Students & Cavemen

This week, I would like to discuss two very different readings. The first is a collaboration between Ben Vershbow, McKenzie Wark and Jesse Wilbur and the internet community named GAM3R 7H30RY.

Mackenzie Wark is best known as the author or the Hacker’s Manifesto. No, not that one the other one. In his newest work Mr. Wark continues the unfortunate pattern of naming books based on “current” and “hip” cyber vocabulary. GAM3R 7H30RY’s obnoxious title serves as a strike against it and the text of GAM3R 7H30RY does little to redeem it.

I discovered, however that I enjoy the naked ambition of its ideas.

GAM3R 7H30RY, like the product of many revolutionaries, intellectuals and other madmen seems built with no concept of scale. From reading the section entitled about the project it is clear that the intent of their experiment is simply to help shape the evolution of the printed word as well as the act of reading. In the first few pages, however, they stop to “reappropriate” Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. In so doing it is transformed into (as it has been suggested in their own text/comment) the allegory of the C.A.V.E. This new interpretation illustrates, or at least attempts to illustrate the nature of Game Theory and its intersection with ontological questions of reality.

This makes it an interesting counterpoint to to James Paul Gee’s book “What Video Games have to Teach us about Learning and Literacy.” Gee’s Chapter on Learning and Identity is refreshing in its simplicity. Gee addresses the question of identity and some of its effects on learning. Gee explains how the creation of a virtual identity can serve as a key to different perspectives and help initiate new learning styles.

Gee, James Paul. "Learning and Identity." What Video Games have to Teach us about Learning and Literacy. 2003. Palgrave Macmillan: New York, NY.

Wark, McKenzie. "About This Project." GAM3R 7H3ORY. 22 May 2006. The Institute for the Future of the Book. 2 Feb. 2007-http://www.futureofthebook.org/gamertheory/?page_id=2- .

Wark, McKenzie. "Agony." GAM3ER 7H3ORY. 22 May 2006. The Instuite for the Future of the Book. 6 Feb. 2007 -http://www.futureofthebook.org/gamertheory/?p=1-.