diff --git a/web/intro_aglaia/intro_aglaia.md b/web/intro_aglaia/intro_aglaia.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..349bf18 --- /dev/null +++ b/web/intro_aglaia/intro_aglaia.md @@ -0,0 +1,167 @@ +Introduction + +The last trimester was an attempt to understand the notions of games and +rituals. Instead of introduction we will try to unravel this mysterious +journey as well as keep questioning and collaging. + +We mapped the common characteristics and the differences between the +latter in relation to ideology and counter-hegemony. We practiced, +performed, annotated rituals that were connected (or not) with our +cultural backgrounds while we questioned the magic circle. We dived into +the worlds of text adventure games and clicking games while drinking +coffee and talked about class, base, superstructure, (counter)hegemony, +ideology, materialism. We discussed about how games and rituals can +function as reproductive technologies of the culture industries. We +annotated games- focusing on the role of ideology and social +reproduction. We reinterpreted bits of the world and created stories +with it (modding, fiction, narrative) while focusing on community, +interaction, relationships, grief and healing. + +The eventual product of this process is a console, a magical object, a +wooden container, a promising healing. How the unpacking of notions of +games, rituals, ideology, superstructure in relation to the +witch-hunting can become the midwifery of a healing box? How practices +of heal and care can work as counter-hegemonic acts that can cure and +liberate our souls and bodies from patriarchical and capitalistic +fetters? + +We didn't manage to provide you with comprehensive and solid answers or +conclusive statements. The truth is that this wasn't our plan. Our +intention was to create openings for debate or even conflict, to map a +territory, to invite those who would like to join us. + +> *"What if you are playing tetris and the tetris gods give you +> something apart from the usual seven tetrominoes, like an unexpected +> pregnancy or the end of capitalism?"* + +Starting with rituals we can claim that they can be understood as +instruments in the struggle for the exercise of power. Organized by +*repetition*, they (re)connect the individual to the collective, +creating a vision towards a given perception of society. Participation +in this creative act is determined by several factors, for example, a +ritual's function, its relationship to hegemonic power, a collective's +politics and objectives, etc. + +> *"Ritual is a means of performing the way things ought to be in +> conscious tension to the way things are in such a way that this +> ritualized perfection is recollected in the ordinary, uncontrolled, +> course of things. Ritual relies for its power on the fact that it is +> concerned with quite ordinary activities, that what it describes and +> displays is, in principle, possible for every occurrence of these +> acts. But it relies, as well, for its power on the fact that, in +> actuality, such possibilities cannot be realized.* " +> +> *"Ideology talks of actions: I shall talk of actions inserted into +> practices. And I shall point out that these practices are governed by +> rituals in which these practices are inscribed, within the material +> existence of an ideological apparatus(\...)Ideas have disappeared as +> such to the precise extend that it has emerged that their existence is +> inscribed in the actions of practices governed by rituals defined in +> the last instance by an ideological apparatus"* + +Similarly, videogames create worlds. Often, those worlds mirror our own, +reproducing certain ideals and values as norms through their narrative, +game play, design. This trimester we explored world-building +characteristics found both in rituals and videogames. We critically +considered those worlds, identifying the key points and elements through +which specific videogames and rituals circulate political, cultural and +social values. While this world-building might be interpreted from an +angle of implicit and explicit bias rooted in hegemonic values, we +investigated the generative, creative possibilities of such +characteristics. + +> *"The main task of mass culture is to create, reproduce, and manage +> particular kinds of subjects --- workers, consumers, individuals, +> citizens ---required for current conditions. To perpetuate their own +> existence, mass media must succeed at representing the violent +> coercion of capitalist systems as natural laws: Of course you have to +> pay rent to live inside; of course you have to buy food to eat; of +> course you have to work if you want to survive. The production of a +> fungible, disposable and migratory working class requires the +> alienation and atomization of communities into individuals, which +> involves destroying the village, kinship structures, indigeneity, and +> many other previous forms of meaning-producing structures, leaving a +> gap which ideology must fill. While the fundamental structures of +> domination --- racism, patriarchy, heterosexuality, etc. --- form the +> bedrock of this ideological apparatus, the complexity of the always +> expanding and changing capitalist system requires an equally flexible +> set of subsidiary tools capable of rapidly adjusting ideology en +> masse. In general, media emerge not to meet the demands or desires of +> individual users but to accommodate what the predominant mode of +> production requires."