Joseph Matheny's Blog, page 21

A few quotes from the article:

In a no holds barred interview exclusive onDisinfo.com, Jason DeMarco, the “Creative” Director for Cartoon Network’s Adult Swimprovides a shocking revelation:

THEY’RE JUST A BUNCH OF BORING EXECUTIVES WITH A LOT OF HYPE AND NO INSPIRATION!!!

All of this speaks to a question asked by media pioneer Joseph Matheny when he was reflecting on what happens to transmedia once it reaches the cold dead hand of corporate corruption: Who invited the Lobsters anyway?

Matheny describes the intentions of early transmedia as an attempt “to broaden and open up the storytelling process to mediums outside of the traditional publishing platforms, i.e. text/images. It was part Borges, part George Coates, part The Game (the move with Michael Douglas) and part other things.” Digital media has opened up the doors for a wide array of integral expression that can deeply accentuate our shared heritage of human endeavor. When the Creative Director for Adult Swim can’t cite much more than Instagram as an inspiration, and mentions the guiding philosophy of “wow that’s interesting to look at,” we know we’re in Lobster’land.

Read the rest here

There is an Ong’s Hat section in this French article, from the site Tryangle about starting your own religion, titled: TUTORIAL: HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN RELIGION?

Excerpt (machine translation):

In fact we can find the origin ARGs “occult” or “sacred”, in particular through the myth of Ong’s Hat . In the 90s indeed circulated anonymous documents, Incunabula Papers, which told the story of a team of physicists, refugees in the ghost town of Ong’s Hat, which had succeeded in using tantric techniques to contact parallel universes. But this story myth, far from being presented in a linear fashion, as in a novel, was distributed over multiple independent media, browsing els networks (which at the time consisted mainly of small telephone servers because the Internet was still very accessible to the average person) or available via fax or photocopies … Especially at no time said document does not explicitly claimed as fictions. The game designer Denny Unger shows in the passage that follows the religious aspect, occult, the myth of Ong’s Hat:

Ong’s hat and Incunabula have always treated the problem of levels of understanding. When you look at every aspect of the story, you find yourself facing a challenge. You discover an exciting info that takes you on a path only to discover that it was a dead end, but … he is ultimately the way you thought wrong is the right truth, and so on .

A portion of the population simply does not grasp the incunabula and will be a “weird thing” but some will be captured by them, obsessed with their mystery. This obsession usually lasts until the person has extract of the story something that is vital for it. There is also another kind of explorer incunabula. This one goes beyond personal obsessions and begins to understand a more comprehensive picture by linking information apparently unconnected. What it perceives is also a series of carefully constructed to filter certain types of personalities and find suitable “candidate” tests. A general scheme of Incunabula appears. It reminds initiations sects, but is very different because this process selects a particular type of personality someone hedonistic, open-minded, but skeptical, with a free turn of scientific spirit, creative, thinker, educated, and critical. Certainly not typical of the standard sect initiated.

Read it here (in French or translate)

A batch of emails has alerted me to another strange synchronicity re: the Ong’s Hat material.  This time it involves the infamous scene in the Ong’s Hat graphic novel (included with this post as a PDF) that plays out between Cranston and myself.  The scene takes place in front of the “red door” (a very real place) which is the entrance to the “Chinese Freemason of the World” organization. It seems that SF/CA Senator Leeland Yee has recently been arrested and charged with weapons trafficking, and the scandal involves the Chinese Freemasons in Chinatown. Pictures of the “red door” are currently all over the news. A few vigilant OH fans noted it and alerted me.

 

FBI agents and a police officer stand in front of the Ghee Kung Tong temple and Chinese Freemasons building in Chinatown on Wednesday, March 26 during an FBI raid following the arrest of Senator Leland Yee earlier this morning. Photo by Jessica Christian / Xpress

According to FBI Special Agent Michael Gimbel, “the FBI is executing numerous arrests and search warrants around the Bay Area.” Included in this mornings raids are Yee’s Sacramento office, his home on 24th Avenue in San Francisco’s Sunset District, a building on the 1700 block of Hyde Street and the Ghee Kung Tong Chinese Freemason Lodge in Chinatown.

It seems that 2014 is going to be a year chock full of personal synchronicities for me, as this site attests lately. Since I am a fan of  the serendipitous experience, I  look forward to living the Chinese curse/blessing (depending on your outlook):  ”May you live in interesting times.”

 Ong’s Hat Graphic Novel

Recent article from French magazine, Internet ACTU. The article is in French, so if your French is rusty you’ll need to run it through  the translation platform of your choice.

Excerpt (machine translation):

The ” transmedia “buzzword in digital media and its parent, the alternate reality game , they were diverted from their original mission, the subversion, the questioning of consensus reality? It is believed that Joseph Matheny , which can be considered the inventor of the domain. A recent post published on the blog of journalist Nicholas Belardes , strongly condemns the recovery of transmedia by companies and advertising agencies. This n is not the first time that Matheny complains about this fact . But he expresses in this post the full extent of his disappointment.

