m3 " the final word" 5/13/02

M3 History 01 02 03

notes after december 1998

Game Machine: okay; then it really must be a game. before I get to the juicy stuff, here's a brief 2 paragraph game rap (please feel free to skip past; I'm probably way behind you two in this sort of consideration):

1. Games (and I’m thinking of very young childrens games like hide & seek; ring-around-the-rosie; london bridges etc) have a cycle of play (i.e. the game proceeds until everyone is out or the loser replaces the winner replaces the loser until everyone tires of the game (or it gets too dark to play).

2. In such games the players have inter-dependant relationships which facilitate movement, sequence, and duration. Furthermore, as the program progresses so does the anticipation, enthusiasm, suspensfulness, and apprehension of the players with regard to each individual’s continuing ability to stay in rapport with the others that the group entity may complete its task.

This, of course, is just one model of “game” but it made me think “what exactly is the relationship between Room 2 and Room 1; what makes it significant as a game?”

yesterday, i went up to sf to see laura, we talked about m3 — actually talked about m3 proper — imagine that. she's cool to the idea of explicitly dealing with “play” and “game” because they’re terminally trendy right now. i agreed that they may be trendy (is that true?) but i thought we have much deeper things to say about these notions. laura also said that the ideas raised so far about m3 are just revisiting ideas all the way back to m1. i said, so what? — i think we haven’t actually worked out the potential in a lot of the past ideas, like system and exogenous. rule script improv play (in matter and in human gesture). she agreed. but she also wanted to bring in what i call more field-like or topological perceptual images: like her MRI hallucinations, and also some fantastic images built out of aquatic lifeforms.

i agreed that those forms have weird otherworldly (to us landlubber humans) textures and dynamics that we could use to great effect in abstracted form in dig video, etc., i thought that:

1. these are just at the level of perception -- what are the big philosophical/ethical/affective themes at stake?

2. to advance the anti-object, anti-system campaign (two of my personal projects), i suggested that it still makes sense to START with a playroom with objects, ostensibly, apparently about rules, and then undermine it by the notions/experiences. eg. by moving to reconstructions of gestures by computer algortihm or by performer, and to smooth/continuous fieldlike patterns like the aquatic stuff, fibreoptic video, projections into water,sand, smoke, synthetic surface, etc.

The following is my Uncensored ‘What If’ Scenario for GameMachine;
A small antechamber (which for convenience I call Warm-Up) opens into Room 1 which opens into Room 2 which opens into another area I call Rest Zone. Warm-Up is the place of preparation and meditation. Room 1 is the place of learning and practice; Room 2 is the site of the Game; Rest Zone is the place of reflection, conversation, and strategy.

1. Group A waits in the Warm-Up.


2. Group A enters Room 1. They encounter stuff and do whatever they do. For a limited period of time, 10m say.


3. Kids exit 1 and enter Room 2. The seating is elevated on all 4 sides (think medical theater or stadium). They watch the kick-off so to speak of the Game as our performers execute the first movement - I'm thinking something simple and “classic” like KP to K4. Again, a time limit, 5 m say.


4. Meanwhile, at the commencement of 3, Group B enters Room 1; 10 m etc.


5. Group A exits and enters a Rest Zone. For the moment let’s not worry about practicalities, but assume that this cycle actually functions. What I find interesting is the possibility of a Player eventually replacing a Performer in the Game.