Thesis Contexts
Adam Simon
Feb 6, 2008

Exterior Contexts

SFZero

SFZero: An interface for San Francisco. That is to say, a new representation for
the data that's already there. Your mind is full of /inaccurate/ representations
that are affecting the way you use the San Francisco dataflow.
Your character looks exactly the same as you. Your character will have all the
same skills and attributes as you, and even the same memories and feelings...
most importantly, your character is able to do things that you may be unable or
unwilling to do yourself. Your character doesn't recognize the artificial
boundaries that prevent non-players from doing what they want to do. Things
like fear, lethargy and the police don't deter your character from achieving his
or her goals.
Any material displayed as part of the Game should be considered fictive until
and unless proven otherwise.

McGonigal, “This Might Be a Game”
Ehrenreich, Dancing in the Streets
Davidson, Space Time Play: Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism: the Next
Level
Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

The User Illusion
by Tor Norretranders

information versus exformation
bandwidth of consciousness
communication & the tree of talking
unconscious simulation

Debord, Society of the Spectacle
Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation
Johnson, Emergence

game state = social state
conscious unconscious

social effects
games big games
s c a l e
brains cities
denser processing,
cultural storage, and retrieval

Roger Callois, Man, Play, and Games
Juul, Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds

Interior Contexts

modeling quantified reputation with real-time feedback

Three Houses Rumplestiltskin Sneaker Seed

game state quantifying social state
+
modelling
+
reflecting
conscious social behavior unconscious
Bring social state into consciousness through game state
A social interface to the game
Groups of choice, groups of compulsion
Situationism - the city bears the scars of gameplay