keyboard
Since already several years the casemod-movement [that is the hardware-modification scene] has powerfully whiplashed back into the hardware-manufacturing industry. The feedback out of the rows of the 'end-users' stemming from their creativity in the appropriation of computer hardware gave birth to a whole new branch of hardware-/parts-, and peripherals-producers and retailers. Again the main thrust to this development is the computergames-market. The man-machine interfaces obviously are crucial to gaming, so little wonder that new designs, or even innovations pop up in said sector. Interestingly enough the industry's strategy is not to invent completely new kinds of input-devices, but to modify the concept of the keyboard. Gone seem the days which held praise for fancy gadgets like data-gloves—keyboard and mouse are accepted means of navigating through 3D-space. At least culturally accepted by gamers and kin folk, e.g. 3D-modellers. I still hold upright my opinion voiced in an according earlier ↵discussion with orange. Now let's have a look at the new gadgets:
 

An all too transparent strategy: buy a game, in the case of ↵MMORPGs subscribe to an online-account, and buy specific peripheral hardware. That may—may!—work with MMORPGs because of their potential for longtime addiction. But honestly, would you buy a custom-keyboard for ↵Doom III? Some of you would make ones of your own, I know, but would you buy one? And does ↑Fatal1ty need one while he continues winning? ... More versatile seems this concept:
 

Sounds already better to me, but still I am not convinced. Do I really want, or even need to rearrange the keys topographically? No piano player has to. Gamers neither, I guess. And then: I can't type on that keyboard, can I? Seen from my vantage point the most striking recent keyboard-modifications comes not from the industry, not from the casemodding-scene, but close to the latter, from the fringe, too. I am speaking of the ↑Optimus Keyboard straight out of a Russian designer's portfolio:


Now you may say, I do not need this either. So be it. But it's still a keyboard sporting the used-to topography of the keys, it's able to be adapted to a shitload of applications beyond games, even to those of your own invention, it has the potential to solve certain language-barrier problems, and finally: I dare say that the picture above (of the Q3A layout) already resonates with gaming-culture vibes and rings a lot of bells in gamers' hearts. Right?

payne on air
↑Deutschlandradio aired a small ↑feature on cyberspace and computergames [.mp3 | 1.1MB | 4.42min | in German] which has Max Payne as a starting point for a short discussion of ↵FPS and violence.

In the feature Matthias Mertens, post-doc at the ↑Zentrum für Medien und Interaktivität ['Center for Media and Interactivity' in Gießen, Germany. See a presentation by Mertens at netzspannung's ↑playing media] starts to 'speak pro FPS'. Mertens sees Max Payne as a 'culturally relevant expression', just like movies are or can be. He goes on stating that we have no problem with accepting a movie by Quentin Tarantino as a cultural expression—'xactly my opinion. And we decidedly distinguish Tarantino's work from 'other splatter movies'—although both categories of examples appear to be quite similar on the pictorial level. But inside 'Reservoir Dogs', 'Pulp Fiction' and so on we sense other intellectual and artistical principles at work: irony, commentary, reflection. Theses principles Mertens finds to exist in certain computergames, too.

Ulrike Pilaczek [spelling?], representing the ↑USK [Unterhaltungssoftware SelbstKontrolle—the German 'Entertainment Software SelfControl' which rates the games over here] acknowledges that it is difficult for people of age 40 or above to 'objectively' evaluate computergames. People who grew up with movies tend to evaluate computergames by movie-standards, which are not necessarily appropriate. The gist being that for evaluation the input of people who grew up with games, are socialized 'into games', is needed. More often than not this means younger folks. btw only 5% of all evaluated games are ego-shooters.

Mertens, Pilazcek and sociologist Joachim Fischer deny the naive cause-effect relation between computergames and offline-violence—they rather stress computergames as enforcing factors for 'social competence'.
 

moon

 
Sometimes when I walk home in the evening, crossing the river I stop midbridge and wonder at the moon. Then, for a few minutes, I try to really become conscious of the fact that exactly one dozen men already walked around up there. By 'becoming conscious' I mean trying to think about the men on the moon in exactly the same way I think about the people walking on the bridge I am right now standing on. To develope the same stance. And I rarely succeed—and if, then only for a few moments of pure understanding. Suddenly it's gone again and the thought of humans walking on another planet as surreal to me as it was before.