* + +Our intention was to look into rituals and their overlap with video +games as a way to explore \"forbidden\" or otherwise lost knowledge +erased by oppressive systems (e.g. witch hunts). Understanding games and +rituals as gateways to alternative ways of relating to Nature, each +other and (re)production of life, labour, etc, we played together by +writing fan fiction and spells, developing rituals, analysing and +creating games together. + +> "S*ims as just social reproduction: some values are certainly given by +> the game (make money to buy nicer things, progress in your career by +> doing tasks that improve your skill, charisma is a skill but not +> kindness) , but also ideology is put into the game by the player. The +> player chooses what to reproduce and often share in the \"gallery\" or +> on social media. Community being so important in this game then means +> that the crux of the social reproduction is happening when the choices +> you have made in the game are broadcasted. Did you create a +> heteronormative white thin nuclear family that made a lot of money? or +> did you choose to play differently?"* +> +> *"The Communist Party of Second Life (CPSL) aims to be a Marxist, +> internationalist and revolutionary organization for all communists in +> Second Life. The CPSL aims to spread understanding of Marxism among SL +> citizens, to organise support in SL for the class struggle in RL, +> including all struggles of the working class against imperialism and +> the bourgeoisie, its state and wars."* +> +> *"The act of the modder's appropriation of the pre-existing game is +> also similar to Michel de Certeau's cultural 'poaching'.De Certeau's +> everyday bricolors make do with remixing the privatized spaces and +> products of consumer society that they find themselves inhabiting and +> using. Rather than being passive consumers, ordinary people invent +> varied subversive tactics for stealing back the given of everyday +> life. De Certeau writes, 'Everyday life invents itself by poaching in +> countless ways on the property of others'.* + +Meanwhile, we went through the witch as a magical practicioner, as a +resisting body, a border figure. Federici presents the witch "as the +embodiment of a world of female subjects that capitalism had to destroy: +the heretic, the healer, the disobedient wife, the woman who dared to +live alone, the obeha woman who poisoned the master's food and inspired +the slaves to revolt. Behind the witch hunt, she uncovers a joint effort +by the Church and the state to establish mechanisms of gendered control +of bodies that immanently resisted newly instituted regimes of +productive and reproductive work. "*Similarly given by Deleuze and +Guattari "sorcerers have always held the anomalous position, at the edge +of the fields or woods. They haunt the fringes. They are at the +borderline of the village, or between villages."But sorcerers not only +exist at the border: as anomalous beings, they are the border itself. In +other words, the borderline passes through their bodies."* + +How the understanding of the witchs' hunting that happened a few +centuries ago in relation with the figure of the witch as marginal, +rebellion entity can shed light on the contemporary witch-hunting. How +this knowledge can provide us with tools of empowerment, emancipation, +resistance and make us reimagine counter-hegemonic practices of +collective care and healing? + +Console is an oracle; an emotional first aid kit that helps you help +yourself. + +Console invites you to: open the box and discover ways of healing; + +Console provides shelter for your dreams, memories and worries. + +Face the past and encounter your fortune. + +Console gives you a new vantage point; a set of rituals and practices +that help you cope and care(of yourself and of the others) + +Console asks everyday questions that give magical answers. + +Console invites you to self reflect, explore your subconscious, spin the +wheel of fortune (and pick a card), explore what is possible beyond what +is obvious, guide you into\... \[the future and past\], creates stories +...