Application

Explained very simply, this piece is a story about a man being presented with a mysterious object that is either 1) directions upon which he must act or 2) documentation of his own origins. If they are the former, then the events that proceed in the story are the events that proceed. If they are the latter, the events that proceed are his re-encounter with how he came into being not as an organism (what is that even?), necessarily, but as a someone who believes in space, physicality, reason, etc.The piece alternates between two locations: "in here," which is where the narrator builds a space in order to orient himself in relation to the question the mysterious object presents, and "that sort of place," which is where the narrator is presented with new information that both helps and antagonizes him. The juxtaposition of the closed, structured space of "that sort of place" with the open sprawl of "in here" invokes the question that the narrator circles around - whether he can recreate or reconstruct his own beginnings or origins to the point of creating the closed, structured space in which he exists now.

Source: https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/display/wdm/Cave+Writing+Presentation…

[meme.garden] is an Internet service that blends software art and search tool to visualize participants' interests in prevalent streams of information, encouraging browsing and interaction between users in real time, through time. Utilizing the WordNet lexical reference system from Princeton University, [meme.garden] introduces concepts of temporality, space, and empathy into a network-oriented search tool. Participants search for words which expand contextually through the use of a lexical database. English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized into floating synonym "seeds," each representing one underlying lexical concept. When participants "plant" their interests, each becomes a tree that "grows" over time. Each organism's leaves are linked to related streaming RSS feeds, and by interacting with their own and other participants' trees, participants create a contextual timescape in which interests can be seen growing and changing within an environment that endures.

Quake is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by GT Interactive in 1996. It is the first game in the Quake series.[5] In the game, players must find their way through various maze-like, medieval environments while battling a variety of monsters using an array of weaponry.

The successor to id Software's Doom series, Quake built upon the technology and gameplay of its predecessor.[6] Unlike the Doom engine before it, the Quake engine offered full real-time 3D rendering and had early support for 3D acceleration through OpenGL. After Doom helped to popularize multiplayer deathmatches in 1993, Quake added various multiplayer options. Online multiplayer became increasingly common, with the QuakeWorld update and software such as QuakeSpy making the process of finding and playing against others on the Internet easier and more reliable.

Quake features music composed by Trent Reznor and his band, Nine Inch Nails.[1] The overall atmosphere is dark and gritty, with lots of stone textures and a rustic, capitalized font.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Secret of Mana, originally released in Japan as Seiken Densetsu 2,[a] is a 1993 action role-playing game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It is the sequel to the 1991 game Seiken Densetsu, released in North America as Final Fantasy Adventure and in Europe as Mystic Quest, and it was the first Seiken Densetsu title to be marketed as part of the Mana series rather than the Final Fantasy series. Set in a high fantasy universe, the game follows three heroes as they attempt to prevent an empire from conquering the world with the power of an ancient flying fortress.

Rather than using a turn-based battle system like contemporaneous role-playing games, Secret of Mana features real-time battles with a power bar mechanic. The game has a unique Ring Command menu system, which pauses the action and allows the player to make decisions in the middle of battle. An innovative cooperative multiplayer system allows a second or third player to drop in and out of the game at any time. Secret of Mana was directed and designed by Koichi Ishii, programmed primarily by Nasir Gebelli, and produced by veteran Square designer Hiromichi Tanaka.

The game received considerable acclaim for its brightly colored graphics, expansive plot, Ring Command menu system, and innovative real-time battle system. Critics also praised the soundtrack by Hiroki Kikuta and the customizable artificial intelligence (AI) settings for computer-controlled allies.

The original version was released for the Wii’s Virtual Console in Japan in September 2008, and for the Wii U's Virtual Console in June 2013. The game was ported to mobile phones in Japan in 2009, and an enhanced port of the game was released for iOS in 2010 and Android in 2014. It was included in the Collection of Mana release for the Nintendo Switch in Japan in June 2017 and North America in June 2019. Nintendo also re-released Secret of Mana in September 2017 as part of the company's Super NES Classic Edition. A full 3D remake was released for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Microsoft Windows in February 2018.

(Source: Wikipedia)

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past[a] is an action-adventure game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It is the third game in The Legend of Zelda series and was released in 1991 in Japan and 1992 in North America and Europe.

A Link to the Past focuses on Link as he journeys to save Hyrule, defeat the dark lord Ganon, and rescue the descendants of the Seven Sages. It returns to a top-down perspective similar to the original The Legend of Zelda, dropping the side-scrolling gameplay of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. It introduced series staples such as parallel worlds and items including the Master Sword.

Released to critical and commercial success, A Link to the Past was a landmark game for Nintendo and is widely considered one of the greatest video games of all time. Over four million copies have been sold worldwide. A Link to the Past was ported to the Game Boy Advance as A Link to the Past and Four Swords, and was ported for the Wii, Wii U, and New Nintendo 3DS via the Virtual Console. In 2017, Nintendo rereleased A Link to the Past as part of the Super NES Classic Edition.[2] A direct sequel, A Link Between Worlds, was released for 3DS in November 2013.[3][4]

(source: wikipedia)

Space Invaders (Japanese: スペースインベーダー Hepburn: Supēsu Inbēdā) is a 1978 arcade game created by Tomohiro Nishikado. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed in the United States by the Midway division of Bally. Within the shooter genre, Space Invaders was the first fixed shooter and set the template for the shoot 'em up genre. The goal is to defeat wave after wave of descending aliens with a horizontally moving laser to earn as many points as possible.