Anyway, 36 years ago from today, on 20th July 1969 the first human beings ever sat foot on another planet! Neil Armstrong was first, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin second, while Michael Collins—who always seems forgotten—circled around the moon, piloting the command module. The return ticket for Armstrong and Aldrin.

Google Maps has a ↑moon special, allowing to zoom in to all six Apollo landing sites. Zoom in as far as you can and discover the truth ... speaking of the truth: For a long time on the Internet there is the ↑definite proof that the moonlanding was staged, an Orson-Wellesian fake. The link is retrieved from Internet Archive's wayback machine, as the ↑original site was 'censored'—read: The site was hacked [?] and the satire pulled up onto yet another level.
moonlanding initially via entry at mosaikum

parkour
There is a new sport coming from France which perfectly illustrates what I meant by playful ↵appropriation by mastership. It's called ↑le Parkour. From the ↑tutorial we learn:


Nevertheless the activities very much look like training for escaping fom the police as fast as possible—and indeed independent sources confirmed that this exactly is where le Parkour stems from. The gist of it is to run and jump through the city on new paths, whereby running and motion seems crucial. As I understand the matter, going up a building rockclimber-style would not qualify as Parkour. Dynamic movements are asked for [which of course are a part of climbing too, alas only since about the 1970s, some exceptions granted, like jumping from sandstone-needle to sandstone-needle in the Elbsandsteingebirge-climbers' tradition/school]. Sometimes effectiveness is father to a move, sometimes aesthetics, even humour. The cityscape's artefacts are stripped from its intended modes of use and are inscribed with a new meaning: gymnastic apparatus. Le Parkour is the impro-jazz of gymnastics—the formalized-for-competition gymnastic apparatusses in turn are seen as a means of training.

Check out le Parkour's video-pages: ↑samplers, ↑specials—the samplers are 'authentic', the 'specials' refined, including television-features and commercials. In the clips you'll see some moves which seem banal—but, while watching, imagine to do it yourself. Then there are some outright daring and dangerous stunts, performed high above concrete ground. And there are a lot of smaller tricks, real gems with surprising twists. My favourite is the fake jump over a handrail. At least some of the guys obviously have a background in gymnastics—and word has it that several of them already made it into Jackie Chan's stunt team. But not only Mr. Chan can put le Parkour to good use—I urge everyone doing character-animations for gamemods to get inspired by those videos linked to above.
via e-mail from 2R—tnx

african village
German sociocultural anthropology indeed is engaged in contemporary issues! On 4th of July 2005 the authors Prof. Dr. Nina Glick Schiller, Dr. Data Dea, and [my friend! :-)] Markus Höhne (Ph.D. candidate) have submitted a report to the ↑Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (Halle/Saale Germany) called: ↑"African Culture and the Zoo in the 21st Century: The 'African Village' in the Augsburg Zoo and Its Wider Implications" [↑deep link .pdf | 1.6MB] The report (48 pages—in English) is based on ethnographic fieldwork at said zoo during the four days of the event. The executive summary:

 

DGV05—internet and anthropology
The Internet and sociocultural anthropology—continuities and breaches
A review of approaches to cyberanthropology
by ↑Nils Zurawski

It took nearly ten years from the ↵Welcome to Cyberia to the ↵Cyberidentities at War. During those ten years the Internet changed from hackers' and specialists' playground to common medium. Ten years during which the amount of research on (culturally informed) identities on the net increased steadily. Coexisting, independent from each other, and sometimes as continuations there were smaller and larger projects now and again—dealing with the phenomenon of identity on the net / in cyberspace. As the whole field of activity still being comparatively young, it is time for a critical survey disclosing and discussing continuities and breaches.

Although the general topic has remained the same, the approaches are decidedly distinct. Cultural and regional differencies are visible—concerning the research as well as the academic discourse. Regarding German-speaking anthropology it still holds true that the main impulses stem from anglophone academia. And an opening towards cyberanthropology takes place grindingly slow. Nevertheless some kind of acceleration is noticeable.

