Gain Leverage Against Another Organization by help im a bear, Lincøln, teucer
December 5th, 2007 11:02 PMPeter Harmon: We did so under assumed names (at least, I don't think help is the child of Mr. and Mrs. im a bug...), and we infiltrated the revolution. Oddly even after declaring war, help is listed as a collaborator on Enlist; I am also as of this writing despite my own infiltration being of a far more insidious sort.
As for a "territory swap", the territory in this war is non-literal. This is about the fate of one of our beloved groups. The fact that something has to change was brought to everyone's attention by The Revolutionary, and we genuinely appreciate it - but we believe that change ought to be minimal, rather than entailing a complete loss of that group. The Revolutionary's territory is vast; he has attracted many to his cause. We hope that by promoting our cause in this fashion, we've caught your attention, and if you're with us in looking for the minimal necessary fix, you will declare your allegiance if you haven't already done so. Now all that remains is for the two factions to talk, in the comments on the many war praxes, until we've come to a mutually acceptable compromise. Between us we can make the University into what it always should have been.
help im a bug: I would just like to add, you should read the italicized portion at the top of Enlist, before it gets edited back.
"We, who have declared war on the war on the University of Aestematics agree that change is good and revolution can lead to great things. However, The Revolutionary has insisted that the Revolution will be total or it will not be. We demand that it not be.
We demand that the forces of the Revolution recognize that the University is an integral part of SF0.
We demand that the forces of the Revolution recognize that the University's trajectory, as it stands now (being about form rather than content emphasizing Technique, Presentation, and Product), is sufficient.
The forces of the Revolution will stand down immediately or face retribution (perhaps with the use of designated player killing zones)."
Good stuff. It's been there for three days as of this writing--so it's been edited longer than it's been normal. Obviously, that means that everyone who enlisted is actually working for our cause! That's how logic works, right?
Peter Harmon: Right. Seriously, you guys are the most oblivious revolution ever.
Lincoln: It was fun having an inside man on the Revolution (which so far isn't very revolutionary) so we could plan out counter revolution, and raise up arms against the war.
In a private message the The Revolutionary I tried to negotiate terms to end the war, but he was having none of it. And when I told him to perhaps try to make some good tasks that UofA members cannot do to make them want to be in other groups, and he declined to take me up on the offer, I decided to use my own advice. So myself and a few collaborators decided to flood the pretired tasks with strictly UofA themed tasks. This is what we came up with:
Synaesthesia I
Synaesthesia II
Synaesthesia III
Synaesthesia IV
Synaesthesia V
Calder Caldera
Honorable Mention
Train Yourself
Dance Dance Revolution!
White After Labor Day
You Are God
Cynic
Sign Here
Art For Airports
Public Display Of Praxis
Free Art
Found Art
Political Chaos
Scale Model
The Fish, The Flask, The Flute, The Flush, The Flesh
Sudden Expression
Make Government Beautiful
Like, Whatever.
The Supernormal Stimulus
Curated Public Works
Splashdown!
Banjo Piece
Book Carving
That'd Make A Really Great Band Name. For Reals.
Land Piece
Sell Out
I'm Red Skelton Too!
Holliwould
The Chimes, Milady!
Cha-
Make Hoagy Carmichael Proud
(so far)
Peter: The idea here is to showcase a narrow interpretation of the current UA trajectory - one that demonstrates that the University isn't just a dumping ground for every artsy task. (As the Revolutionary himself will be quick to tell you, every SF0 player is an artist.) These aren't all perfect exemplars of that, but they're all moving in the right direction.
While the details aren't a consensus among the counter-revolutionaries, we tend to feel that the University emphasizes form over content, medium over message, but still has room for the content as well. Provided we all take such an interpretation to heart, there is nothing wrong with the U of A as it stands - and there is no reason to tear it down.
Instead of eliminating the University, help us turn it into the institution it always should have been. Join us.
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Frankly, I'm not entirely keen on all of them myself. And I would agree that some of them that do fit a core UA and are good tasks are still things that could also be other groups - for instance, "The Chimes, Milady!" would probably be better as a UA/Biome task, while "Train Yourself" is quite plausibly everything but BARTPA.
