Tasks / Negative Space
Do something in public that does not complete any past or present task.
1 to 100 players
0 points
Level 0
Created by Peter Garnett
0 completed :: 0 in progress
Interested in collaborating on this: (no one yet!)
this task is pretired
Comments
Don't do anything in, around, or for a tree.
Add nothing necessary to your location.
Don't document any substance being controlled.
Introduce yourself to new people only in a common, verbal language; don't tell them what you think of them, and only use well-established forms of introduction. Don't ask anyone to explain any words you are unfamiliar with. Don't invent any new words either.
Discovering, exploring, creating, or inventing anything is likely a bad idea.
Taking photographs in most conditions is likely bad also...
I'd give someone points just for working out a rules list that isn't a million pages long.
Also, whatever you do would need to be worth more than one point on its own merit.
Well, you don't have to worry about pretired tasks. So, things that are likely enough to come up by accident and are part of current or retired tasks are all there is to worry about.
So, here are the rules (not a complete list, just things it takes effort to avoid):
No trespassing.
Avoid most interesting interactions with strangers. In particular, avoid Frank Chu, security guards, spammers, postal carriers and paperboys, as well as Sheldon.
Avoid involving any particularly interesting objects that might be construed as "treasure." But keep your boring objects useful and new.
Involve no plants.
Press at least one button.
Don't do any of your daily activities any differently from normal.
Stay sober.
Stay above ground. Avoid labyrinths, construction sites, abandoned buildings, and anywhere scheduled for demolition, as well as anywhere too pleasant or with a floor that's good for sitting. Avoid also places overrun by nature, the highest point of anything, and the steps of City Hall. Keep away from areas you find particularly attractive or repulsive. Interesting locations in general are probably to be avoided - but make sure you aren't in the middle of nowhere, either.
Take photographs only where permitted, and only in broad daylight. Don't take any in restrooms or while blindfolded, and don't appear in any photos you take.
Go to work or school. If you work on the Sutro Tower or in a very tall building, make sure it's school you're going to. However, under no circumstances should you attend a class you aren't enrolled in.
Don't be too passive, especially on street corners.
Make sure anything unusual you're doing is not being done by others at the same time.
Cross no highways.
Play no games.
Make sure you get noticed, but don't do it by dressing to stand out.
Be uninjured when you start your completion.
Clues about what you're up to should not be left.
Don't ask anyone for anything.
Stay off public transit.
Describe no interesting events.
Make no charitable contributions.
Take perfectly ordinary baths, or none at all.
Use modern technology.
Secret pleasures are strictly forbidden.
If you touch your collaborators, it had better be sexual.
Climbing and parkour are both verboten.
Don't mess with the lighting.
No cheating.
Distractions are discouraged, even if the mailman doesn't see them.
Don't do anything likely to happen in the future, lest you cause deja vu or preenact something.
I think the hardest thing about this list is that it requires something surprisingly mundane, yet any specific acts involved must have occurred in the past and not occur in the future. That is to say, whatever you do has to ensure that it can't be done again.
At least, it can't be done again notably. Plenty of people will brush their teeth in the future, but my doing so this morning wasn't a completion of Preenactment, nor does it mean anyone might get deja vu from seeing tooth-brushing tomorrow.
Also, the injunction not to interact with strangers is because you may inadvertently complete a task by doing so, not because interacting itself does so inherently.
I think it'd be really funny to watch players go out of their way to be normal.
in this very specific way.
like, "nutra-loaf", funny.
At minimum, this would seem to require going to work and going to school.