Further Supplement to Paper on the Website:
The Internet as a Dramatic Medium, Supplement 2
Toni Sant and Kim Flintoff
Posted October 15, 2006
1. Further History:
It was a short leap to computer adventure games, also known as
“Multi-User-Dungeon” or “Multi-User Dimensions”–or MUD for short. The
fantasy of D&D had a strong early influence but soon extended to
include science-fiction scenarios. Dungeons & Dragons
enthusiasts Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle started the first MUD in
1979 while studying at Essex University in the United Kingdom. Many
people who came to be involved in these interactive games found the
internet offered an opportunity to broaden the opportunities for
playing these games, and they were also able to enjoy the role-taking
functions of being other than their ordinary mundane selves; taking
“who else can I be” in a more radical fantasy direction. The MUD
was distinctive in that it relied upon text based interactions and
descriptive text to shape the online world e.g. “You find yourself
standing in a pleasant garden surrounded by the smells and sounds of
springtime”.
Around 1989, a new kind of MUD was developed by James Aspnes, a
graduate student at Carnegie-Mellon University. Known as “TinyMUD,” it
broke away from the Dungeons & Dragons-type of previous MUDs, and
was designed as a player-extensible space with special attention to
social interaction. The players themselves could now design this online
place to simulate any spatial configuration they desired and contain
all sort of objects, which could be used by all other users. Whereas
the context of the earlier MUDs was relatively fixed by the computer
mediator (or dungeon master), these settings themselves could be
co-created by those participating, leading to an expansion of themes
and possiblities. This TinyMUD was the basis for the next development,
the first MUD Object Oriented, or MOO, titled “LambdaMOO,” created by
Pavel Curtis in 1990. The added ability to build, extend and
share the textual artifacts of the MUD worked to establish a stronger
sense of online presence, control and eventually, community. This was
still a far cry from The Sims and the visually rich worlds (e.g. Active
Worlds, Cybertown, Second Life) we encounter today, but the fundamental
principles of online gaming and online interaction were being cast.
Cynthia Haynes and Jan Rune Holmevik, who
created Lingua MOO to serve primarily the University of Texas at Dallas
Rhetoric and Writing program, see MOOs as a very productive space for
those who create from whatever they have on hand.
Hacktivism
In some cases this type of activity has been called
“hacktivism.” This not to be confused with the type of malicious
computer network crackers that the popular press calls hackers. As the
Finnish social theorist Pekka Himanen (2001) argues, you can be a
hacker even without having anything to do with computers. This is
because true hackers (not the criminals the media calls hackers) are
people who harmonize the rhythms of their creative work with rest of
their lives so that they enhance each other.
A keyword search for the term “hacktivism” yielded almost 13,000
matches in April 2002 on the popular Internet search-engine Google. Two
years later that number had tripled, suggesting that about 13,000 new
online documents were indexed each year by Google. While many of the
results are links to pages with news reports about hacktivist
activities reported by both mainstream and underground sources, the
search directs you to a few sites about hacktivism too.
The Hacktivist is one such website; “dedicated to examining the theory
and practice of hacktivism and electronic civil disobedience while
contributing to the evolution of hacktivism by promoting constructive
debate, effective direct action, and creative solutions to complex
problems in order to facilitate positive change”
(http://www.thehacktivist.com). This site offers a fairly comprehensive
insight into topics such as website defacements, virtual sit-ins,
“denial of service” actions, e-petitions, and freedom of speech. It
lists links to other hacktivist websites, such as the IrelandOFFLine
Blackout.
IrelandOFFLine (http:/www.irelandoffline.org) is an independent
organization formed in May 2001 to campaign for affordable Internet
access services throughout Ireland. The IrelandOFFLine Blackout was a
multi-pronged protest on November 16, 2001, organized to highlight the
non-existence of flat rate broadband Internet access services in
Ireland – services which make Internet access affordable and
subsequently promote the growth of Internet use. This example of
hacktivism is not very complex in it technical undertakings, but some
examples of hacktivism are quite technically elaborate, often with
artistic aspirations.
One such case involves a phenomenon known as “Google bombing.” Whoever
engages in this form of hactivism aims to make a particular website
come up as a top result on what has become the Internet’s most popular
search engine. This is possible because of the algorithm that drives
Google search results depends in large part on how many other sites
link to any specific website in relation to unique keywords or phrases.
In February 2003, as controversy over weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq dominated the news around the world, British pharmacist Anthony
Cox devised a parody site (http:// www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk) and
managed to get it to appear as the top link on Google for anyone
searching for weapons of mass destruction.
