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 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
 ...