On November 5th I received a message from Mink.
I hereby challenge you to a purple monkey dishwaser race!The reset approaches and I'm not keen to see PMD retired untested!
The race begins by sending out your task completion to another player on the 15th Nov 2007.
Well, as everyone knows, the race ended on November 29th, being won by the amazing Hey Man Jackson/Burn Unit/avidd austrian/poon/Peter Harmon/help im a bug completion, which hit the praxis before anyone else´s). Then, on December 12th, another brilliant PMD completion was posted: Charlie Fish/Herbie Hatman/Loki/FlyingDuckmonster/Flitwort/Devil Duck
So, this is the story of yet another Purple Monkey Dishwaser, which got to be 3rd place on the race, powered by a very fine team of SFØ players and me.

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First, for all of you for whom collaboration is a given, well, my hat is off, this whole business was scary! First, on getting Mink´s mail: What? Me? A race? I have always sucked at races!! Starting from musical chairs! And this is team-work too!!
And later, after reading more carefully: I have to make up a multigroup task!!! And I have to invite people!!!
And then, when the team was fully assembled and enthusiastic: I am expected to drag these cool people to guess what task I have just made up and work on an interpretation of it!!! (starting to hyperventilate).

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I invited lara black from the U of A, GYØ Tom for BartPA, Trickster Tao from Equivalenz and Stu from Biome. Trickster Tao said he couldn´t join us. Tom suggested GYØ Ben, who was immediately invited and agreed to join the team.
When we had finally managed to understand the task and get ourselves organized, Mink updated the rules!
Update:
The winning team is the first to reach Big>SIX players in a chain, the task will let you submit after 5 but the aim is Big>SIX.
So we decided to invite Spidere too. The chain was going to be
HC (Susy Derkins) ---> BartPA (GY0 Tom) -----> Biome (Stu) ------> U of A (lara black) -----> Equivalenz (GY0 Ben)---- > U of A (Spidere)
But the transit of purple monkeys through diswasers isn´t always completely smooth, and Ben ended up being too busy, so we passed it on to Spidere and invited Wishy Washy along for the last leg.
I am forever grateful to the team here, who are all impossibly cool people, and the best sports there are, and to Mink who gave me the perfect excuse to talk to them.

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Introduction. The making up of a task: I had been trying to look at things differently, like finding out how the world looked from inside the microwave. The task I wanted to do was
Change your point of view: get inside and look out.
From the microwave it wasn´t hard to think of extending it to the trash can, the laundry hamper, the washer/dryer, toaster, fridge, bathtub, sock drawer, car being washed... That would be change you point of view, allright, but in a safe, domestic way. And I do enough things in a safe, domestic way already. Also, taking the point of view of inanimate objects wasn´t that much Humanitarian Crisis after all. I thought it could be "get inside and look out" from places I know only from the outside, say, a bakery, a garage shop, a pharmacy counter, a psychiatric clinic, a toll-booth, a sewage manhole, this blacksmith workshop near my house. But I just couldn´t. You know, get there, peel off the fear. Maybe someday...
So after crying a little I thought about how much I like tasks showing a slice of the player's life, so I went and did something that I had been meaning to do for a while.
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[1] Susy Derkins - Humanitarian Crisis
Change your point of view: get inside and look out

(There is music that goes with this proof, below. Well, I mean you have to go all the way down to the end of the write-up and click on the PMDW-SusyDerkins mp3 icon. Sorry).

It was just because the chief knew me well that I was allowed to get through the door and into the little room where you had to leave your shoes and stuff and get yourself into scrubs, boots, hat and mask. The camera was sprayed with a green liquid and stored in the transfer, while I got my 60 seconds in the air shower. Then the washing of hands, putting on gloves, awkward jumping to the white floor side to greet the dear blue ghost people. The full tour, the stories of the breeding suites, the equipment just installed in the procedure rooms, the mazes and cameras in the wing with the "Do not enter" signs, just like the "On air" signs at the radio station, 20 degrees all day, garbage in the stove before getting to the quarantine rooms, sterile sawdust and sterile water bottles. Then, among rows of the black ones and the whites, get to seeing them, such a pretty fur color, and learning that they had to provide white surrogate mothers to nurse those two, born in a litter of six, but the mother, well, sometimes is like that, at least they found out soon enough. I took some pictures and then in passing, the hope, the question. "Come back in an hour", smiles behind the masks. Then the rush outside, even an old cage, water, food! The ride in the car and then, home. A gift that´s a rescue. The pretty fur is also soft, the male is about 12 weeks, tame, digs and hides in the bedding. Fully adopted already, a parade of faces saying goodnight. We want to teach him to swim, but is too cold now. It doesn´t even seem to know that raisings and cheese are edible. No name yet, we need to get ourselves a decent UV lamp first.

