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[Yasmin_announcements] NEW YASMIN – INSTRUCTIONS

YASMIN ANNOUNCEMENTS

TITLE=”[Yasmin_announcements] NEW YASMIN – INSTRUCTIONS”>yasmin_announcements at estia.media.uoa.gr

Mon Feb 2 17:52:26 EET 2009

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Dear Yasmin subscribers,

We would like to inform you that on Monday February 2nd the new version of

the Yasmin mailing list will be launched. This changeover is due to

technical problems that the current version of the list has been facing for

some months now, resulting in a large number of you not receiving any

messages. All existing Yasmin subscribers will be automatically subscribed

to the new Mailman version. The new version will consist of two separate

lists, "Yasmin_announcements" and "Yasmin_discussions". You will be

automatically subscribed to both.

The existing version will remain accessible for archival purposes only.

I. LIST STRUCTURE

   ==============

As mentioned above, Yasmin now consists of two lists, "Yasmin_Announcements"

and "Yasmin_Discussions", and you have been automatically subscribed to

both. You can access these lists through the links found at

http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin or http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo

.

II. LOGIN PROCEDURE AND ACCESS DETAILS

    ==================================

a) Contribution of content

Every time something gets posted on these lists (hereby referred to as

"Yasmin" for the sake of brevity), you will receive an e-mail containing the

message. You can contribute to the ongoing discussion(s) by replying to this

e-mail. As you will note, the reply e-mail will be automatically addressed

to the list (i.e. the recipient will be "<LIST_NAME>@estia.media.uoa.gr").

Since you will be using your e-mail to contribute to Yasmin, you will not

need a separate "Yasmin password".

b) Archives

Yasmin's archives are publicly accessible. This means that you will not need

to enter a password to access them. In order to view the archives, you need

to follow the link to the list whose archives you need to access on the main

Yasmin page (http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin). Alternatively, you can go to

http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo directly and click on the name of

the list whose archives you would like to access. This will take you to the

selected list's info page. The first link on this page is found a few

paragraphs down and reads "To see the collection of prior postings to the

list, visit the <LIST_NAME> Archives". This link will take you to the

archives.

Archived posts are indexed according to the date. You can view a date's

posts by thread (i.e. a "chain" of messages with a hierarchical structure

displaying a post and the replies to it), by subject (alphabetically,

according to the "subject" line of the e-mail), by author, and by date. You

have also the option of downloading a text file with an entire day's traffic

("Downloadable version").

III. MEMBERSHIP OPTIONS (INCLUDING PASSWORD AND DIGEST OPTIONS)

     ==========================================================

To access your membership options, you need to visit

http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo and click on the name of the list

whose options you would like to view / change. This takes you to the

selected list's info page (just like when accessing the archives, which is

described above). If you scroll further down, you will find some fields

intended for new subscriptions. Since you are already subscribed, these

fields need not concern you.

If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you will find a section entitled

"<LIST_NAME> Subscribers". Here, you have the option to enter the admin

password (if you have it) to access the subscribers list. [NOTE: The

sunscribers list is available to administrators only in order to avoid spam

being delivered to your e-mail addresses]

Next, you have the option of unsubscribing from Yasmin or editing your

membership options. To do either of these things, you need to enter your

e-mail address. Once you do so, you will be redirected to the membership

options screen. From this screen, you may change your e-mail address used by

Yasmin, unsubscribe (we hope you won't feel inclined to do so!), have your

password reminded to you if you have forgotten it, or change it altogether.

Further down the page (you may have to scroll down a bit) there are several

subscription options. Most of these are self-explanatory and are accompanied

by a short text outlining their function. However, we urge you not to change

any options you don't completely understand.

The options you will likely use more often are the first two, namely "mail

delivery" and "set digest mode". The former allows you to disable traffic

directed from the list to your e-mail account. If you disable this option

and then forget about it, you won't receive any further messages from the

list, so please ensure that you will remember to turn this option back on

when you are ready to receive e-mail from the list again.

