PsiOp Radio

ARG or NOT – Gaming the Conspiracy

The Majestic Game, Interactive Media Environments, and a New Turing Test: Blurring the Boundaries Between Virtual and Real by Damian Ward Hey

There is something potentially more disturbing going on here than the participation in a murder mystery in which you get e-mailed by a simulated murderer or voice-mailed by a screaming, simulated soon-to-be victim. There is the looming threat of Baudrillardian hyperrealism.

Howard Rheingold comments that “hyper-realists see the use of communications technologies as a route to the total replacement of the natural world” and that:

The most radical of the hyper-realist political critics charge that the wonders of communications technology skillfully camouflage the disappearance and subtle replacement of true democracy — and everything else that used to be authentic, from nature to human relationships, — with a simulated, commercial version. …

Why torture people [political dissidents, or other ‘trouble-makers’] when you can get them to pay for access to electronic mind-control? (Rheingold, 2000, pp. 317-318)

The danger that alarmists fear is that the simulation will become socially and politically more “real” than real life situations whose contexts are buoyed by actual socially overdetermining economic, political, religious, etc., institutions. People will then begin reacting more en masse to the inconsequential world of simulation than to the real world. When this happens, the argument goes, one of two things, and possibly both, will occur: 1). The economy and socio-political structure of our society will collapse because people are producing in simulated situations rather than “actual” ones and/or 2) The wily hegemony of our society will further the narrative and blur the ability to distinguish between reality and simulation, whereby, as seen in the Rheingold passage, “electronic mind-control” will be exerted by the same hegemony over the hapless worker-inhabitants of simulated realms.

• Proceedings of the Media Ecology Association

Lance Strate, “Media Ecology as a Scholarly Activity” (President’s Address) … “The Majestic Game, Interactive Media Environments, and a New Turing Test: … www.media-ecology.org

• Alternate Reality Games: Daily Narratives Turn Into Interactive …

The Game concerns the redemption of its main character, turning him into more of …. a test bed for experimenting and prototyping new ways to communicate, … www.masternewmedia.org

Ty Brown’s “Dream’s End Web” of ParaPolitical and Paranormal Investigations

• Dream’s End Web v 3.0 (September 06 – )
• Dream’s End Archive v 2.0 (November 06 – )
• Dream’s End Archive v 1.0 (January 04 – February 05)

About ARGs

• Alternate Reality Game – wikipedia
• Alternate Reality Games in Virtual Spaces
• Redefining The Real by James Curcio – Alterati’s ARGTalk Feed
• Viral Media: How It Can Word in Education (Living Document)
• The Majestic Game, Interactive Media Environments, and a New Turing Test: Blurring the Boundaries Between Virtual and Real by Damian Ward Hey (PDF / HTML)
• Game Ontology
• GAME THEORY; Tracking an Elusive Film Game Online – New York Times
• GAME THEORY; It’s Just a Fantasy, but Real Life Is Always in Play …
• The hottest ARG ever: lonelygirl15
• Gamers, flash mobs, and London — the Perplex City Academy Games
• ARG number-crunching
• New J.J. Abrams flick promoted with ARG
• SXSW 2007 – ARG! The Attack of the Alternate Reality Games – Transcript
• Alternate Reality Games SIG: SXSW 2007 – ARG! The Attack of the …
• Let’s Be Serious: Non-Casual Investigations into Alternate Reality Gaming and heggen_noncasual_ARG.pdf
• Welcome to the ARG SIG
• ARG SIG Whitepaper 2006 – PDF or Latest version (with updates) in Wiki format
• Hewlett Viral Media Research Project
• Soapbox: ARGs and How to Appeal to Female Gamers
• BOUNDARYSPACES : Majestic and the uncertain status of knowledge,  community and self in a digital age by T. L. Taylor a and Beth E. Kolkob (PDF) – (View as HTML)

ARG Blogs

• Alternate Reality Games SIG – IGDA
• Cross-media Entertainment
• Deus Ex Machinatio
• Dan Hon’s ARG posts at Extenuating Circumstances
  
• Mind Candy

ARGs (for activism, agendas, education and entertainment)

A.I.’s “The Beast”

• CloudMakers.org

Chasing The Wish

• Chasing The Wish

Majestic

Majestic Controversy

• Majestic Art of Mind Kontrol

ATS – AboveTopSecret Controversy

• COINTELPRO Updates: Above Top Secret Forum
• Shawnna, SERPO, and ATS
  

Neurocam

• N E U R O C A M
• Neurocam International – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• neurocam operatives exchange’s JournalWhat is Neurocam? (Comments)
• Entering shadowy world of neurocam – www.theage.com.au

VUE – Viral University Education

• Viral University Education (vue)

World Without Oil

• World Without Oil

More ARG Links

• ARGN.com
• TheArgSite.com
• ArgNetCast.info
• Unfiction.com
• Argitect.com and its aggregator
• DeadDrop.us – “A resource dedicated to Puppet Masters”
• halo.wikibruce.com/Home
• ilb.extrasonic.com/index.php/ARG
• HeroesARG.com
• MirlanDano.com/arg-quickstart.html
• Peter Greenaway’s ARG
• arg-irc.net

Hoax Culture

Art World

Culture Jamming

Interviews:

• Joseph Matheny – Cultural Provocateur – MediaKaos – FringeWare

Govt / Intel Disinfo / PsyOps

• The Project SERPO Disinfo Gambit

Players

Ben Mack

Joseph Matheny

Chris Titan

More Alternative Sites from within these circles

• The Incunabula Catalog: Frequency 2001-2012 with D.W. Cooper, and the mysterious cyber-hacker-shaman known as Sinn Blayme at www.SirBacon.org
• Techno§hamanic and The Techno§hamanic Oa§i§ – tribe.net
• Ho§ted by §TaRe and Meme-§tream 2.3

911 Truth

• Awoken Research Group Posted by Pale Rider in GPC – GreyLodge (September ’05)

   

  Libertythink founder: VALIS is back with A R G (www.archive.org)

• Conspiracy Cults and 2012: Catching Up With Wade Inganamort – Alterati (May ’07)
  

Alterati Forum – valis