Space Invaders was an immediate commercial success; by 1982, it had grossed $3.8 billion,[7] with a net profit of $450 million, making it the best-selling video game and highest-grossing "entertainment product" at the time. Adjusted for inflation, the many versions of the game are estimated to have grossed over $13 billion in total revenue as of 2016,[7] making it the highest-grossing video game of all time.

Space Invaders is considered one of the most influential video games of all time. It helped expand the video game industry from a novelty to a global industry, and ushered in the golden age of arcade video games. It was the inspiration for numerous video games and game designers across different genres, and has been ported and re-released in various forms. The 1980 Atari VCS version quadrupled sales of the VCS, thereby becoming the first killer app for video game consoles. More broadly, the pixelated enemy alien has become a pop culture icon, often representing video games as a whole.

Designer Nishikado drew inspiration from games like 1976's ball-bouncing game Breakout and the 1975 shooter game Gun Fight, as well as science fiction narratives such as The War of the Worlds, Space Battleship Yamato, and Star Wars. To complete development of the game, he had to design custom hardware and development tools.

(source: Wikipedia)

Donkey Kong[b] is an arcade game released by Nintendo in 1981. An early example of the platform game genre, the gameplay focuses on maneuvering the main character across a series of platforms while dodging and jumping over obstacles. In the game, Mario (originally named Mr. Video and then Jumpman) must rescue a damsel in distress named Pauline (originally named Lady), from a giant ape named Donkey Kong. The hero and ape later became two of Nintendo's most popular and recognizable characters. Donkey Kong is one of the most important games from the golden age of arcade video games as well as one of the most popular arcade games of all time.

The game was the latest in a series of efforts by Nintendo to break into the North American market. Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo's president at the time, assigned the project to a first-time video game designer named Shigeru Miyamoto. Drawing from a wide range of inspirations, including Popeye, Beauty and the Beast, and King Kong, Miyamoto developed the scenario and designed the game alongside Nintendo's chief engineer, Gunpei Yokoi. The two men broke new ground by using graphics as a means of characterization, including cutscenes to advance the game's plot, and integrating multiple stages into the gameplay.

Although Nintendo's American staff was initially apprehensive, Donkey Kong succeeded commercially and critically in North America and Japan. Nintendo licensed the game to Coleco, who developed home console versions for numerous platforms. Other companies cloned Nintendo's hit and avoided royalties altogether. Miyamoto's characters appeared on cereal boxes, television cartoons, and dozens of other places. A lawsuit brought on by Universal City Studios (later Universal Studios), alleging Donkey Kong violated its trademark of King Kong, ultimately failed. The success of Donkey Kong and Nintendo's victory in the courtroom helped to position the company for video game market dominance from its release in 1981 until the late 1990s.

(Source: Wikipedia)

As N. Katherine Hayles has argued, the proliferation of digital media has radically transformed the ways in which we pay attention, privileging a kind of frantic and promiscuous “hyper attention” over the sustained “deep attention” traditionally solicited by long-form print media. “Fragile Pulse: A Meditation App” invites the reader to consider the ways that computational media may indeed cause what has been called “digital distraction” but may also be used in the context of regimes of self-care and self-quantification to increase our capacity to pay attention deeply. While tools for measuring, testing, and training for one's body and mind are widely popular (from the Fitbit to meditation apps like Headspace), the theme of self-care is generally peripheral to the electronic literature community. “Fragile Pulse” takes the form of a digital text/web application that encourages the viewer to pay attention to attention. Using data from the webcam and microphone, it quantifies the reader's bodily stillness and quietness. When the reader is still and quiet, a calmly pulsating text unfolds on the screen, guiding the reader through a meditation. However, when the program detects movement or noise above a certain threshold, signaling distraction, the screen becomes filled with “stray thoughts” generated on-the-fly via a natural language processing. Visually, these stray thoughts (shards of hyper attention) cover up the meditative text, blinking and wiggling to further emphasize their status as distractions. Echoing the way that digital/social media can foster anxiety and depression, this text generation system models the way a mind can slip from harmless distractions to anxious obsessions. Only the viewer's silence and stillness dispel these computer-generated distractions and re-launch the human-authored meditative text. This piece thus raises questions not only about attention but also about the ways that digital technologies of self-care enforce regimes of (sometimes extreme) cognitive and physical discipline.

Hayles, N. K. (2007). Hyper and deep attention: The generational divide in cognitive modes. Profession, 2007(1), 187-199.

http://www.computationalcreativity.net/iccc2019/assets/creative-submissions/iccc19-booten-fragile-pulse.pdf

The Doom (stylized as DOOM) franchise is a series of first-person shooter video games developed by id Software, and related novels, comics, board games, and major film adaptation. The series focuses on the exploits of an unnamed space marine operating under the auspices of the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC), who fights hordes of demons and the undead.

Doom is considered one of the pioneering first-person shooter games, introducing to IBM-compatible computers features such as 3D graphics, third-dimension spatiality, networked multiplayer gameplay, and support for player-created modifications with the Doom WAD format. Since its debut in 1993, over 10 million copies of games in the Doom series have been sold; the series has spawned numerous sequels, expansion packs, and 2 films.

(Source: Wikipedia)