The latter option ("Set digest mode") specifies whether you will receive a

daily digest containing every day's proceedings. This option was very

popular on the old Yasmin list. If you do require a digest to be sent to you

daily, you will have to turn this option on. New subscribers are asked

whether they would like to turn digest on; however, you were automatically

subscribed and, consequently, will have to enable this option manually (you

only need to do it once).

Do not forget to click the "submit" button at the very bottom of the page to

confirm any changes you made.

ATTENTION: Your initial password will be contained in the welcome message.

You can change it from the options page, as described above.

IV. OLD YASMIN ARCHIVES

     ===================

As of now, the old version of Yasmin exists for archival purposes only. This

means that you will be unable to post new messages or subscribe to the old

Yasmin. You may access the old Yasmin archives through an appropriately

named link found at http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin.

[NOTE: the archives are not currently accessible, but they will be soon]

V. NEW SUBSCRIPTIONS

    =================

One can subscribe to the lists through the info page. On that page, there is

a section titled* *"Subscribing to Yasmin_announcements". There, prospective

members can enter their e-mail address and (optionally) a password. If no

password is entered, one will be generated automatically and sent to

prospective subscribers via e-mail.

VI. CONTACT DETAILS

     ===============

For suggestions, clarifications, comments, etc. please contact us at

tech.yasmin at gmail.com.

Kind regards,

The Yasmin administration team

Quoting Trent Reznor, the significant artist in electronic sound scene, he noted the on-going diversion in the music business and the attitude which will be helpful for the emerging musicians and the radiohead-wannabees. In my opinion, the key is the structure is changing and this change also undermine the stratum where all the common sense has been granted in the music business. And this change is not limited to the degree of the music business. It also transfigures the basic concept of the music.

The reason why I note and quote what Mr. Reznor says is on the transfiguration of the concept, in a sense, the episteme of art in changing. The prevailing of the new media, especially the electronic media, has rapidly threatened the traditional concepts of art form as a commercial object. This transfer weakens the solidity of the retinal art, and imposed the fluidity and dynamism to the visibility in art form. And sometimes, it has been spotted just as chaos, meaninglessness and finally all the vogue. In a sense, the materiality in the retinal are has been evaporated by the advert of the intangibility of artistic material. Though it looks like that the music has almost nothing to do with the materiality in its inherent features, it is hard to deny that the well-decorated LPs, CDs and its materiality has been regarded as the tangible illusion of the artist, who is ranged from the Velvet Underground’s packages even to that of Britney Spears’. As a result, the electronic traits in pop culture, at first, dematerialize the cultural productions and, secondly, change the structure of the producing in pop culture scene itself.

However, whatever the situation, the question has been all the same. What should I do right now for myself? If you are creator, you don’t need to care about what is art. Instead, you’d better care about what can be called as art.

This sort of installations or architectures is trying to pixelate the surface of buildings. Maybe the next step will be the organizing the building itself with the kinetic way.

Articulated Cloud
Kinetic Design Group

Turn the power off!

To recap the elements of electronic art, if we throw ourselves to the extent of the utmost analysis, finally we can reach to the electricity. Is it really impossible to imagine the artwork with interactivity and other machinic traits, but without electricity? And can’t we engross ourselves to create the interactive art form without electricity? I think it is not different from premising the illusion without artificial light. Regardless of the machinic traits which comes from the computing machinery and reality-augmenting devices, still we have chance to inquire the new media art without electricity. And still questions are remained. Is this question worth to ask in the area of new media art?

Let’s go back to the moment of the invention of internet. The inter-textuality that is regarded as bloomed from the advert of internet, was exactly mentioned by Bartes for more than 20 yrs before the internet age. In the same context, it makes sense that the retinal art in the age of computing machinery has its own aesthetic or philosophical concepts and novelty and has theoretical background.

The traits of new media art are always investigated from the aspect of electronic devices. But if those materialistic traits are engenders from the newness which lies inside the immaterial characteristics, It will be possible to re-posit the hidden aspects of electronic art as result of socio-cultural changes.

Richard Baquié. Sans titre. Étant donnés, 1°) la chute d’eau, 2°) le gaz d’éclairage (Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, 1991)

contemplating zero

Originally uploaded by somaya

God I’m this photo!!

