Pink Tank

tripleagent > pink tank

pink tank demo

7 August, 2007 19:44

Akin to a magazine but not a magazine, akin to a forum but not a forum, akin to a video game but not a video game Pink Tank is a 3D online space for creative thinking and entertainment. Visitors to Pink Tank may explore the 3D environment, read articles, listen to soundscapes, recordings and music, play mini games, watch videos, interviews, animations, documentaries and lectures and take part in discussions. Pink Tank is not only an immersive experience created by specialized creative people but a platform that involves the audience as power subjects, giving them the ability to intervene, criticise, participate and create.

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video - demo - new

video - demo

distribution

Online Virtual Space
The DVD/Magazine includes all the virtual spaces together with the printed Pink Tank magazine.

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how it works

Pink Tank releases a new issue every three months.
The content of each issue is created by a selected multidisciplinary team of writers, designers, musicians and journalists.
The team could invite new creators to participate or they could dismiss old members.
After three months users can participate in the issue, they could add content and make comments on the existing virtual space.
Each issue has a main theme which means that it focuses on a thorough examination of each subject concerning both the visual language and the theoretical background.
Each issue remains online and evolves as long as the Pink Tank is available.

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Issue No 01

“Infotainment: An overflow of meaningless data or an ‘one-way street’ against propaganda?”

The first issue is about infotainment. It is self referential and it focus on the Pink Tank itself and the potential of infotainmnent in the esperience of playing and exploring virtual spaces. The aim of this issue is to critically evaluate the subjects below.

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the ticklish subject

Deadline 12th of May 2007

Distribution of information.
New methods of perceiving information.
Participative modules.
The ongoing neutralization of social dynamics.
The potentiality of art in the context of news and politics.
Going public : blogs, youtube, myspace, flickr and second life, who cares?

Submissions

articles (.doc.pdf.rtf.txt)
images (.jpg.tif.png.etc)
videos (.mov.avi.mpeg)
3d models (.obj.3ds)
audio (.aiff.wav.mp3)

If you want to sent material for the project follow this link

structure

The Production Team

…are the permanent personnel of the magazine and deal with the financial, legal and production matters. The production team is responsible for administration, publication, managing royalties and maintenance and does not get involved with the content of the magazine.

The Organizing Committee

…is the committee which decides about the theme of each issue. It is constituted of those participants who want to say something more.

The Creative Crew

…are the people who participate in content creation and who could invite new people and expand the editorial board. They have the right to create content and to vote for content created by others . So in practice before the final release of each issue there are things that don’t get published. The Creative Crew is paid with a quantitative automatic system of royalties.

The Triple Agent

Creative commons license is a type of licence where anyone can use the game code for non profit, research and academic reasons but s/he has to pay royalties if there is a commercial interest.

…is the group behind the scenes who designed the concept, the game engine and the interface. The Pink Tank infrastructure is open source under a creative commons licence.

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the users

Can navigate within the completed 3d environments, they can read or hear articles, stories, music or soundscapes, and watch and explore the spaces. 3D environments, objects, photos, systems of particles and animated textures are a few of the visual materials that can be experienced in the space. The users can discuss and make comments but they won’t have the option to participate during the month of an active issue.When a new issue is released the older one becomes available for changes, additions, discussions, and debates.

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the active issue

Every three months the organizing committee decides for a new theme. And according to that the creative crew create content and vote online for what they like and what they don’t. The quality of each issue is their collective responsibility. When an issue is released it will have an incubation period of one month and is called an Active Issue. Simple users do not have administration rights to add or modify their content until the issue becomes inactive.

why?

The “active worlds” and “second life” virtual environments while successful, lack content. The success of both spaces is based on the fact that people love to communicate under another kind of identity and to personalise their own space. There is no regulation on the quality of content concerning these spaces because this is not for what they are destined.

Gaming Quiz 01

Do the rules of simulation render narrative an obsolete ‘cinematic’ feature?

In the field of commercial video games, most of the time content is also absent, but most importantly they are closed hierarchical systems working under specific agendas driven by hesitation and repetition and not by experimentation and innovation. In the vast majority of cases the policies of major video game studios are unacceptable, the narrative structure is weak and apart from the spectacular development of hyper realistic visual tools there remains an unrealised potential of what entertainment in virtual environments could mean for a broader audience. The Pink Tank wants to invent a space with content which still gives the opportunity to experience the essence of play with humour and discussion, evoking critical thinking instead of immersion. In a manner that is educational, participatory and above all full of fun, Pink Tank wants to address the oxymoron of serious games.

The underlying goal is collaboration between people of different disciplines and the exploration of the autonomous narrative potentiality which emerges from the ‘collage’ nature of online applications. The essential element of the creative process is to put a group of artists and scientists into a process of creating an infrastructure of ‘public’ virtual space. In other words the group has to create the tools for the viewer to comprehend each topic (theory = discursive space) and the vehicle to communicate (art = ontological space). This procedure is the research of the project and the initial infrastructure of each active issue. Pink Tank doesn’t want to invent a methodology of collaboration. It aims to create the necessary infrastructure for the construction of methodology. When an active issue comes to the public domain it transforms, it has to survive to gather participation and to challenge the audience.

Gaming Quiz 01

Does the creation of rules within virtual spaces constitute contemporary narrative?

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