Grand Text Auto

A lot has been mentioned on here about Indigo Prophecy already – by Andrew, by Noah (1 2), and by commenters who followed up those posts.

I want to add two things: First, an argument that Indigo Prophecy is not an adventure game, and second, a defense of its Simon-like gameplay.

A topic that came up at the UC Irvine symposium – and, actually, before the symposium – is whether Grand Text Auto is a movement along the lines of surrealism, Dada, and the Oulipo. Scott knows all about these movements and things and probably has the definitive word here, but as all of us were discussing, we’re of the opinion that we’re not such a movement. A movement typically promulates manifestos which declare the movement’s intentions and set forth some sort of agenda. That’s not Grand Text Auto at all. As Mary said during the symposium, we’re a manifesto in reverse. We’re united only by our blog, which is at best a system for writing manifestos along with many other other things. It certainly isn’t a manifesto itself.

The Cybertext Yearbooks, starting in the year 2000, have been an outstanding series of anthologies covering one of GTxA’s favorite topics: textual machines. This year, editors Markku Eskelinen and Raine Koskimaa decided to convert the series to a freely-available online database, new additions to which will continue to be released as a series of volumes. As a result, I’m finally getting a chance to read the articles from 2006’s yearbook, Ergodic Histories.

I truly enjoyed every element of the Grand Text Auto show, from the more technologically elaborate pieces requiring special attire (AR Façade, Screen) to the subtly interactive Tableau Machine to the more “standard PC” exhibits of Petz 3, Babyz, non-AR Façade and The Unknown. And, of course, I liked seeing the pieces in which I had a hand as they were viewed and accessed by visitors. But as I’m co-authoring a book about the Atari VCS, a.k.a. Atari 2600, I took special pleasure in getting to use Mary Flanagan’s scaled-up controller for that system, [giantJoystick].

It was great fun to man one element – button or stick – of the massive controller, which is best operated by two people. I may have learned some about interpersonal communication and collaborative play. But I’m sure that I learned a few things about the this controller and various Atari VCS games, things that will inform the critical work I’m doing on this platform.

In the NYTimes today, check out Matt Richtel’s article “Thou Shalt Not Kill, Except in a Popular Video Game at Church.” He describes how ministers and pastors desperate to reach young congregants are using the video game Halo as a recruiting tool…

The designer, artist, and architect “Le Corbusier” may be quite familiar to many of you, the architectural grandaddy (1887-1965) born under the name of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret. Le Corbu altered world architecture forever with his modernist passion for clarity, line, modularity, and what can only be described as ‘legibility.’ His book, The Decorative Art of Today, was a polemic against craft and ornamentation in interior decor (translated by James Dunnett, published by MIT Press in 1987). His other works, The City of Tomorrow and The Modulor series were also published by MIT in translation. His 1925 “Plan Voisin” for Paris, for example, will be a familiar style of modernist urban architecture:

The new Le Corbusier exhibition in Tokyo at the Mori Museum —

The first time all drivers are gathered in the same place at the same time. Version 2.0 GTxA, here we come!

More photos from the fabulous opening on my flickr site.

A brief note of deep gratitude to all who attended the opening and symposium on friday. Fabulous discussion and play! We bloggers learned a great deal from the audience and from each other, not only about our blog but about our creative work and our research agendas. Thanks!

Update: Scott posted additional photos in a flickr set.

Finally, it arrives.

EXHIBITION: Grand Text Auto

LOCATION: The Beall Center for Art and Technology, UC Irvine

OPENING RECEPTION: October 4th, 6:30pm-9:00pm, Beall Center

SYMPOSIUM: October 5th, 1:00-5:00pm, Studio Art Bldg. 712, Room 160, UC Irvine

PERFORMANCE: October 5th, 6:00-8:00pm, Winifred Smith Hall, UC Irvine

I went to the MIT Libraries booksale today, and I got a few things, including some old computer books of the sort I am always looking for.

My haul wasn’t that great, and I wouldn’t have commented upon it under most circumstances. But what was uncanny was that, when I went to shelve them … well, look at the last names of the authors!

You can now download the entries in the 2007 Interactive Fiction Competition. And play them. And vote on them, at any point before November 15. There are 23 games this year for seven platforms. One of them has my favorite name of all the entries, but we’re not supposed to talk about entries during the competition, so I’ll leave it at that. Update: As pointed out below in comments, we can talk. The name that caught my eye was Deadline Enchanter.

We at Grand Text Auto are happy to announce our move to sunny southern California, where we’re now hosted by UC San Diego’s Center for Research in Computing in the Arts. CRCA’s interdisciplinary mission and high-octane crew make it a perfect match. We also want to offer our sincere thanks to the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Literature, Communication, and Culture for hosting us from 2003 to the present.

Also, apologies to you who had trouble reaching the blog over the last week. Some issues arose in the testing and implementation of the move, including our shift to “grandtextauto.org” as our primary domain. Hopefully we’ve finished bumping through that set of potholes…

In addition to the two game-related jobs at UC Santa Cruz, there are a lot of other interesting jobs out there right now. For example, UCLA has two digital humanities faculty positions, and a post-doc.

My eye was also caught by an interesting creative writing job at Eastern Michigan University.

In our two-part Values @ Play Board game Modding Workshop at DiGRA 2007 Sept 25 and 27, Tokyo, Celia Pearce and Tracy Fullerton (representing the Ludica group), and I used the “Grow-a-Game” cards to stir up discussion on incorporating values into game design. This tool seemed to work very well in starting discussion, and will be expanded with the ongoing discussion and suggestions of those who use the cards.

Here is the group at DiGRA modding the card game “Pit.”