The goal of this presentation is to encourage debate on cyperspace as field (of research), on possibilities of access to this field and the topic at large—especially concerning German-speaking anthropology.

liquid ragdoll

 
I am not sure what it is, ↑fquadr.at has put online [↑mirror 1 | ↑mirror 2 | ↑mirror 3], or what to make of it—but it is ingenious, surreal, and a great demonstration of ↑ragdoll physics—see the paper ↑Advanced Character Physics by Thomas Jakobsen, onto which the endlessly falling mannequin is based. And it is nicely complemented by the ↑liquid man by ↑Aaron Clinger.
ragdoll via fquadr.at | liquid man via entry at boingboing

appropriation by mastership
When I visited my first ↵LAN-party, the ↑Gameparade back in 2002, the first thing that struck me was that all the common clichés of 'the dedicated computergamer' did not at all live up to empirical evidence. During the three days I only spotted two overweight pimpled ↵nerds among the 558 attendees. In consequence the rest of the pack consisted of 'normal youths' with an articulate tendency towards the sporty type. This in collusion with everybody's main interest there—to play together—resulted in a 'side-event'. The LAN-party was situated on a large school's premises, the gym converted to something resembling mission control in Houston. Only possible to play computergames there, obviously. But just outside of the main entrance stood a single basketball hoop. Someone organised a ball and an almost never-ending basketball-match began. Those going back to their screens inside the gym immediately were replaced by others and the match went on. As night fell a friendly and cooperative janitor switched on the lights at the forecourt and the ball didn't come to a rest till very late. Nobody ever bothered to count any points—what for and how? Of course there was competition, but wins and losses only were attributable to instable, ever-changing teams. Playing a game together was the essence.

Morphing the school's gym into mission control can be seen as a temporal cultural appropriation, manifested in the reversible reworking of the sports hall and its surroundings. But the culture informing this appropriation does not entirely, and not even primarily consist of technophilia. Game and play occupy a prominent place—the above observation is a hint towards that, I guess. Another hint is the engagement of my online-tribe's people in activities like skateboarding. The latter being not a game, but play—sometimes even competition. For a moment I wanted to stay more at the games-end of the spectrum, not the sports-end, but those activities are perfect examples for illustrating another aspect: the adoration of mastership. Wizard- or even ↵god-like mastership performed in the ↵three spaces (of course including computergamespace—loyal readers meanwhile know that I am fond of ↵Q3A-tricking), and mastership performed in ↵meatspace.

Just recently a hilarious ↑basketball-tricking video rushed through the blogosphere. The appending discussions show that the viewers are of course well aware of the possibilities how to create movies like that, ranging from countless attempts, via the movie-editor's craft to professional digital manipulation (especially in the light of the clip being a commercial)—the explicitly voiced fascination with skills and mastership remains. It may even be complemented by the adoration of the mastership in the multi-faceted space spanned by the technicalities of making magic clips (or clips showing magic) like that.

Another, far more authentic example, even sporting underground-feeling, features ↑Dances-With-Balls ... [.wmv | 8.4MB] (pun half-heartedly intended) showing off artistic football skills. Watch the clip and mind the playful appropriation of public space ranging from the street, via the underground garage, to the supermarket. If graffitti achieves this appropriation in part statically, using means of the fine arts, than this is appropriation by performance—the action caught by a digital movie-camera and the resulting song praising the young master disseminated to an appreciative audience via the Internet. Maybe thereby prolonging and distributing the experience of 'flow' made by those physically involved—for sure creating a sense of we-group.

At first glance 'Dances-With-Balls' emulates the appropriation by mastership as practiced far longer by skateboarders, inline-skaters and their kin. A perfect example of an appropriated item from urban public space are handrails used to ↑grind on them. No reworking here, you say, only redefintion of meaning and how-to-use? Far from it. In the competition-version of skateboarding and inline-skating normed emulations of 'real-life' handrails are put to use. A piece of city-inventory gets completely stripped from the original intentions of how-to-use-it, is completely subdued to the rules of the competitive game, and finally recreated in an appropriate [sic!] form making the emerging of a sport possible. And by the way, the ↑public artefacts also change, though very subtle and only interpretable for those in the know.

The ↑limits for these kinds of performative appropriation are the capabilities of the human body and Newtonian physics—which is a quite trivial statement, valid to everything human beings do in the outside world of material reality.

Back to the balls. Tabletop soccer aka tabletop football aka foosball aka Tisch-/Kicker is, like the pinball machine, a definite meatspace-game, drawing a part of its fascination from the experience of physical, even mechanical objects—and a perfect game-arena to show off expert playmanship. Unfortunately the surreal clip ↑hinterding once pointed to is no more online, but you can get an impression at a ↑world champion's site (including tutorial videos) and dig ↑more tricking videos at foosball.com. Enjoy.
Balltaenzer via entry at 2R