The two chapters of Jane McGonigal's Reality is Broken assigned for this week provoked extremely different responses in me. The systems she describes in chapter 7—the "life-management" game Chore Wars, the "organizational ARG" of NYC's "Quest to Learn" curriculum, and the therapeutic "concept" ARG Superbetter—produced flashbacks to my own dabblings with "gamifying" aids in attempting … Continue reading Collective speculations and unnecessary obstacles (re: McGonigal)
“Tactical” and “Relational” in hindsight
Eleven years is a long time. I felt that, reading the introduction to Rita Raley’s Tactical Media, in part because her starting point is an intuition about “doxa” regarding a downturn in “the value, cultural significance, and efficacy of the streets,” and I think the generalized “sensibility” surrounding these questions has morphed a few times over … Continue reading “Tactical” and “Relational” in hindsight
DIY / IRL
Reading Mary Celeste Kearney's writing on the "networked media economy" of Riot Grrrl reminds me how much the world I grew up in was shaped by the legacy of that particular subculture (and those it overlapped with). The all-ages clubs, the DIY spaces, the church halls, the free concerts in parks—in the mid-00s, the landscape … Continue reading DIY / IRL
Politics of Media 