Category Archives: Blog

Metapixels: Life in life

Posted on Aug 26, 2014 by Jeff Watson

Conway’s Game of Life, implemented in Conway’s Game of Life. The OTCA metapixel is a 2048 × 2048 period 35328 unit cell that was constructed by Brice Due between the autumn of 2005 and the spring of 2006. It has … Continue reading →

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David Byrne’s “Report from LA” (1986)

Posted on Aug 16, 2014 by Jeff Watson

There are so many movies coming out and David Byrne wants to see them all. His “Report from LA” (1986) somehow banishes easy irony and parody from a frantic recitation of (mostly) imaginary genre film titles, leaving us with something … Continue reading →

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Kalmykia’s Alien Chessmaster’s Chess City

Posted on Aug 11, 2014 by Jeff Watson

Games don’t need to be linked to an existing IP or storyworld to generate enthusiasm, excitement, and narrative. Indeed, they don’t need to start off with any kind of storyworld at all for players to engage with them, obsess about … Continue reading →

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DiGRA Talk: Drama, Narrative, and Sports

Posted on Aug 5, 2014 by Jeff Watson

What Hockey Wants: Drama, Narrative, and Sports (DiGRA 2014 Talk) from Jeff Watson This talk presents an examination of hockey as it exists in early 21st century North America, paying particular attention to how narrative both emerges from, and is … Continue reading →

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Charting culture

Posted on Aug 1, 2014 by Jeff Watson

Skip to around 4:50 to see California’s magnetic pull — first centered on San Francisco, then on Los Angeles — as it draws migrants from the eastern seaboard as if they were iron filings. This animation distils hundreds of years … Continue reading →

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Last Week Tonight on the prison-industrial complex

Posted on Jul 24, 2014 by Jeff Watson

John Oliver breaks down the prison-industrial complex in this darkly comic and well-researched piece of editorial journalism. Also: singing muppets. h/t @didacticmatt

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Donjon.bin.sh

Posted on Jul 21, 2014 by Jeff Watson

The “cookbook” in TSR’s 1991 D&D tome, The Dungeon Master’s Design Kit, is a legendary cheat sheet for rapidly conceiving remarkably fleshed out RPG scenarios by rolling dice and consulting tables. Donjon automates the template-and-die-driven scenario generator contained in TSR’s … Continue reading →

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“It was one of the most interesting fads of the night, or at least the early part of the night.”

Posted on Jul 4, 2014 by Jeff Watson

R. A. Lafferty’s crisply-written short story, “Slow Tuesday Night” (1965), envisions an oddly-familiar world of frenetic hustle where up-to-the-second “trend indicators” chart the fates of fads, fortunes, and families. A mini-masterpiece of time distortion science fiction, this classic short story … Continue reading →

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Different Games: Playing With Reality

Posted on Jun 9, 2014 by Jeff Watson

Playing With Reality: Environment, Situation, and Games from Jeff Watson Talk delivered at Different Games 2014. Explores how games “play with reality,” opening various avenues for inquiry around notions of environment and situation. Makes reference to Sartre, Goffman, and Baron Von … Continue reading →

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Future Factories and Futurematic

Posted on Feb 23, 2014 by Jeff Watson

Poster design by Ceda Verbakel [intro]The Situation Lab invites you to take part in two upcoming events with award-winning New York City-based design collective, The Extrapolation Factory.[/intro] Founded by designers Elliott P. Montgomery and Chris Woebken, the Extrapolation Factory sets out to “explore … Continue reading →

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