[arg_discuss] ARG SIG News Dec 2006: whitepaper, talks, call for volunteers

[Hugh Davies]

There has been some valid concern expressed here recently about the hoaxy
accusations and ethical slippery slopes of ARG's which im glad to see and
want to briefly respond to.



A friend of mine recently told me that he was helping an African guy he met
online transfer money between accounts – he was going to get a huge cut of
the deal!



Ultimately, no matter how blatant a fiction, some people will always mistake
it for gospel. Does this mean we should not put War of the Worlds on the
radio?



I feel that ARG's have a responsibility to dissolve the perceived binaries
between truth and fiction because by doing so, they surreptitiously discuss
the way converged media constructs reality, and allude to the dangers. After
all, we are not sending people to war, or swindling them out of their hard
earned money, we are making games that make people think.



Who decides what's real anyway.



It's good to be aware that conceptual artists tread these paths frequently.
Look at the work of J.S.G Boggs. Not that this allows artists, or puppet
masters moral superiority or exemption from law, but perhaps it sets a
creative ethical precedent to poke at and stretch the boundaries of the
common reality.



Unrelatedly, while it doesn't really operate in the religious context, I
best equate TINAG as dead pan.