Bientôt l'été

Here's a strange poetic meditation inspired by a opaque french adventure game

Not sure if this is tongue in cheek or not, but it's weirdly beautiful and make we want to play the game too!

Audigraft at OVADA

I'm standing in OVADA's empty warehouse space, buffeted between two sonic installations. Upstairs, snippets of speech, laughter, jingles and electronic twitterings are emitted from an array of tiny, tinny speakers. I'm reminded of 90s samplists like Meat Beat Manifesto (who's use of commercials and public service announcements has been influential) and Scanner (who appropriated private conversation using a CB radio). The artist here, Ben Gwilliam, studies at Oxford Brooke's. It's apocalyptic, deranged and unnerving; the sound of civilisation breaking down. 

The other, constant, rumbling, thunderous noise  comes from an imposing circular tower of cardboard boxes. Walking inside through an opening, the sound is less organic, more fractal; the appearance of thousands of ping pong balls on wires attached to motors create a link to the rumble machines of futurist Luigi Russolo.  Another visitor compared it to a giant hive, invisible workers beavering meaninglessly away, producing nothing but sound.  It's empty, hollow, sinister. Its creator, Zimoun, is from Bern, Switzerland, and is interested in that tension between the natural and mechanical in modern life.

The most inventive and complex of the sound installations is a Lego Technics construction which constantly churns out acid techno. 

The device, built by Alex Allmont, resembles the set of a Sci fi film, rows of gears and moving parts made out of colourful Lego blocks. The hundreds of cogs and mess of wires and chips are plugged into an M303 which was used for tracks like Josh Winks Higher State of Consciousness and Chime by Orbital. Here it creates languidly evolving soundscapes thanks to the mechanisms slowly, almost imperceptibly, twisting its banks of knobs.  It's a clever, whimsical piece, and the sounds it makes are as hypnotic as the colourful, intricate machinery that produces them.

Also in this collection of sound generating devices is a recording of Christina Kubisch's magnetic sound recordings, made with specially doctored magnetic headphones which pick up the constant fluctuation of electromagnetic waves in our environment. Hear you can hear recordings from a bank, "public transport" and a sinister of a security system. Her work can be further explored over the next week by visiting Oxford Brookes  university.

These pieces are part of audiograft, an annual celebration of sonic sculpture and experimental music.

The brothers

I keep meaning to plug "2 brothers", a really sweet and innovative indie game from Denmark (I think!)

It's mythological,y influenced story features two young boys who've lost a mum and fear losing their dad to sickness. They go looking for a cure and along the way have to outwit trolls, ride goats and solve puzzles. The great twist is that the brothers must cooperate in this platform environment, and each brother must be controlled by a user, making it a truly collaborative game.

Whilst mostly free of overt violence it did have some grizzly scenes, however these reflected its Norse storytelling origins. It also had sympathetic female characters who actually had personality and intelligence! Just a shame they didn't allow for two sisters too.

Highly recommended with beautiful scenery, jaw dropping set pieces and some genuinely tense, sad and scary moments.

The city song

Just 'played' the city song on ipad. Designed by endless loops and cfc media labs it's an interactive music video using tweets and a simple game to unlock pictures of an ordinary family. Made me think of my own love, Martine, who's moved back to Oslo. It was a nice break from nutty animal blaring noise and anime graphics. Sent a tweet, so who knows, maybe it'll end up in the game...

are messages in gaming harmful?

"The inherent interactivity of videogames, I believe, makes moral messages more effective, because it’s unto the player in the end to initiate it. Reading a book or interpreting a movie doesn’t quite compare to enacting something yourself, even if it is in a virtual manner."

Read more: http://dispatches.cheatcc.com/597#ixzz2nOYjgX9v 
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives"

the rise of Compassionate Gaming?

This new Scientist article caught my eye; it examines a few recent games (namely the Arma2 Mod DayZ) which reintroduce compassion or at least morali decision making into FPS games:

"In one video, for example, two players try to decide whether or not to shoot a third approaching in the distance. "Please turn around, please turn around," one of them says. But the third player keeps approaching, they shoot, and then they talk through their guilt. "I didn't want to shoot them." "Me either! But you know what happens when we don't shoot first."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24325-buttonmasher-the-rise-of-consequences-in-video-games.html#.Um2RWnB7J8E

Other games such as Fable from Lionhead studios and Star Wars: The Old Republic allow gamers to make choices which will develop the character in 'good' or 'evil' directions, but this is one of only a handful of Multiplayer games which force users to question the morality of killing.

Alter Ego: 7 Ages of Woman/Man

This 1986 branching expert system was marketed as a game, and is a precursor to The Sims and other non-violent sociological games.  I investigated it after reading about it in my history of computer games (citation needed) and saw especially that it purported to contain material from "Dr" Tim Leary.

it's a multichoice questionnaire which takes you through infancy,m childhood, adolescence etc, asking you how you would behave in certain situations - future situations are dictated by previous choices, thus allowing for statistics to be drawn up which in turn decide whether certain attempts (to chat up boys for an e.g.) are successful or not.

Despite being only text and radio buttons, the situations and responses are entertaining, penetrating and amusing, a sort of grown up Leisure Suit Larry.

you can play an online version here: http://www.playalterego.com/alterego

there's an interview with one of the contributors here: http://www.gnomeslair.com/2007/03/few-gnomish-questions-dr-peter-favaro.html