Pictures


































[2] GY0 Tom - BartPA

Through the door, check the board, check the tray, check the plant, sit at the desk, check the desk and begin.




















(3) Stu-Biome
As of this posting, Stu has gone missing from the race, but since she completed the task with gusto and was a link in the chain between Tom and myself (lara black), I am posting here exactly what Stu sent to me. I do not know what her interpretation of the task was, but we all very much hope that she will resurface soon and elaborate in her own fantastic voice!

From Stu:My sincere apologies for being gone for so long. I have something like 23 emails in my inbox I need to answer. And I may disappear again due to computer problems. Many thanks for keeping me in the praxis, as I thought it was awesome and fun. Here's my bit:

PRE-FINDING OUT:

When I first looked at Tom's completion of the task, I saw a bunch of pictures leading up to "and begin." His simple text in the email showed him preparing for something. He had to check on a plant, a rack, and a board. It ended with him at a desk. I figured it was something like "show what you do before you start to work" or "document the steps it takes for you to begin what you do for a living" or something.

I'm a student. This means a lot of my work is done on a computer. I tend to write papers and reports and homeworks in LaTeX, so I'd show the steps leading up to that. I figured I could keep it simple, but then I realized I had to be honest. Most of the time, when I'm getting ready to work, I procrastinate somehow. Most of the time, that procrastination involves food. That led to my big saga from getting out my laptop through eating and beginning work. I looked through Tom's pictures and email again to make sure I hadn't missed anything.

Crap. I had. Blank picture and a pear? What? In his email, Tom said to ignore the pear. Obviously, I had to telephone this somehow, and he wouldn't have included it if it wasn't meaningful somehow. Also, I hate following instructions.

But I started with the blank/black picture. I had no idea. Maybe it meant "begin sleeping?" Maybe Tom's job involves something that's censored? No, it must be that Susy had included something like it and Tom had no idea so he went along with it. I do the same. The pear is similar to Tom's player picture, so I figure I'll use something similar to mine. But I don't want it to be my face. I've been meaning to upload another picture for my player photograph task, so I take a picture of a meerkat, upload it to my player photograph, and include it as well as Tom's black picture.

I try to copy Tom's email format, which makes it a bit unreadable, but I cross my fingers anyway. I also copy the email to Tom and Susy, because Tom copied his email to me to Susy. Did I mention I was trying to really telephone it without changing it too much?

Seriously, this task is going to be something about traveling to the Arctic or something, and I'm going to have no idea.

POST-FINDING OUT:

I am amazed at what Tom has extracted from my mean photos sent to him. I do tend to stray from Biome a bit and grasp at little bits of other groups. And I love the other interpretations and the way this got whispered along so well.

What I sent to Tom and Lara Black:


Check on the hamster, arrange the pillows, grab laptop out of bag, open laptop, wake laptop from sleep, retrieve the appropriate book, open TeXShop, get distracted by realizing I'm hungry, go downstairs, check spice cabinet for inspiration, check fridge for left-overs, be tempted by orange juice, pour glass of orange juice, smell Korean left-overs (then realize they're bad and throw them out), get out pan, get two eggs, chop some veggies, fry them up, grate some cheese, realize omelette is having cohesion issues, turn it into yummy scrambled eggs with stuff in them, wash dishes, stack dishes in precarious position, get fork/put eggs on plate/grab juice, back up the stairs, wake up laptop again, realize I forgot pepper and hot sauce, get pepper and hot sauce, check on hamster again, apply pepper and hot sauce, sit down on bed/lie against positioned pillows/eat/find book again/and begin.