But I like the synaesthesias. (Actually, doing that set was kind of my idea - though I originally suggested that they be narrower than what wound up being submitted. Things like "taste paisley" for V, and "make a bouquet that smells prickly" for II. I'm thinking somewhere in between those and the current versions might be ideal.) And of course we encourage SS&I to edit them to fit *their* intentions for the University - or, ideally, to fit ours even better.
(Also, it's hardly falsely infiltrating when help and I were invited in by the Revolutionary himself. And I'm not even really opposed to changing things up - I'm just interested in the minimum necessary fix, since UA seems to me like it isn't living up to its potential. I think the minimum necessary is a change in our attitudes about what it represents, rather than a change in the University itself. If I'd expressed the same view as a genuine revolutionary, I doubt anybody would have batted an eye.)
The Synaesthesias are actually some of my favorites from this group. That said, I don't think there should be five of them, but I'm not overly against it either.
One approach I commented on the task description -- take something where the synaesthesia is already completed culturally, and emphasize it. Specifically, cook with purple flavor. As in, purple popsicles. Lots of people know it as the purple candy / soda / etc flavor, but few that I know would actually say it's grape flavor. It's just... purple.
Alternately, here's an entirely Equivalenz take on the concept.
Have you seen Ratatouille? An excellent job of visual (and audio) representation of tastes and flavors.
I tend to agree though, that a lot of these could fit well into other trajectories as well. But, on the other hand, I think a lot of them *do* emphasize the trajectory that the authors are trying to emphasize -- form over function, presentation over content.
EDIT: Of course, I'm still a supporter of the Revolution. I'm just acknowledging that they have a point. More on the matter later, when I'm not about to fall asleep.
Yeah, Ratatouille did an excellent job.
And now I want to see a task commanding you to cook something which tastes lightning-y.
levitating potato: really interesting article and an excellent point about ratatouille. that does make me rethink those particular tasks, though the verdict is still out.
i think we may be in disagreement on the meaning of the u of a's trajectory. i focus on the sentiment that art informs and is informed by technique, specifically, techniques of producing meaning. far from advocating presentation over content, i feel that the stated mission of u of a has more to do with questioning preconceived notions and modes of "art," and replacing them with more effective and compelling ideas when they become obsolete.
that is, however, one woman's interpretation.
peter: when i said falsely infiltrating, i only meant to invoke the verbiage of this task which says something along those lines; i didn't mean to imply that you had done something malicious or nefarious. i'm just pointing out that i don't see what leverage was gained, and that does seem to be a requirement of the task. perhaps you needed to be a bit more malicious and nefarious to complete it as stated :)
(btw, you know i'm going to give you guys shit no matter what, right? this is a war!)
i guess my main beef here is that, like i said, you are floating these proposed tasks as u of a only, with the stated purpose of compelling people to join that group so that they can complete them, and i think a fair number of them are just too broad to qualify.
as a glasnost era u of a member, i always found it very frustrating when i saw a task that was assigned to another group that i would have loved to complete and seemed totally in line with what my vision of u of a was, but instead i was faced with a long list of "black tasks" to choose from, many of which i felt weren't really on the mark. i think people in all the groups should be more careful and thoughtful about assigning groups to their proposed tasks.
The Enlist vandalism is very clever. Explain the territory swap part, please.
This is a war in which the spoils are the fate of the university, and we're fighting in what might be termed "territory of desire" - the conceptual space tasks exist in. The Revolutionary is trying to take all of that territory away from the University; the counter-revolution is trying to hold on to nearly all of it.
We would like to negotiate a mutually-acceptable outcome. From our perspective that would ideally be one where the smallest change needed to satisfy the revolutionaries is what happens, while I'm sure that if they ever sit down to the bagaining table at all they'll be hoping for the most sweeping change that we'll put up with.
If we can find a compromise, it will be a territory swap in the truest sense - we would be surrendering our claim to some of the disputed territory of desire, and the revolutionaries would be surrendering their claim to the rest.
(Although it would of course be even better if we can win without compromising at all...)
Hm. I like that. Let us endeavor to make it so.