컴퓨터기반 시각예술작품에 나타나는 들뢰즈의 안면성

컴퓨터 기반의 시각예술작품은 상호작용성을 획득하기 위해 다양한 종류의 입력장치를 가지고 있다. 그리고 이렇게 받아들인 신호를 처리하여 시각적인 결과물을 다양한 종류의 스크린에 투사한다. 관객의 적극적 참여가 필요하다는 점에서 컴퓨터기반시각예술작품은 예술작품에 대한 새로운 시각을 요구한다. 기존의 시각예술에 비해 컴퓨터기반시각예술작품은 매우 동적이다. 프로그래밍을 이용한 상호작용성은 관객의 행동에 다양한 방법을 반응한다. 센서를 통해 입력된 신호는 컴퓨터의 처리를 거쳐 면에 투사된다. 사용자의 반응은 컴퓨터 처리 과정에 개입하여 투사된 결과에 영향을 준다. 이러한 일련의 과정은 얼굴이 반응하는 과정과 동일하다. 얼굴은 타인의 시선, 움직임에 반응하여 표정을 바꾼다. 표정없는 얼굴은 다른 사람을 마주하면 표정을 드러낸다. 이러한 과정은 컴퓨터 기반의 시각예술작품이 기능하는 것과 많은 유사점을 가진다.

A computer-based interactive art as a white wall / black hole system in Deleuzian understanding

For Deleuze, the white wall / black hole system represents the intersection of two axes, signifiance and subjectification.

Signifiance is never without a white wall upon which it inscribes its signs and redundancies. Subjectification is never without a black hole in which it lodges its consciousness, passion, and redundancies†.

Usually, the audiences in interactive art believe that they are manipulating the artwork by themselves. Every sensing device which is connected to the computer system detects human activity so precisely that the computer system as an artwork functions as programmed by artist. At a glance, this system undoubtedly gives the right to operate the artwork to the audience. Moreover, the fact that the artwork does not function until the audience starts to act gives more probability to that belief. But the odd thing, in the view-point of software engineering, is that the audience is not so much an active subject as an adopted catalyst. As a participant, spectator, operator, whatever, the person who is involved in the interactive art behave as a set of pseudo-class. Basically, modern computer program is executed on the basis of the philosophy of Object Oriented Programming. In this concept, every behavior which is done by the audience is formulated by the programmer. As a result, the boundry of audience’s behavior must be narrowed. During this process, audience’s regulated behavior can be translated as a pseudo class in the whole program. For Deleuze, the problem of expression reveals on the point where the subjectfification and the signifiance intersects. At this point, the white wall / blackhole system start to work as an abstract machine which is called as the face.
Thus, we can restore the matter of expression to the white wall / black hole system. In the computer-based artwork, every sensing device became the black-hole that carries out the process of subjectification. Also, every represented

Before the audience reacts to the artwork, the artwork itself is just an expressionless face. Regardless of the fact wheather the computer-based artwork has its subjectivity or not, through the inclusion of audience to artwork (white wall / black-hole system), the artwork starts to function as a field of subjectification and signifiance. In this state, the artwork has its specific expression (visage) which is differentiated by the audience.

† Deleuze, Guattari, and Massumi, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (University of Minnesota Press, 1987). p.167

Note & Summary

Collaboration for what? At this point, we should re-think about the purpose of the game. In the view-point of Murray, which is inspired by Tomasello’s, it is presumable that every individual and group activity is directly connected with the survival in the very early stage of the evloution of primate. That is to say, the collaboration between the individuals is strongly led to the competition between the groups in the higher level. In the intantiated game, Lord of the Rings, there is also the non-player character, Sauron who is the clear enemy of this game. In this way, the collaboration becomes the sub-goal for the competition. Even the situation when the visible enemy cannot be found, in game such as Tetris, the rule that interfere the player’s will became the competitor which should be overcame.