ignore the meercat.


































































(4) lara black-U of A
After receiving Stu’s praxis for the unknown task, I must confess that I was quite perplexed. There was a lot going on there, and I wasn’t at all sure that I would be able to figure out which aspects of the annotated slideshow she had sent me were in response to the newly created task, and which aspects were merely background noise. I despaired! I read every single one of her proofs (well worth your while by the way, if you have a bit of time lying around), looking for information that might help me deduce which elements of the praxis could be merely legacies of her everyday life and which were probably task specific.

To this end I discovered that Stu was a stu-dent and that she was a fan TeXShop which made me believe that whatever she was doing with the book she had mentioned at the start of the proof and her laptop was probably just part of a day in the life of Stu and not of paramount importance to the completion itself. I decided that the task must be “Document Distraction,” and that the description of her breakfast escapade was the meat and potatoes (or in this case eggs and bell peppers) of the proof.

But then I faltered. What did a bunch of photos of breakfast have to do with the Biome trajectory of desire? I reread the Biome trajectory of desire to see if I could uncover any answers there, but to no avail. From what I could put together, being distracted by hunger and making some eggs (however tasty) had only tangential connections to the stated mission of Biome, so it was back to the drawing board for Lara Black.

I decided to take another look at the titles of the books in the photos. Foiled again! Looking for traces of Biome, I was surprised to notice that almost every title seemed to lean towards the HC trajectory! What was Stu playing at? I cursed her multi-faceted lifestyle under my breath and sank even deeper into despair and ponderous wanderings.

After a few minutes of this intense type of thinking (which does not suit me very well at all), I decided I should revisit the text portion of the proof. Lately I have been putting a great deal of thought into how the ubiquitous photo-based documentation of tasks is not only unnecessary a good deal of the time, but sometimes even serves as a distraction from the essential information contained in a beautifully crafted write up. So I reread the text Stu had provided several times without considering the photos, looking for subtle clues as to what might be the most important kernel contained therein.

Then it struck me. She mentioned checking on the hamster twice. What a very Biome thing to do, checking frequently on a creature in your care! Cleary, the hamster was the key! But what of all the other exposition? The eggs? The photos? The heady books? Were they all just a trick designed to throw me off the true path? Fuck!!

Obviously, I had already started to go a little crazy at this point, and that’s when I noticed the last two words of the write up, which were: “and begin.”

Placing this phrase at the end of the paragraph would imply that the crux of the proof actually took place after what was detailed in the write up. OMG. Was it possible that I had wasted over an hour trying to extract information that wasn’t even contained in the write up?!

Being the fragile soul that I sometimes can be (especially after a long day of trying to record a glockenspiel part that just wouldn’t sound good, spilling half a cup of coffee on my one remaining stain-free article of clothing, and many steady hours of low blood sugar), I nearly cried. But instead, I made a conscious effort to think reasonably for a moment.

Did it really matter if I decoded the actual task as it was laid out? Or was it more important, in the spirit of “Purple Monkey Dishwasher,” to take what I might from the previous completion and let my imagination run wild with what I thought the task could have been? Yes. For the sake of my sanity, I decided that the latter was the correct answer, and set about creating a task that would encompass as many aspects of the proof provided as possible.

First, I focused on the books (which were so HC in subject matter) and the fact that Stu was obviously inputting one of them in a mode that seemed suspiciously Equivilenz. I took this information to mean that part of my task was to investigate a work that would be held in high regard by a non-U of A group, and find a way make it more accessible to my own group by means of employing the methods of still another group. Then I considered the fact that Stu had undertaken this task from bed and decided that this element should probably be part of my task as well, so I added the caveat that all aspects of the task must be completed whilst in bed.

Finally, my mind returned to the hamster. I wasn’t quite sure how to fit him into the whole concept, so I decided to loosely interpret repeatedly checking on his wellbeing as performing an extremely typical activity for someone in Biome, and added to the details of the task that at two points during the course of the completion, I should perform some extremely U of A seeming behavior to assert that I had not in fact lost touch with my group’s trajectory of desire whilst trying to further the cause of a rival group by means typically employed by yet another rival group.

