The Story 2011 part 1

So I’m on my annual (2nd year this year) pilgrimage to London. Why? The Story! This has got to be the most inspirational day (I hesitate to call it a conference) of the year. The Story is the brainchild of Matt Locke. As he says, he just wanted to create the conference that he really wanted to go to.

I was there last year, but was unable to rearticulate the pure joy that the day brought me. So much inspiration! This year – all I want to do is write about it. I haven’t felt so inspired to write in FOREVER! But that’s the whole point of this pilgrimage – to be inspired, hear new good stories and celebrate storytelling. I must admit that I feel exceptionally geeky travelling from Norway for the event, but it’s just so worth it. And after, I have the whole weekend to work on my inspiration and write in lovely London.

Margaret Robertson was the perfect MC for the event. She excused herself for only being interested in games, but her storytelling geek surfaced quite well. So I’ll do the talks chronologically:

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Games seminar

Or symposium (do I need a phd-degree to understand the differences between them?).

Floating Points 6. Games of Culture | Art of Games

Is a symposium, film screening and workshop in Boston, Massachusetts on the 20th and 21st of March.

They’re livestreaming the event and I hope that will include the workshop because Friedrich Kirschner is having a workshop entitle “Introduction to Machinima” – which I would love to witness.

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William Gibson coming to Second Life!

Wow! It’s a whole event, not just a lecture!

“Over the next few weeks – to celebrate and, yes, promote his new novel
Spook Country – we’re planning a range of William Gibson activities in Second
Life; we’re screening his fine and strange movie No Maps for These Territories;
there’s a competition to design an avatar for the man himself; we’re giving away
shipping containers packe with Gibson goodies and at the beginning of August,
William Gibson himself will be coming into Second Life to read from Spook
Country and answer questions.'”

Sounds like a kids tv show only for grown-up nerds. I’ll be signing on – I have no intention of trying to design his avatar (what a daunting task) but I wouldn’t mind watching No Maps for These Territories in Second Life.

You know what I’d pay to see? A debate between William Gibson’s Cyberspace vs. Neal Stephenson’s Metaverse – with visuals! Gorr! That’d actually be a great movie, if done wisely and creatively! ‘

Seems like we need to sign on to get the schedule.

CNN Future Summit on YouTube

It’s edited to the parts with glorious Nick Yee. I definitely recommend watching the whole thing although CNN’s video player annoyed me some. The program is ok – nothing really new – but a great resource (specially for someone like me who’s applying for work in a place filled with negative skepticism of virtual worlds)!
Trond Aas (Funcom) has an adorable response to Jimmy Wales‘ vision that Wikipedia will remain text based (part 6), where he shares his vision that instead of reading a speech given by Cicero in Rome you’ll be able to immerse yourself in the Roman era and listen to the speech given on the streets of Rome – by looking it up on wikipedia first. I think that’s just charming!