Dearest Counter-Revolutionaries:
The core of the matter remains: Define your version of the University.
I cannot expose your mistaken claim if you refuse to state it.
Except for bagaining. I am not a bag lady.
Dear my esteemed Revolutionary:
I stand by the University's original mission statement.
Aesthematicians devote themselves to the trinity of Technique, Appearance and Product.
Art informs and is informed by technique, specifically, techniques of producing meaning. Techniques: painting, discourse about experts, signatures, neighborhood appropriation and gentrification, museums, fashion, workplace art, drawing, anti-art, multimedia, "rediscovering" the body, depoliticization, illegality, personality, ambivalence.
As a factory of meaning, art is continually (re)equipped with the finest machines and the brightest managers. When new technology is released, art slots it in next to last year's model and turns it on. The managers optimize it to run at maximum efficiency.
What the University needs is better tasks (and by better I mean narrower in focus). And it's up to we the players to submit tasks that fit better into the University's trajectory. I don't think we the faithful members of the University should be punished for the tasks that are available to us. Write better tasks for the UofA as well as for every other group.
I'm with Lincoln here. That trajectory is inherently narrower than it is sometimes interpreted as, and the trajectory as written is a good one.
Honestly I think similar problems plague almost every group in the game, but are strongest in the University. If I could have one wish for Insatiability it would be... well, honestly it would be to join LEWL, but if I could have two the other would be for everyone to take the message of this Revolution to heart even without the Revolution succeeding. Tasking should focus more on the groups, and more care needs to go into coming up with a communal understanding about what each group is really about so the tasks availible are the ones that truly show off the group.
I have a strong suspicion that a complete rewrite of group descriptions, especially the UA one, to make it much more obvious what they're each bout, would be needed to bring this about.
That, and a failed Revolution.
Or do away with groups completely. SPAR might have the right idea.
I'm against the idea of doing away with the groups. I think the groups are an interesting and appropriate source of restrictions, both on the tasks created and on the ways people complete tasks -- provided, of course, that people pay attention to those restrictions.
Moderate amounts of restriction breeds creativity. You need look no further than the task list itself to see this -- if the game simply said "Go do something amazing out in public. Post documentation. Repeat." it wouldn't be even remotely interesting. But the tasks, by providing a restrictive yet flexible environment, solve that problem.
The problem with the University is that its trajectory, *as currently interpreted* is too broad and too vague. It doesn't matter what it says, only how it is interpreted.
I was about to say pretty much the exact same thing, LP.
Why are we on different sides again?
I agree. I love the different groups. And I love my group. And I love all of the other groups, especially when the diversity of the groups brings us all together. But I'd rather there be no groups, and just tasks if one group declares war on another.
But this isn't one group against another. This is people out of all five (and I think even a groupless or two) who don't like what people have done with the U of A and, instead of doing better, have decided they want it gone.
Come on, folks, if you want to fix things by means of tasks, you can do way better than this.
Lincoln, I must apologize for taking so long to respond to you. Blame it on tasking in the snow.
I have spoken my peace here.
being on the side of the revolution, my opinion is of course not unbiased, but:
i. many of these proposed "strictly u of a" tasks don't seem to me to be strictly u of a at all. sure, you've proposed that they be such, but many of them fall well with in the trajectory of multiple other groups.
tasks like "train yourself" and "political chaos" in particular seem to have implications far broader than those laid out in the u of a trajectory alone.
ii. though i am generally not one to naysay (really!), i must admit that a number of these tasks seem sort of hastily thrown together and unlikely ever to be approved. i'm looking in particular at synaesthesia i-v, which i honestly have a difficult time imagining anyone attempting to complete even if they did make it through ssi (which is no easy thing to begin with, let me tell you!)
iii. i'm also unclear on what leverage you gained against the revolution. did you obtain sensitive information? or hurt our cause in some way by being a part of it for a few days and then defecting? what negotiating chips have you gotten your hands on that you didn't have before?
i see what you're going for here, but this task is worth a huge number of points, and it would take a lot more than this to get a vote from me even if i wasn't a member of an opposing camp that you had falsely infiltrated.
nice work sneaking your own mission statement into the enlist praxis without notice though :)