And so, the task as I understood it might have read:

Identity Crisis:
Translate a work you think would likely be canonized by a rival group to into a language your own group would better understand employing methods typical of a third group. From bed.

And don’t forget your roots.

With this task in mind, I set out to find a work that might be considered pivotal by a rival group. I decided to choose between Biome and Bart PA because HC had already been done (I supposed, if my interpretation of Stu’s proof was even remotely correct) and I figured I would be recording the translation in an Equivalenz manner (despite the fact that Stu had done this already, I couldn’t think of too many ways around it considering I had to stay in bed!)

I settled on Bart PA because I had have a good deal more relations in that group than in Biome and thought perhaps that would give me some insight into their trajectory. I thought long and hard before deciding on what, to me, was an obvious winner: an old segment from Sesame Street.

Don’t laugh. I imagine that Sesame Street is about as close as a television show can get to embodying the Bart PA trajectory of desire. It is all about neighborhoods and knowing how to get around them and knowing the people in them and feeling like part of them. And the segment that I chose, “The People in your Neighborhood,” seemed particularly fitting and was also a favorite from my (and surely everyone’s?) childhood, making it the clear choice.

In order to translate the work, I decided to rerecord the song myself, replacing the dentist and the bus driver from the song with people that U of A folks might recognize from their neighborhood. Lyrics follow at the bottom of the praxis.

Next, I recorded myself performing the song. All of the tracks are me dubbing over myself, which means I could not use a simple 4-track, but had to use cutting edge computer technologies, which made me feel very Equivilenz! I even used a bunch of the features that I never use in the music recording program I have so as to truly immerse myself in the spirit of technological discovery. The recording is still inept, but hey, I did what I could. I was mimicking Equivilenz, not becoming Equivlenz!

In keeping with the other details laid out in the task as I understood it, I undertook every aspect of this task from bed, including recording the spray paint sounds, which was quite challenging. After writing the first verse, I drew a picture of the character it was about, and after writing the second verse I drew a picture of the character featured in that part of the song. Both are based (in their physicality at least) on other players that I happened to have the pleasure of meeting recently :) please note that i completed my leg of this task the day after the cgzero meet and greet about a month ago. there i met the revolutionary and anna one on whom these drawings were loosely based.

And so, without further ado, the inspiration:


And the rework:


this is a crappy fix for the fact that i didn't know how else to get the mp3 of my song into my section of the proof. a higher quality mp3 can be found at the bottom of the proof. ssi? anyway to do with mp3s what we can do with the proof tag?

And lyrics:

[spoken]
lb: hey university of aesthmatics students and faculty! Would you like to meet some of the people in your neighborhood now?

[sung]
lb:
Oh who are the people in your neighborhood
in your neighborhood
in your neighborhood
oh who are the people in your neighborhood
they're the people that you meet each day

[spoken]
lb: so say what seems to be going on over here?
Tagger: oh you know, just beautifying the neighborhood…
Lb: is that a can of spraypaint in your hand?!
Tagger: you betcha…tools of the trade…
Lb: hmm…tools of the trade? Then you must be a tagger, right?
Tagger: yep, and proud of it!

[sung]
tagger:
oh a tagger makes the streets look quaint
with a stencil and a can of paint
we create the random works of art
that you notice when you walk to BART

lb and tagger:
yes a tagger is a person in your neighborhood
in your neighborhood
in your neighborhood
a tagger is a person in your neighborhood
they're a person that you meet each day

[spoken]
(performer warms up his pipes)
lb: there’s something very interesting going on over here…what do you do, sir?
Performer: Why, I try to put an end to the concept of object worship in art.
Lb: well, you must be a performance artist then!
Performer: precisely, my dear…and you are the only person in my audience!

[sung]
performer:
a performer keeps the world engaged
when he turns a corner to his stage
the nature of his work's ephemeral
unless someone brings a video camera

lb and performer and tagger:
a performer is a person in your neighborhood
in your neighborhood
in your neighborhood
and taggers they are people in your neighborhood
they're the people that you meet
when you're walking down the street
they're the people that you meet each day


Plus proof that the task was completed in bed.





