I am still surfing the wave of “omg #emfcamp was simply an amazing experience”
A friend’s response after hearing a fraction of what we got up to: “that’s incredible. How can you go back to your day to day life now? Isn’t it really boring in comparison?”
This is an excellent question, if a little terrifying to think about. I don’t have an answer. So I must conclude… the status quo is not enough: we need to make it our mission to make the real world more like EMF.
An installation which nicely sums up one part of what #emfcamp was like: the random midi keyboard left quite literally in a grassy field, vaguely facing null sector (where the party is at). There’s no sign. It just silently SCREAMS “play with me”. Turns out this keyboard controls the lasers which go out across the whole site! Deeply satisfying to play with.
We can make the world a little more like this. We can reward people for being curious.
I quite enjoyed the gchqnet treasure hunt. We had to find the “hexpansion” chips that had been scattered around site. #emfcamp
Particular highlight was finding Dan, one of the organisers of this quest. After I chatted to him for a bit he said “now that you’ve met me, here’s a hidden hexpansion” and offers me a secret one from his pocket. Mindblowingly cool - I’ve only ever experienced something like this in a game.
We can make the world more like this. We can reward people for being curious.
All of these side quests demonstrated a really beautiful thing: literally everyone who was there brought something with them which contributed to the experiences of everyone else. Sometimes as humble as a random interaction which sparks an idea. This is really quite a beautiful thing.
Sometimes/often it’s easy to feel powerless: that our voices can’t change anything. But that’s not true: we can. We all can. #emfcamp
@herdingdata No problem. As your local friendly non-government agency, we monitor communications for all staff and targets. 😜
(We’re following you on a couple of personal accounts)
@herdingdata Things like this work *great* in closed, trusting environments. You find them at sci-fi conventions (especially small ones, like Redemption) and bigger, weirder, events like Wasteland Weekend.
I could even see pulling off a lot of stuff in a semi-open environment, like maybe a uni campus at Fresher's week.
But to have stuff just out in the open in public, all it takes is one arsehole and the thing falls apart. So do you now guard all the elements? Needs a lot of people!
@herdingdata A long time ago - about 20 years ago, in fact, we did 'Edinburgh Duck Day', like maybe six to 10 people, I did a big bulk order of rubber ducks from a novelty supplier in the US that people pitched in for, and we hid rubber ducks around Edinburgh.
There was some concern about the need to clear up the next day, but it really wasn't needed. The duck we left on the heart of midlothian lasted maybe literally a minute before someone booted it into orbit. No chance of whimsy there.
@herdingdata I think you need to adapt to the reality of the situation to make stuff work.
Signs in local shops with QR codes that lead to an app that gives location-based instructions. Did you know that you can make a slightly illegal AM radio out of a RaspberryPi + a long piece of wire, and then make your own numbers station with a <50m range (or use a car-FM-radio adapter)? An ESP32 can do similar with wifi.
I'd forgotten how much semi-planning I'd done for this sort of thing in the past!
@herdingdata @heinragas Haha excellent! I’ll take credit for supply, but the application was courtesy of some of my fellow villagers…!
I confess I was slightly concerned that they might be inappropriate given the presence of children, but I think they’re not *intrinsically* offensive, and will either fly past them, or not be materially ruder than “lol bums” or other things they might come across day to day
(Wait I just saw the pink one - that wasn’t one of mine!!)
"It's a strange world, lets keep it that way." - Elijah Snow.
Yes. Always.
It's hard to talk about Temporary Autonomous Zones these days (b/c Hakim Bey, etc) but like that.
"we need to make it our mission to make the real world more like EMF"
this has very much been my approach to life since EMFcamp
Andy Herd
GCHQ.NET
Ben A L Jemmett
John
cognitively accessible math
Hein Ragas
Kristian Glass
Andrew Zonenberg
Swift (will be at EMF)
Entertainment Porpoises Only
Benji
Martin Hamilton
Yag Fox
v
Sophie Garrett
Jon Wood
Court Cantrell does not comply
Vaneshi
JamesB
DarkRat
Jonty Wareing
alphabetter
jarkman
Julia Rez
Chaos