From Gong…

Rhizome visits Babycastles, a New York “DIY arcade space with a rotating set of independent games curated by local artists and game designers.” [Link]

Kunal [Gupta] and I talked about why the indie game scene in New York was so important to him, and why he chose to create the Babycastles arcade space. In an age when videogames are more popular than ever, the industry has become increasingly corporatized, making it more and more common for games to be created by massive teams of developers at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. Yet it is also easier than ever to produce and distribute indie games made for almost nothing and with a team of just one or two programmers and artists. So why choose to create an arcade instead of just distributing online? Games have always been about the collective experience of playing together with others, and with a captive audience at each Silent Barn show the arcade seemed like the best way to begin to create a culture of game players and developers in NYC.

Stuart Brown at TED, talking about serious play. His research shows that “esearch shows play is not just joyful and energizing — it’s deeply involved with human development and intelligence.” Are we suffering from play deprivation? What is the taxonomy of play?

Dangerous Minds has a pointer to a project at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art on the history of sampling in music… exploring “the complex map of sound art from different points of view,” including a bimonthly series, VARIATIONS, curated by Jon Leidecker (wobbly).

“Play is the greatest natural resource in our creative economy.” (This was the keynote at MIT’s 2010 Sandbox Summit)

Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth is part of a group called “Text of Light,” formed in 2001 to improvise music to the films of Stan Brakhage and other Expanded Cinema filmmakers. Other members Alan Licht (gtrs/devices), Christian Marclay and DJ Olive (turntables), William Hooker (drums/perc), Ulrich Krieger (sax/electronics), and most recently Tim Barnes (drums/perc).

Plutopia 2011 during SXSW Interactive will have as its theme “the future of play.” I just found a great on-topic video, a 2.5-year-old’s first encounter with the iPad. (Via Technology Futurist) “I did it! It wasn’t broken!”

Plutopia Productions has an unpaid intern position. We need someone who’s fired up about social media, communication, and events production, wants to learn from experienced professionals, and ‘gets’ what Plutopia is about: creating the best possible futures for a complex, convergent world, one future-focused event at a time. If you’re interested, send an email to intern at plutopiaproductions.com.

It was “just” Simon Posford last night – he’s a trip and consummate showman/dandy/brilliant musician – with a DJ station and a number of dancers. The projections were incredible – a feedback/strange loop via a live vid feed that made the resulting images look like you were moving back and forward through time. The dancers looked like the were simultaneously in the past, present and future is the only way to describe. Like 20th century noughts/teens/20s footage of early film and the women reminded me of Theda Bara. There were male dancers too…I liked that!

And the costumery – whoa. Like Byzantium and Egypt and Mesopotamia and Teotihuacan and Cirque due Soleil and Steampunk all rolled into one. What a feast for the senses. Wasn’t bored one minute watching the show (rare for me)…. Truly amazing.