Last year on Terra Nova, I posted on EVE Online that gave mention of Battlezone, the classic 1980 video game. Battlezone 1980, however, was a waystation, that led to a more robust connection from a more recent past, Battlezone II (1999, Pandemic Studios). The connection to now is Matt Harding, who by his account was:
"a 30-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. He achieved this goal pretty early and enjoyed it for a while, but eventually realized there might be other stuff he was missing out on. In February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he'd saved to wander around the planet until it ran out..."
He did, and the rest is prolog.
If you haven't worked it out, Matt was working for Pandemic Studios and earlier had his hand in Battle Zone II (via above Wikipedia link). But why Matt is well known is not because of his video game credits, but because he wandered the real world creating a series of weird but lovely dance videos. Visit his site and you will see what I mean.
It is strange how oddball connections work. Just this weekend I caught up with Matt again with via his 2008 video (excellent) where dancing around the world continues to be the theme.
My kids also enjoyed this rediscovery. I enjoyed it doubly because they enjoyed it - another chance for them to pick up memorable bits about the globe and to be someday better citizens, hopefully.
It turns out that I am also an avid reader of Ethan Zuckerman's weblog about media and third world development and other subjects. He has eloquently written in the past on how mobility can lead to "birds of a feather" effects that "makes people stupid" (his words). He points to the internet as an example of this effect, at least when it comes to news and global awareness. He explains this well and suggests that serendipity is one tool by which people might transcend these effects ( "Homophily, serendipity, xenophilia" ). In fact, a while ago I collected a few thoughts on how Ethan's reasoning of serendipity might extend to my observations of player experience in EVE Online.
Why I picked up on Matt again this weekend, was because of Ethan's July 3 post ( "A goofy dance, a sweet lullaby" ). In that post, Matt is context for a broader range of thinking on the globe and matters Ethan cares about. One thread worth mentioning is “Where the Hell is Afunakwa?” It turns out, in Ethan's words, "(o)n the island of Malaita in the Solomon Islands, off the coast of Papua New Guinea, in the town of Auki, Matt met David Solo, a cousin of Afunakwa." Who is Afunakawa? Well, the source of the music on Matt's earlier dance videos "is from a lullaby, 'Rorogwela', sung in the Solomon Islands... by a woman named Afunakwa."
Connections work in strange ways, for example Ethan finds in Matt an opportunity to discuss his thoughts on copyright protections of "indigeneous knowledge", among other subjects. My digression is more mundane. Does Matt's link to Pandemic Studios change the impact of his videos to me, us here? Probably not. But on the other hand traversing the network of links around his videos and to and from Battlezone 1980 to Auki on Malaita in the Solomons, stimulates exploration and oddball connections to my children and I. In "Playing with history" I illustrated how board gaming powerfully shaped my early interest in history, but this is a direct example and not very subtle. Matt is a thread that runs through the back-door, and in some ways I wonder if it can be more powerful, precisely because of serendipity. In "Playing with history" it is likely that for a number of reasons I was predisposed to be interested in history and thus play those games. Here, Battlezone (ex-)players, or Pandemic studio aficiandos without initial connection or interest in Afunakwa, may find one.
What connections through the back-door to the real world have you made via video games, its communities and players, lately?
The number of connections that one can make via video games is amazing . . . especially for MMO games. It has really become something in and of itself for bringing people together.
Posted by: GotGame.com | Jul 07, 2008 at 16:19
This isn't exactly what you're looking for, but it's at least as close as Battle Zone and dancing.
I've always wondered what would have happened if Atari/Nolan Bushnell had taken up Woz & Steve Jobs' offer to market the Apple PC. Would Atari have been bigger than Microsoft based on that? Would the game console/PC divide never have happened? Would the business PC never have happened?
I imagine thing probably would have fallen apart quickly in some different way (as they were wont to do at Atari), but it amazes me how much our current computer industry reflects the long shadow of certain moments of dumb fortune.
Posted by: greglas | Jul 07, 2008 at 17:28