Collaborative games: Lessons learned from board games

José P. Zagal, Jochen Rick
Georgia Institute of Technology

Idris Hsi
Microsoft Corporation

Abstract

Collaborative mechanisms are starting to become prominent in computer games, like massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs); however, by their nature, these games are difficult to investigate. Game play is often complex and the underlying mechanisms are frequently opaque. In contrast, board games are simple. Their game play is fairly constrained and their core mechanisms are transparent enough to analyze. In this article, the authors seek to understand collaborative games. Because of their simplicity, they focus on board games. The authors present an analysis of collaborative games. In particular, they focus on Reiner Knizia’s LORDOFTHERINGS, considered by many to be the quintessential collaborative board game. Our analysis yields seven observations, four lessons, and three pitfalls, that game designers might consider useful for designing collaborative games. They reflect on the particular opportunities that computers have for the design of collaborative games as well as how some of the issues discussed apply to the case of computer games.

KEYWORDS: board games; collaboration; collaborative games; cooperation; computer games; decisions; game design; individuals; lessons; multiplayer games; LORD OF THE RINGS; payoffs; pitfalls; teams; utility

Quotation

J. P. Zagal, J. Rick, I. Hsi. (2007) ” Collaborative games: Lessons learned from board games.” Simulation & Gaming 37:1, 24-40

Summary

25
How can electronic games be designed so that collaboration is a worthwhile, interesting, and attractive option?

27
Players in RPGs frequently seek to create a satisfying storyline for their character, rather than successfully complete the adventure (Fine, 1983). From a game-theory perspective, these players are not playing a game; instead, they are creating a narrative. Consequently, RPGs are often understood in terms of narrative theory, rather than game theory (Heliö, 2004)

29

figure 1. Lord of the Rings gamel Moria Scenario Board

32
If such a moment of self-sacrifice is interesting as a story, it is even more engaging when you are the one to make the decision (in the game).

33
Communication among the players about the available resources for a particular task becomes more efficient than a single player trying to marshal all the resources at one time.

Pitfall 2: For a game to be engaging, players need to care about the outcome and that outcome should have a satisfying result.

This pitfall applies to all games; however, we feel it is particularly important for collaborative games. If players do not care about the outcome, then they are not motivated enough to help each other or improve on their performance.

A good game can be a good story.

34
Unlike completely deterministic games, like Chess, LORD OF THE RINGS cannot be played exactly the same way twice.

So, unlike competitive games, like Chess, collaborative games need to adapt to the players’ abilities to maintain replayability.

35. Implication for computer games
communication flexbility

Many basic cues of identity, personality, and social roles are absent in the online world (Donath, 1998), making it harder for players to understand each other and agree on plans of action.

37
To conclude, we maintain that games have a unique potential to engage people in collaborative activities. On the other hand, collaborative games are rare and extraordinarily difficult to design. This article has hopefully illustrated some of the particular difficulties inherent to the design of these games as well as showing that simply having cooperative elements is generally insufficient for collaborative play. We have noted how many computer games do apply some of the lessons we have identified, though most tend to fail when it comes applying them all.We believe that computer games not only have the potential for addressing many of the issues discussed but also many affordances to solve them.We are hopeful to have provided insight that game designers might be able to use to create more and better collaborative games.

• Lesson 1:To highlight problems of competitiveness, a collaborative game should introduce a tension between perceived individual utility and team utility.
• Lesson 2: To further highlight problems of competitiveness, individual players should be allowed to make decisions and take actions without the consent of the team.
• Lesson 3: Players must be able to trace payoffs back to their decisions.
• Lesson 4: To encourage team members to make selfless decisions, a collaborative game should bestow different abilities or responsibilities upon the players.

Challenge in designing collaborative games

• Pitfall 1: To avoid the game degenerating into one player making the decisions for the team, collaborative games have to provide a sufficient rationale for collaboration.
• Pitfall 2: For a game to be engaging, players need to care about the outcome and that outcome should have a satisfying result.
• Pitfall 3: For a collaborative game to be enjoyable multiple times, the experience needs to be different each time and the presented challenge needs to evolve.

More information

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlers_of_Catan
http://catanonline.com/default.htm?MSID=f12bf66534774191adb1953ecd48504d&c00=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiner_Knizia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Rings_%28board_game%29
Lord of the Rings Images / BoardGameGeek