Purely coincidental, but last week I did two live radio interviews on new media subjects. The first interview was March 15 for Radio 1′s NRCV Lunch on the ‘return’ of Second Life, mainly because Linden Lab (Second Life’s developer) opened an office in Amsterdam. We talked about the media hype (at the time; 2006/2007) surrounding Second Life, it’s usage and about future hypes (Chatroulette ftw!). The segment is downloadable here (11Mb, mp3, interview is 13 minutes).

The second interview was Saturday March 20 and part of Radio 1′s TROS Online, a weekly magazine on new media with Francisco van Jole en Peter de Bie. I was a guest in the studio and there were other interesting discussions on robots and health care, Google TV and new gadgets. My segment was on participatory culture and politics, and the online enthusiasm surrounding Job Cohen’s candidacy (the “Yes We Cohen” movement). That segment is downloadable here (11Mb, mp3, discussion is 12 minutes).

November of last year I gave a talk on money and social (i.e. new media &) politics for students of the Hogeschool van Utrecht. My talk was part of a larger project, they also talked with a lot of other stakeholders in this debate (e.g. campaign managers, politicians, etc) and the end result of their work is a collection of essays and debate summaries called “Mes in de Democratie – Over partijpolitiek en burgerparticipatie”. The 14-paged booklet (.pdf 1.8mb) can be downloaded here.

The BCC approached me a month ago to contribute to a BBC Radio 3 documentary on wargames and the (rise of the) military-entertainment complex. The interview itself was an interesting experience itself, as I was sitting in a (radio) studio Amsterdam hearing: “This is London calling”. Priceless!

The result is very, very impressive. The line-up of interviewees is very complete and diverse (i.e. academics, military insiders and journalists). Listening to the documentary I could not help to feel a bit nostalgic as I touched upon many of the themes in my research over the last five years. Again, if you’re even remotely interested in the subject (war and/or games), do listen to this well researched, informative and plainly awesome doc.

The documentary “From Gameboy to Armageddom” is 45 minutes (download it here, 40mb). My contribution is about America’s Army and starts at 25:00-30:00. Blurb from the BBC website:

War games are as old as military history but something has begun to change as war and play converge to create what some call the ‘military entertainment complex’. Ken Hollings pushes the button on this latest phenomenon.

Men have always played at and with soldiers. Gaming has been an essential part of warfare and by the 19th Century it had been developed into the sophisticated “Kriegspiel”, derived from the still influential theories of Von Clausewitz and played at military colleges in both Europe and America. These war games then became real games for table-top strategists by the early 20th Century. A remarkable synergy developed between colleges of war and devisers of such games, particularly in America. And in the think tanks of the RAND Corp gaming theory was used intensively to plot the future of war and nuclear destruction.

But from the late 1970s computer strategy games started to form a powerful loop between gamers and warriors. With the creation of the SIMNET, the military began to develop hugely powerful simulators and now convergence is taking place between military and the entertainment industry. Some say we are living in what Stanford Professor Tim Lenoir has called ‘the military entertainment complex’, with military functions increasingly taking place online, using simulation for training and in the treatment of soldiers suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. But is this new realm of war truly a revolution – the shape of things to come – or just more virtual bangs for real bucks?

Together with Niels ‘t Hooft and Samuel Casado (Bashers.nl) and Spits‘ Dennis Mons, I gave some input on a story on “mimetic interfaces” (quoting Jesper Juul here: ““the physical activity that the player performs mimics the game activity on the screen.”). The article is online here: “Jij bent de controller, toegankelijker kan het niet”. I argue:

‘Nagenoeg iedere analist, journalist en industrie-expert zag het overdonderende succes van de Wii niet aankomen. Het zou dus van historisch kortetermijndenken getuigen om nu al deze nieuwe controllers af te schrijven. De kans van slagen valt en staat met de software.’ Nieborg doelt hier op de sterke implementatie van de techniek en de bekende gamepersonages, of in ieder geval games die laagdrempelig zijn.

For Bashers.nl I now have two regular, monthly contributions. There’s the monthly podcast; the latest version discusses issues as piracy, Nintendo’s and Microsoft’s line-up, Bioshock 2, and the question whether or not games should be “fun” (and if that is even a good question).

Additionally, I will write a monthly book review on a game related book. This month was on “Fun, Inc. Why Play is the 21st Century’s Most Serious Business” by Tom Chatfield. From the review:

Voor die gamers (en niet-gamers!) die zich niet, zoals veel Bashers-redacteuren, dagelijks met games bezig houden als studenten, journalisten, ontwikkelaars of onderzoekers is Fun, Inc. dan ook een soort van opfriscursus. Een gedegen boek dat nergens echt spannend wordt en dat je in alle rust kan naslaan om te weten wat er gezegd wordt over de discussies die nu spelen over games.

Thursday March 11 I will give a talk, “De visuele taal van virtuele oorlogsvoering”, at Nest for the Texture Maps exhibit. In my presentation I will dig deeper into the blurring boundaries between physical violence (war) and virtual warfare (games), the never-ending rise of the military-entertainment complex and, of course, wargames (particularly America’s Army and other First Person Shooters). Recently read this book “War 2.0 – Irregular Warfare in the Information Age“, which offered an insightful perspective on these themes, so I’ll try to incorporate their argument into mine. See you there!

Time: 8pm
Location: The Hague
Entrance: Free

Sixty-five years ago the Second World War ended, but it is still with us today. Especially in the Netherlands, grandchildren (like me) listen to their grandparents telling stories about “The War”. For me, and many others for that matter, World War Two has a special meaning as well. For decades now, war (and WW2) has been a pervasive theme in game culture. And when the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport approached me to contribute to a magazine marking the end of WW2, I combined the memories of my grandmother with my own view on virtual war. The result is an article titled “De strijd gaat virtueel verder”. The 34-paged book/magazine, titled “Voorbij maar niet verdwenen”, is freely downloadable here as a .pdf (7MB). The project has its own special website, keep an eye on it because mid-March there will an interactive version of the book (including videos, music etc.). For anybody even remotely interested in WW2, I recommend you to pick up, or download, a copy. There are high quality contributions by renowned Dutch journalists, historians and academics. On top of that, the magazine just looks great.