artport gatepage April 05: "Agonistics - A Language Game" by Warren Sack

The April 05 gatepage
for artport, the Whitney Museum's portal to Internet art
features
"Agonistics - A Language Game"
by Warren Sack
http://artport.whitney.org


"Agonistics - A Language Game" – commissioned by Rhizome.org and currently=
being shown as part of the exhibition "Making Things Public" at ZKM, Karls=
ruhe, Germany (http://www.zkm.de) – is a game played by sending email mess=
ages to an online discussion. The project creates a space of interactive, g=
raphical objects and dynamics inspired by the concept of "agonistics" (the =
science of athletic combats, or contests in public games).

"Agonistics" provides an alternative interface to existing, online discussi=
ons. Using any e-mail program, players can post to online, public discussio=
ns and the project then translates players' messages into a graphical displ=
ay where participants are represented by thumbnail images. Players are assi=
gned a position on "fields" depending on the content of their message and a=
re placed in relation to the other players who posted a message on the same=
theme. The goal of the game is to win points, move to the center of the ci=
rcle, and get your words displayed on the screen.

The artport gatepage provides a portal to the "Agonistics," featuring infor=
mation about the project and several Usenet newsgroups discussions that hav=
e been reframed as language games:

* alt.politics.bush
* fr.soc.politique
* de.soc.politik.misc
* alt.tv.simpsons

The gatepage also publishes the source code of the project.