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Storified for convenience. I think. Because there are many tweets, click the big Read Next Page button when you reach the end.

Update May 2018: Storify shut down. I exported the tweets, but it may be buggy. Thanks for reading this livetweet thing, all these years later!

  1. pippinbarr
    P░pp░n B░rr@pippinbarr
    ░░░ GAME IDEA ░░ ░░░░ JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE OUT ░░░░░ THEY PULL YOU BACK IN ░░░ ░░░░░░ AND IT FEELS GREAT ░░░░░░░░ TO STILL BELONG
    ·
    2 years ago
  2. jekagames
    Jessica Marcotte@jekagames
    Today is @pippinbarr 's job talk and somehow that puts me in a festive mood! As @ginaharaszti would say, "a hatful of shit," Pippin!
    ·
    2 years ago
  3. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    The @pippinbarr talk is about to begin.
    2 years ago
  4. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Not going to be using a hashtag for this because I want more chars to type with.  https://twitter.com/gersandelf/status/672484718009446401 …
    2 years ago
  5. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    "That word-game-is something I want to complicate by the end of the talk. Hopefully it will become less clear." -@pippinbarr
    2 years ago
  6. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Amongst other things, Pippin wants to examine how we think of games as a medium for an art practice.
    2 years ago
  7. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Pippin comes from a gallery art world - his parents were art collectors and early adopters of technology.
    2 years ago
  8. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Pippin then studied philosophy and computer science -- > while(true) { philosophise(); }
    2 years ago
  9. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    "Computers and computation and the things that they enable are things that we need to think philosophically about." @pippinbarr
    2 years ago
  10. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    "We need to concern ourselves how to ask questions through software and with software."
    2 years ago
  11. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Pippin started by investigating "values of interaction" in productivity software - how hierarchies of information are communicated.
    2 years ago
  12. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Pippin is very interested in the way metaphors are expressed in visual and textual interfaces, in the terminal or on the desktop.
    2 years ago
  13. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    The way commands are named in the commandline tend to be very metaphorical, and help us examine our own relationship with computers.
    2 years ago
  14. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    His work ended up leading him to videogames, thinking of them as interfaces running on hardware, looking at different scales of interaction.
    2 years ago
  15. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    One of the early games @pippinbarr looked at was Grand Theft Auto San Adreas and investigated how interactivity communicated its values.
    2 years ago
  16. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Pippin was also interested in trying to play GTA SA in ways that subvert or run counter to the criminality values embedded in the narrative.
    2 years ago
  17. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    The game was built to force you to be a criminal, no matter what, or your character would starve.
    2 years ago
  18. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    There was no way to unlock the landscape of the game if you refused to act as a criminal in GTA SA or move through the narrative.
    2 years ago
  19. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Pippin is interested in how interactions shape experiences, specifically.
    2 years ago
  20. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    After a while where Pippin got sick of academic writing, he then started writing about the expressive possibilities of games.
    2 years ago
  21. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    He ended up writing a book called "how to play a videogame" about some of the wonderful little moments that he would uncover in games.
    2 years ago
  22. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    In hindsight, returning to his computer science roots was a key moment of his practice, and he started building things. @pippinbarr
    2 years ago
  23. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    .@pippinbarr approaches his work as a technologist, an artist, and a philosopher.
    2 years ago
  24. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Pippin started making games as all of the pieces of his upbringing and academic journeys came together. His first game was Guru Quest.
    2 years ago
  25. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    All of @pippinbarr's games sit at a crossroads of all his interests and other weird stuff.
    2 years ago
  26. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Calling something a game is a Trojan Horse, because maybe it's a game or maybe it's something a little different.
    2 years ago
  27. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    There's definitely a difference between saying "hey come play my game" versus "Hey come play my interactive artwork"
    2 years ago
  28. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    The first @pippinbarr game I ever played was The Artist Is Present and I do recommend it. Please go check it out.
    2 years ago
  29. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    There is now a slide in @pippinbarr's talk where there are only two words: "ecological validity"
    2 years ago
  30. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    The responses to Pippin's work and games have been very varied and sometimes interesting - he is trying to draw on those reactions.
    2 years ago
  31. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Pippin has created many different versions of Pong to figure out how the games affect the players emotionally.
    2 years ago
  32. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Games become more than something the artist just sets free. Ends up creating connections between people, not least the player and creator.
    2 years ago
  33. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    It's not usual in games studies to make games as a method of investigating games-this is something @pippinbarr is trying to change.
    2 years ago
  34. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    .@pippinbarr is awed by how here in Quebec "research creation" is actually a thing and he thinks it's marvellous and is trying to get that $
    2 years ago
  35. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Pippin's games get portrayed as Fine Art and while he thinks that is good he didn't initially seek that out.
    2 years ago
  36. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Games do have sex appeal to museums and galleries because they might draw in them young folks with their newfangled media.
    2 years ago
  37. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Though Pippin had to contend with the fact that galleries and museums kind of killed **the thing** about his work (interactivity).
    2 years ago
  38. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    ...Cue animation of Prometheus getting his liver eaten out by an eagle...
    2 years ago
  39. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Pippin's work frequently moves through the very abstract to the very silly to the very, very serious.
    2 years ago
  40. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    ...Until everything feels hopelessly arbitrary or confusing... but this process is also thought-provoking.
    2 years ago
  41. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    The next slide section is called "The Computer Is Present" - Pippin interested in the technical tools and their philosophical implications
    2 years ago
  42. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Is it brave for the computer to try to solve chess? It is solving chess for you, until its processor heats up and dies, but it's all for you
    2 years ago
  43. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Your computer is going to melt before it solves chess. Probably.
    2 years ago
  44. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    "I don't necessarily like people all the time." @pippinbarr
    2 years ago
  45. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    "I don't know why, but I posted (Leaderboarder) on Reddit." @pippinbarr
    2 years ago
  46. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Nobody wanted to play the game, but they would just break the game.
    2 years ago
  47. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    This was especially interesting because Leaderboarder was made in Javascript and people REALLY went to town on it.
    2 years ago
  48. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    People would create programs that would fight each other while playing the game.
    2 years ago
  49. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    The scripts people made ended up playing the game, and there were barely any people playing, yet it was still a shared experience.
    2 years ago
  50. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    It felt like playing with machines and cyborgs.
    2 years ago
  51. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    "I'm equally inept at everything so that's why I work alone. Ineptly." @pippinbarr
    2 years ago
  52. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Pippin has made 36 versions of the game Breakout and he is trying to turn popular videogames into versions of Breakout.
    2 years ago
  53. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Pippin is really intrigued by the ideas of translation and adaptation.
    2 years ago
  54. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Pippin is also working with the Initiative for Indigenous Futures to share game and design knowledge to imagine indigenous futures.
    2 years ago
  55. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Pippin's working now on a project about a future where technology doesn't necessarily want to exterminate humanity but wants to ignore us.
    2 years ago
  56. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    GAME IDEA: YOU NEED TO RELAX BUT THERE IS NO RELAX BUTTON
    2 years ago
  57. gersandelf
    Gersande La Flèche@gersandelf
    Pippin is now answering questions and I'm going to flee because my class ...starts... in four minutes in another building :D
    2 years ago

Today I livetweeted a talk by Pippin Barr