though some monsters look very fierce and scary, they are really very old creatures who look after the places where they live, so they should never be captured or harmed, just watched.

Every monster that you find was set free by somebody else, and when you have finished looking for monsters you can set free some monsters of your own.

All you need to set free monsters is your imagination and some felt tip pens, paper and anything else you want to use to make a monster.

 

When you have set free your monster it can be made part of the game for other people to find using the Magical Monstervision Machine.

Where Do Monsters Live?

Monsters live outside, in the streets, squares and parks of the places where you go everyday or go to visit sometimes. The monsters live there all the time, in the cold and wind and rain as well as on warm sunny days.

The places where monsters live are the places where everyone should be able to go, and the job of the monsters is to guard those places, and make sure they are always open, free and welcoming for anyone who wants to go there.

Wherever you find a monster, it means that somebody cares about that place, and has set free a monster to live there and guard it.

Where Do Monsters Come From?

“No Gods, just Monsters!”

There haven't always been towns and cities, full of people hurrying to and fro to school or work.

Where now stand shops, factories and offices were once streams, woods and hillsides.

And every one of those places, even the loneliest tree standing by itself on the moors, had a monster to guard it.

The place belonged to the monster, and the monster belonged to the place.

So when towns and cities were built, the monsters had to stay, trapped under the tall buildings made of brick and stone and concrete.

And there they remained, for 200 years.

Until now.

Because the monsters have got very grumpy.

They are fed up of people walking on top of them, and they are really fed up of people squashing them under big, heavy cars.

They want to live on the streets in the places that belong to them, the places where they used to live, a long time ago.

Every time you play Free All Monsters!, whether you are using the Magical Monstervision Machine or setting free your own monsters for other people to find, you are helping to make a world that has monsters living in it again.

And that is a much better place for people to live in as well!

 

Children, families and grown ups have been setting free monsters in Manchester, in London at Sandpit and Hide and Seek, in Bristol at igfest, in Austin, and in Leeds at Pavilion gallery.

Secret Gardens, Things with Souls and Folk Processes

I went to Ars Electronica for a few days earlier this month (thanks to the lovely arts council) which was fantastic I thought.

There was so much to see that I didn't do it all justice once round, and I'd happily have gone round everything again when I had.

So this isn't really any sort of measured judgement, more of a "I liked this. And this. Oh, and this. And this."

The only judgement I've made is to put what I liked into three groups, themed around what I'm interested in, which is probably why I liked them in the first place.

Secret Gardens

The wooden walkway on top of the OK building – turning a rooftop into a secret garden that took us within touching distance of a church spire, out over the streets and past the smell of cakes coming out of the air conditioning ducts from a bakery below.

 

 

 

I liked the secret meadows that were growing on the rooftop, and on rooftops all over Linz. 

Then down at the other end of the scale was this miniature secret garden, filled up with snow and no bigger than a table top, where tiny fairies lived, if you could find them using a magic lens.

These are terrible photos, but this fish pond, that you could play with and remake by sprinkling gravel:

 

It could also go in the folk processes section, and in fact these headings and the things in them all cross over.

Things with Souls

The were lots of things with souls, from a chair:

to a building:

to a mechanism:

and I think this sense of a world that is alive is going to be a big area for creative technology to play around in.

And of course people have souls. Like this guy: 

who proved that people aren't all that much smarter than robots. Or at least I'm not.

I had a conversation with him, and was amazed by it. He didn't look very real, but because of the AI. I thought to myself “this is stunning, I had no idea that chat bots were so good”, and I had to stop talking to him because I got a bit self conscious thinking, “I'm having a proper chat with a machine.”

 It was only later that I found out that there was a bloke upstairs listening to me and telling the puppet what to reply! Still clever, but not quite what I thought it was.

Folk Processes

These were open spaces where the people taking part made the thing for themselves.

I've previously thought of these as digital archives, but at Ars Electronica there were spaces made by physical interactions by one or more people – there was a nice piece in the sound art retrospective exhibition, for example, in which movement triggered sound, so several people at once would be creating the event, and in the Device Art exhibition the video game with the circular screen hanging in the middle of the room, which two players had to run round in order to see what they were shooting at like a children's playground game (no photos of either of them sadly).

There was this Nam June Paik piece in which you could make sounds in whatever order you wanted from those strips of audio tape stuck to the wall, by running a part from a tape player along them.

And Yoko Ono's very poetic instructions for making music: 

Both of which are from the 60s.

And this net of LED lights strung on threads that you could slide backwards and forwards like beads on an abacus:

 

which took me ages of fighting off little kids to customise. 

Mobile phones are with us in the natural world

"While the mobile user experience may sometimes bring representations of nature to us, I think its more important role is in being with us in the natural world, augmenting not replacing reality. This is a very different role for the internet-enabled mobile device compared to the internet-enabled PC.

And with this role of enhancing nature, the mobile acquires affordances that make it a part of the natural world. It knows where it is, and which way up it is. It responds to our gestures."

That is quite a rich and productive way of thinking about how we use mobile phones, and what mobile phones are, taken from a discussion about mobile user experience and Ruskin's ideas about Gothic.

It stretches out and intertwines its branches quite readily as well.

There is an interesting Steve Benford paper about the difficulty they had with timelines in a game played by text message. It doesn't say so in the paper, but I think that might have been because mobile phones follow a rhythm rather than clock time.

This rhythm comes from the intimacy with which we use them. They are powered by body heat. Mobile phone time shrinks and expands the way person time does.

I wonder if Monsters! is a kind of Gothic augmentation?

Here is a gargoyle to brood on:

"Jimbob I love you from Ming XXX" Helloworld and Speakers' Corner Revived

The Fourth Plinth event on Sunday was a revival of early 00s SMS media art projects like Speaker's Corner and Helloworld among many others (there was another nice one that Media Lab in Dublin did, and one by Jonah Brucker-Cohen as well not so long ago).

But I'd forgotten how warm and lovely these events can be if you get the right feel. Watching on the web cam, the delight of people in the square on seeing their message held up was clear.

More than any other technology (more so even than pen and paper in my opinion), SMS welcomes people to take part.

If you use text messages you invite everyone in, and don't leave anyone outside.

We've lost that a little bit recently in our understanding of how participation happens.

My favourite message was this one:

"luis miguel, wherever you are, you are always in our hearts..."

Whoever wrote that must have turned up for a tourist afternoon on Trafalgar Square, and was given an unexpected and touching few minutes by being able to send it from the Plinth out to someone, somewhere.

And with the benefit of ten years experience, using a whiteboard was even more sweetly engaging than the architectural of Speakers' Corner or the epic of Helloworld.

We could have done it without even using Thumbprint, but it allowed us to archive the messages and add a cute thing with the reply texts which was nice marketing for the SW11 Literature Festival. That was fair to everyone because it was Lorinda from the festival up there on the Plinth!