And the drawings that kept me ever so lightly tethered to my U of A roots.

tagger


performance artist


Whew.


(5) Spidere:


The task seemed to be:

Recreate a favorite childhood experience in a new way.

(Post-realization of lara's interpretation): Ah! I totally missed the "in bed" documentation in the myspace photos! Ah, well. On the other hand, I now feel like, in the same way as fortune cookies, this can be added to any task description for amusement...

(Pre-realization):
To do this task, it was important that I choose the right experience.

I thought long and hard about taking a song or video and rewriting it, as lara had. I even got so far as to make notes on lyrics for a rewrite of "The Best Thing about New York City (is You and Me)". But I eventually scrapped it as being too close to what lara had already done (and more importantly, my singing voice could never compare to hers--one of the perils with following one Aesthematician with a poorer one).

Eventually, though, it hit me. For me, building snowmen was always a pleasure. I still have fond memories of snowmen, slides, and igloos built in my youth. Over the years since, I've built a few interesting ones (you can see images of snake and snow monster at the bottom of the proof). But given the fact that the monkey was started off by Susy Derkins, it seemed like abstraction was the proper direction:

This piece is about the inadequacy of traditional imagery and symbols to convey meaning in today's world.

I'd originally planned on a second, larger, more original snow sculpture as well--the original weather forecast had called for plenty of snow. But things warmed, and Pittsburgh got rain instead of snow...and with a deadline approaching, I ended up more than an hour away before I could get enough snow to start building, on a small patch of grass in the middle of Pennsylvania (and even that was far icier than is good--it took quite a bit longer to build just this first sculpture than I'd expected). I still hope to make that second sculpture, and add it to this task when it's complete. But I had to pass the monkey on; I could only hope that the piece and its quote (with a little background) would be interesting fodder for an Equivalenz-themed task...

(Later, I made another sculpture:)

(6) Wishy Washy: (Equivalenz)



After looking at Spidere's artistic snow-things and reading carefully over his description I assumed that the task to be completed was:

Find an activity that gives you pleasure and carry out this activity in such a way as to communicate something you feel is important. Document the results of this activity in a public place.

The one thing I was sure about for this task was that it had to be accomplished in an Existenzial way. So, I decided to focus on two activities and somehow merge them together and see what happened. The pleasurable activities I decided on where:

1. Doodling
2. Learning by procrastination (ie, "trick" yourself into wasting time by convincing yourself you are learning something)

Being an Equivalenzial task I figured I would focus on using the computer (doh!) so I decided to doodle with MS Paint because it as low-tech as you can get when it comes to art programs and the end result would definitely look doodley enough. Also, I decided that I would not use any of the tools to "undo" or "erase". What you see is what I got.

Blank canvas and SF0 on Wikipedia.

For the learning by procrastination angle I decided to spend some time on Wikipedia which is definitely the place you want to be if you want to learn something online despite the well documented problems it may have.

To make a long story short, I ended up all over the place. (I did learnthat there was much contrversy surrounding the movie "300" for its depiction of Persians as crazy savages!) .... when I suddenly noticed that the wikipedia logo looks a lot like the death star. Maybe it was because I was trying to doodle Darth Vader? Hmm.. what an interesting connection, Wikipedia is like the Death Star of the internet snuffing out all other kinds of "generalist" sources of information. Try looking for something and chances are you're first search result will be a wikipedia page. It's kind of scary to think that all that referential power should be in the hands of a single site. So, I kept on doodling and decided to communicate my fears about Wikipedia.

A few hours later (yes, more clicking and learning) I decide that I was ready. I added the Existenz logo to my doodles and walked over to the printer. Unfortunately, the printer was out of magenta so I couldn't print in color. Rats! I guess grayscale will have to do. I printed six copies and stuck them up all over the floor of the building where I work. My digital doodles are back in the real world! Ha!

Wikipedia, the Deathstar of Knowledge?

Posted where I work. (copy 1 of 6)