by giovanni.pacifico -

08 – Trevor Paglen’s “Cyclops” – A complex ARG for a complex storytelling

Introduction

In the realm of digital storytelling, few experiences are as intricate and immersive as „Cyclops,“ an alternative reality game crafted by artist Trevor Paglen. „Cyclops“ serves as a masterclass in nonlinear, interactive narrative, demanding a blend of diverse knowledge areas from its players. This makes it an ideal case study for my authoring tool, which is designed to enable the creation of complex, multifaceted stories that engage audiences in unique and profound ways. Through this blog post, I want to explore how „Cyclops“, with its sophisticated storytelling structure, perfectly aligns with the capabilities of a robust authoring tool.

Summary

„Cyclops“ is an intricate and intimidating alternative reality game designed by artist Trevor Paglen. It features a basic black-and-white digital interface reminiscent of 1970s computer systems and demands extensive knowledge in fields like cryptography, vintage computers, logic, music, and PSYOPS history. Launched at the 2023 Chaos Communication Congress, it required 700 professional hackers three days to reach just the fourth level. Since then, a dedicated group on Discord has continued to collaborate, achieving 53% completion of level three. The game immerses players in complex puzzles and psychological challenges, often guided by Eliza, a reference to the first chatbot, enhancing the sense of psychological warfare.

Paglen’s goal was to create a public art project native to the online world, fostering a community united by shared interests in digital security and coded messages. Cyclops prompts players to reflect on their relationship with digital media and social interactions, blurring the lines between gaming and psychological manipulation. Paglen and his team of experts spent a year developing this intricate digital landscape, which echoes the haunting possibility that today’s internet might be an extension of historical psychological control programs like MK Ultra.

My Conclusions

The main reasons why “Cyclops” is a suited as a case study for my project are:

  • Its Complex Narrative Structure: „Cyclops“ features a nonlinear storyline that challenges players to navigate through cryptographic puzzles, vintage computer systems, and psychological tests. This complexity requires an authoring tool that can handle multiple narrative branches and interconnected storylines seamlessly.
  • Interactive and Immersive Elements: The game’s integration of various media forms, such as audio tracks, ASCII scripts, and visual puzzles, demonstrates the need for an authoring tool capable of embedding diverse interactive elements that enhance user engagement.
  • Collaborative Problem-Solving: „Cyclops“ necessitates collective intelligence and collaboration, which can be facilitated by an authoring tool that supports multi-user interaction and real-time collaboration features. This feature would go outside of the pure realm of an authoring tool for storytellers but could be an interesting future feature to give the player of any ARG a platform where they are able to collaborate, solve and piece together the story that the artist is trying to convey.

References

https://donotresearch.substack.com/p/artist-profile-trevor-paglens-cyclops

by giovanni.pacifico -

03 – Community based storytelling – Lore & Creepypasta

Introduction

Exit Reality is a book written by Valentina Tanni, Digital Art Historian and associated professor at Politecnico di Milano as well as my Master’s Thesis mentor. The book talks about internet aesthetics, trends and phenomena that are born online, create community and sense of belonging for those that spend time watching or creating that content. In this blogpost I’m going to analyze the 4th chapter of the book called Lore – Vertigini procedurali: creepypasta, Backrooms e liminal spaces and draw inspiration from these concept for my ARG project, its shape and content.

The Slender Man, SCP Foundation, Backrooms

Creepypastas are horror stories that start, spread and get famous through internet and its communities. They are then expanded, modified and spread into mainstream media through the generation of fan made content that creates a web of connected narrative pieces that paint a hidden lore in the intangible internet canvas. One of the most famous examples is The Slender man a creepy pasta that starts from a blurry photoshopped photo and a post on the famous forum website 4chan then, spreading as if it was a virus, the story took form in the mind of the online userbase through more forum posts, videogames, videos, books and movies. All of them generated by community memeber

First image of the Slenderman by Eric Knudsen on Something Awful forum

The SCP Foundation project starts from /x/paranormal, a famous 4chan thread and uses a storytelling method that is slightly different from the previous example. In fact, if Slender man was the subject of many users ideas that would create and post to anyone online, the SCP Foundation it’s a collaborative narrative, users of the forum are welcome to submit their stories and after a check by the head members of the website they can be accepted if they adhere to the tone of the main story, creating a complex and detailed lore.

The Backrooms is a more recent example of creepypasta turned ARG. A photo of an empty room with yellow floor and walls, and bright neon lights on the ceiling, the uncanny sensation of familiarity spark in the 4chan users a sense of mistery. Story bits and pieces are created by community members, speculating on what that strange building could be, until the youtube channel by the name Kane Pixels starts uploading a series of videos on his channel depicting people entering this “backrooms” and this is were the ARG starts. An clear example of the “This is not a game” concept, online communities start theorising where this place can be found, what are they and who created them. This ARG is still on and many of them are trying to piece the story together to understand not only what is being shown but why, what’s the message that the author, or Puppet Master in ARG terms, wants to convey.

Differences between the Traditional Storytelling Model and The Transmedia Model according to media artist Jeff Watson

Insights and conclusions

I personally find extremely interesting how these different storytelling methods were born as a byproduct of the internet decentralised structure. Both user generated content, like the Slenderman and its lore, and collaborative narratives like the SCP Foundation are, in my opinion, extremely interesting and effective ways to tell a compelling and engaging story, the work done by Kane Pixel demonstrates that starting from that and then evolving it into an ARG is a very coherent process, that’s why for my project it could be useful to start from an existing fan base or internet subject and adding a piece of the narrative myself.

Reference