Google bombing is merely one example of how the Internet is being used
as a medium for radical performance. A number of performance groups use
new communication technology as a vehicle for creative expression with
an agenda for social change.
Electronic Disturbance
In 1997, a small group of online activists and artists engaged
in developing the theory and practice of Electronic Civil Disobedience
(ECD) began organizing theatrical events under the name Electronic
Disturbance Theater (EDT). Their early work consisted mainly of
electronic actions against the Mexican and U.S. governments to draw
attention to the war being waged against the Zapatistas and other
under-represented groups in Mexico. In time ECD tactics were also
applied to a range of political and artistic movements ranging from
actions against the World Trade Organization at WTO talks in Sydney,
Australia in 2002 to a Days of the Dead E-Actions and street vigils for
the murdered women of Juarez, Mexico in 2003 (See
www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/).
Working at the intersections of radical politics, performance art, and
computer software design, the EDT group has produced a device called
Flood Net, a web based application used to flood and block the web site
of an oppressor. In the spirit of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the
Oppressed, though not necessarily adopting TO techniques, EDT sees the
theatre as a weapon that can empower the oppressed. ECT brings this
application of theatre to the Internet. The actions of EDT forms part
of a larger movement that uses wireless new media technology (cellular
phones, PDAs, and hand-held computers) to facilitate the overthrow of
repressive regimes, as we saw in the Philippines in January 2001 and
the various WTO protests since the famous swarm appeared in what has
become known as the Battle of Seattle.
Operating on a parallel track are groups like The Surveillance Camera
Players (SCP) who use public webcams and other security cameras to
stage theatrical commentaries about contemporary society. SCP
originally came together in December 1996 when six members of the newly
formed company performed an adaptation of Alfred Jarry’s Uby Roi in
front of a surveillance camera in Manhattan's Union Square subway
station. A little more than half way through their performance, the
actors where told to move along by two New York City policemen (See
www.notbored.org/the-scp.html).
The use of webcams in online performance takes on various guises.
During the third weekend in October 2001, Amy Berk and Andy Cox
organized an online bed-in for peace, in response to the terrorist
attacks in the United States and military action in Afghanistan. The
event involved these two people staying in bed, fasting, and meditating
on world peace for forty-eight hours, with a webcam pointed at their
bed as they communicated with other people live online.
This performance was based on one devised by Yoko Ono and John Lennon
in March 1969. This performance of the Ono-Lennon bed-in is probably
best known for Give Peace a Chance, the peace-anthem which Lennon wrote
for the occasion. That song remains popular now, more than thirty years
later. In large part, this event was successful because Ono was a
sophisticated performance artist and a founding member of the Fluxus
movement, and the couple had the benefit of celebrity status through
their association with The Beatles.
The Berk and Cox bed-in attracted only a fraction of the attention, and
had none of the celebrity buzz. In spite of this, it is culturally
significant because it marks the first time that an Internet community
participated in an online bed-in for peace. The performance was
successful in its own way, because although only a few hundred people,
heard about it when it happened, Berk and Cox have documented the event
on a website which includes images from the webcams of some of the
people who took part in the online video conference, transcripts from
all the text-chat that went on October 19-21, 2001, during the bed-in
for peace, edited slightly in order to be read more easily, and other
relevant material. Berk and Cox were in residence at New Pacific Studio
in New Zealand during this performance
(http://www.bed-in-for-peace.net).
References:
(To Hacktivism:)
Himanen, Pekka. 2003. The Hacker Ethic. New York: Random House.
McCaughey, Martha et al (eds). 2003. Cyberactivism: Online Activism in
Theory and Practice. New York & London: Routledge.
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Further References:
Crawford, Chris. (2004). Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling.
Berkeley, CA: New Riders Games/ Peachpit Press.
Carton, Sean. (1995). Internet virtual worlds: Quick tour. Chapel
Hills, NC: Ventana.
Danet, Brenda. 2001. Cyberpl@y : Communicating Online, New
technologies/new cultures. New York: Berg.
Dibbell, Julian. 1998. My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual
World. New York: H. Holt.
King, Brad & Borland, John. (2002). Dungeons and dreamers: the rise
of computer game culture from geek to chic. Emeryville, CA: McGraw-Hill
/ Osborne.
Schrum, Stephen (Ed.) (1999). Theatre in cyberspace: Issues of
teaching, acting and directing. New York: Peter Lang. (Artists and
issues in the Theatre, vol 10). Hyperdrama, at the moo theatre. Pn2075
T54 Schrum is at Pennsylvania State U at Hazelton.