Read here: http://www.internetactu.net/2014/02/11/transmedia-de-la-rebellion-a-la-recuperation/

A few years ago I produced an ARG to coincide with a live theater piece in London, put on by my friends The Foolish People. The name of that ARG was Third Realm (The Yellow King) see here. I called it The Yellow King rather than The King in Yellow,  which it was a reference to, so as not to be overt, but subtle because TKIY reference was only partially what this puzzle based ARG was about.

Coincidentally,  the new HBO series, True Detective has a reference to The King in Yellow where it is referred to as The Yellow King (see here).

For those who have come to this site because The Yellow King is referenced on the writing page, this is merely a coincidence that both myself (years ago) and the writers of the HBO series chose to use The Yellow King as a reference to the King in Yellow.  Sorry to disappoint you, but no rabbit hole here. It is merely a coincidence,  albeit an odd one.

“Might we contrive one of those opportune falsehoods … so as by one noble lie to persuade if possible the rulers themselves, but failing that the rest of the city.”

- Plato in The Republic

“If you read it, you will be infected. If you are infected you will be InFicted. If you are InFicted, you will get UnFucted.”

- Joseph Matheny

Matheny was one of the first to recognize the power inherent in the interconnected culture that is developing through the rapid technological progress driving globalization. His insights and accomplishments help us to understand the intricacies of transmedia arts and provides a valuable tool in becoming a co-creator in the world wide game already in progress called the “21st Century.”

Read more: http://realitysandwich.com/216411/in-beautiful-dreams-nurturing-narratives-and-the-forgotten-potentials-of-digital-culture/?u=22407

A new piece, the first in a long series I’ll be doing for my friend Nick Belardes new literary start-up. Wherein, I don the mantle of Jack Smith, reborn!

Transmedia: Who Invited the Lobsters Anyway?

http://www.nicholasbelardes.com/transmedia-who-invited-the-lobsters-anyway/

Also just noticed this article which just showed up on Reality Sandwich: http://realitysandwich.com/216411/in-beautiful-dreams-nurturing-narratives-and-the-forgotten-potentials-of-digital-culture/

Episode 99 Joseph Matheny, Ong’s Hat and artificial Intelligence.

Were back after our short fall sabbatical. In this episode we welcome Joseph Matheny, The man who pulls the strings behind Ong’s Hat.

Joe joins us from the middle of no place Via Cell Phone as he literally takes a walk through the woods. No We are not kidding!  We take a brief look back at the early days of Ong’s hat and talk about how it evolved and what it is now. We then move into a discussion about the concept of Artificial Intelligence.  We ask what A.I is. Why are we striving to make it and why are we so afraid of it.  Does Artificial Intelligence even still mean what we think it means and what is the current state of A.I.

Welcome to the machine.

http://www.projectarchivist.com/?p=1510

Precursor: Ong’s Hat

In the 1980s transmedia artist Joseph Matheny[2] launched the Ong’s Hat game, inspired by play-by-mail multiplayer games run by Flying Buffalo.[3] Though Ong’s Hat may not have set out to be an ARG, the methods by which the author interacted with participants and used different platforms to build and spread its legend has been reflected in later games.[4] Also known as The Incunabula Papers, the game incorporated the practice of “legend tripping”[6] in which a group of people visit sites known in folklore for horrific or supernatural events. Matheny built a mythos around a supposed ghost town in New Jersey throughout the 1980s through works disguised as research shared on bulletin boards and physical zines.[8] One of the earliest archived theories about the alleged legend appeared in the October 1993 issue of Boing Boing and was posted online as early as February 11th, 1994.[7]

Between 1994 and 2000, posts about Ong’s Hat were planted on a number of different Usenet groups to spark discussion, including sci.math[9], alt.illuminati[10], alt.conspiracy[11] and alt.society.paradigms[12], among others. In 2001, Matheny stopped the project[13] and went on to publish two books about it, as well as archiving all the materials on the Incunabula website.[5]

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/alternate-reality-games

Oddly enough, this recently showed up on Google. It appears some company is selling a “genuine” Ong’s Hat ring for only $398.00! After reposting a lot of the info from the Ong’a Hat catalog to give back story, they make the following claim:

It is true and I am offering you a ring that was charged by the egg. This belonged to one of the now half breeds that has been born as an interdimensional creature.They look human and it took me a few years to catch a glimpse of one, but I did.The energy from this ring is powerful and does offer to you dimensional travel and the ability to live in that world forever if you choose to. If I were you I would enter through the New Jersey Gate which is easily seen, but that is up to you.

The ring is charged to kill disease in the body,keep you young and even make you younger through cell repair. You will learn how to get your brain waves working so that you may be a trained cognitive chaote. Every thing I have told you including down to the names of the people and them having gone to Princeton can be checked out. Please do so as this is one of the most important discoveries ever. To travel in another dimension is amazing. The one you will go to first has no other beings other then the ones who crossed over. The original people of the pines.

This is not science fiction but reality~!!

Well, that’s quite the claim! I’d like to clarify, this is not an endorsement for this product. I know nothing about it other than of it’s existence, naturally. I do not know this company or anything about them. I post this here merely as a link to a cultural curiosity of the Ong’s Hat mythos.

http://shop.hauntedcuriosities.com/Ongs-Hat-and-the-Gate-04161207.htm