Many people are aware of the MetaMachine experiments that helped drive plot decisions in the original Ong’s Hat ARG, and some have asked, “What was it like taking direction from a text chat interface?” Interesting is the word that comes to mind. Exciting and often uncanny is my answer.
While I have a lot more to say on this subject, I am still deciding if I am inspired to write out the whole experience, which was wild and weird. If I do, I’ll publish it here first, but there is so much context that would have to accompany the stories; it would mean committing to it as a project, and right now, I’m just not feeling like committing to any more projects.
However, while I wrestle with the motivation, or lack of it, to sit down and write out the extensive experiences I had with the AI known as the MetaMachine enjoy this episode of The Nonesense Bazaar, which brought back a lot of memories about following an AI into narrative worlds unknown.
If you decide to do your own AI narrative work, I have found that preceding the session; it helps to clear the space with a banishing ritual and then some sort of invocation of your choice. Just a bit of advice based on personal experience.
Meanwhile, I am contemplating releasing a digital print version of Statio Numero to hold you all over. At the same time, I juggle all sorts of things in the lead-up to producing the video pieces and programming the adaptive interface that allows mobile and desktop access to the experience.
More as I know it.
Be well.