The current issue of This features Andrew Webster’s profile of Canada’s independent videogame scene, which came to mind recently when I stumbled across Lose/Lose, a video-game/conceptual-art-project that adds some real risk to the normally consequence-free world of blowing up aliens. When you play Lose/Lose, the alien attackers are stand-ins for actual files on your computer. When you blow them up, those files are deleted. If the aliens blow you up, the game deletes itself and you have to download it again. I didn’t play it, because, well, that’s not really the point. It’s a thought experiment.

The game’s creator, Zach Gage, explains the concept:

Although touching aliens will cause the player to lose the game, and killing aliens awards points, the aliens will never actually fire at the player. This calls into question the player’s mission, which is never explicitly stated, only hinted at through classic game mechanics. Is the player supposed to be an aggressor? Or merely an observer, traversing through a dangerous land?

Why do we assume that because we are given a weapon and awarded for using it, that doing so is right?

That’s a pretty explicit question, and a politically charged one—the kind that videogames have traditionally avoided.

As an art form, games seem to remain ideologically inert in comparison to other media. Partly that’s a function of the cost of developing them. When you spend millions building a blockbuster game, you can’t afford to turn it into a searing commentary on morality in pop culture; stuff just has to blow up real good. That’s true of film and music too, other high-capital undertakings that can’t afford to alienate the audience. But in those fields, independent, aggressively avant-garde projects still flourish on the margins. With video games, even the tiny indie producers seldom seem to venture into serious commentary on social, political, or economic issues. It’s all “dance dance” and no “revolution.” There’s the “serious games” genre, but those seem more like educational games, and less focused on commentary.

Does anyone have suggestions for video games (any platform) that have real political content? Who is the Brecht of X-Box? The Godard of GameBoy? The Breillat of Wii? Suggest them in the comments section below or email them to editor at this magazine dot ca.

And narcissistic it is. A recent CBC documentary addresses those of us born after 1970 (myself very much included) by the not-so-subtle moniker “Generation Me.” The children of the Baby Boomers (more passively, “The Me Generation”), we’ve grown up being told just how special we are from the moment our heads crown from the birth canal. Our notion of self is defined not only by entitlement, but by an immense sense of self-importance brought upon by years of parental conditioning. We each fancy ourselves to be not only unique and special snowflakes, but the best possible unique and special snowflakes, and, while we may not have invented the quarter-life crisis, we have certainly perfected it.

While Facebook’s demographics are rapidly bridging generational boundaries, most of its users still fall within the 18-34 year-old range—Generation Me at full throttle.  As both shameless exhibitionists and hopeless voyeurs (again, myself included), we relish in celebrity culture while simultaneously craving a slice of the fame for ourselves. Which is why, studies suggest, we are completely careless about the kind of personal information we are willing to disclose on our Facebook profiles.

courtesy of http://collegecandy.files.wordpress.com

“Youth are sharing a great deal of information on social networking sites such as Facebook and may not fully realize the consequences of this disclosure,” says Amy Muise, one of two University of Guelph Psychology PhD students recently awarded nearly $50,000 in government research funding. The research in question? Why, disclosure of personal information on Facebook, of course.

The grant, awarded by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to Muise and fellow graduate student Emily Christofides, amounts to nearly the maximum allotted amount for the office’s Contributions Program, which is considered among the top privacy research funding programs in the world.

A June 9 University of Guelph press release quotes privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart: “I’m proud that our office is able to help encourage relevant and cutting-edge research. I am also glad that we can work with established organizations to spread knowledge about the importance of privacy.”

Whether or not this research is enough to knock some sense into our self-obsessed noggins is anyone’s guess, but this is at least a step in the  right direction toward figuring out how to create boundaries between our lives and the meta-existences we forge online.

Over the years, I’ve seen many creative, intelligent, rebellious teenage girls discouraged for being themselves and breaking the mould, and watched the subsequent damage to their self-esteems—not to mention the havoc wreaked on their academic performance, work, and relationships. I, too, was once trapped on that boat. It’s hard to be different, and we all would have benefited from a strong dose of shamelessness. Better yet, we could have used She’s Shameless.

An offshoot of the self-described, “fiercely independent” Shameless magazine, She’s Shameless is an anthology that boasts an array of autobiographical accounts taken from the lives of female writers, thinkers, and activists who have learned to be unashamed of themselves and the paths their lives have taken. Body image, teen pregnancy, sexual discovery and creative pursuits are all fair game for conversation in these poignantly honest firsthand narrations of PoMo coming-of-age. Among my favourites are Jowita Brydlowska’s jarring “Losing my Virginity,”  and the cartoon advice guide “Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me as a Teenaged Girl,” penned by Zoe Whittall and inked by Suzy Malik; with such helpful teen life suggestions as “If you really hate your high school, leave” (an invocation to find an alternative school, not to drop out) and “Your poetry is probably awful, but keep writing it,” I wish someone had told me these things too.

Editors Stacey May Fowles and Megan Griffith-Greene—the publisher and editor of Shameless magazine, respectively—dedicate this lovingly assembled book “For all the shameless girls who know there’s got to be something more, and to all the shameless women who help them find it.” Clearly, these women have earned their feminist stripes.

(The book launch party for She’s Shameless: Women write about growing up, rocking out, and fighting back , is happening at the Gladstone Hotel Ballroom, 1214 Queen St West, Toronto
Tues June 23; 8pm (doors 7:30pm),$5 or Free with book purchase)

Vancouverites attending National Aboriginal Day events in 2006. Creative Commons photo by Flickr user Freedryk.

It’s only fair that the 11-day Celebrate Canada! festival should kick off with National Aboriginal Day. After all, what better way to commemorate this crazy multicultural mosaic of a country than by launching its celebration in honour of the first people to make it awesome?

We’ve compiled a list of things to see and do this weekend. Just click through after the jump to see the list.

The following is a sample of the weekend’s upcoming National Aboriginal Day celebrations, by region:

Atlantic Region:

Antigonish
National Aboriginal Day Celebrations
June 21, 2009
Paq’tnktk Powwow Ground
Antigonish, Nova Scotia
Contact: Rose Julian, 902-386-2781

Charlottetown
National Aboriginal Day Celebrations
June 21, 2009
Confederation Landing
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
Contact: Jamie Gallant, 902-892-5314

Fredericton
National Aboriginal Day Celebrations – Union with our Elders
June 21, 2009
St. Mary’s First Nation
Fredericton, New Brunswick
Contact: Allan Polchies Jr, 506-458-9511

St. John’s
National Aboriginal Day Celebrations
June 21, 2009
St. John’s Native Friendship Centre
St. John’s, Newfoundland/Labrador
Contact: David Penner, 709-726-5902

Ontario Region:

Toronto
Kahontake Kitikan Celebration- National Aboriginal Day Recognition
June 22, 2009, 12:00 – 3:00 PM
St George Campus, University of Toronto
(East side of Hart House)
Contact: [email protected]

Ottawa
Family Fun Day – National Aboriginal Day
Sunday, June 21, 2009, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
National Gallery of Canada
Ottawa-Gatineau (NCR)
Web: The National Gallery of Canada

Noongam Traditional Powwow
June 19-20-21, 2009
Dow’s Lake
Ottawa (Ontario)
Web: Noongam Traditional Powwow

Prairies Region:

Calgary
Celebrate Aboriginal Awareness at Heritage Park Historical Village
June 21, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Heritage Park Historical Village
Calgary, Alberta
Contact: Jo Morris, 403-268-8556
Web: Heritage Park Historical Village

Edmonton
Weekend Festival – Day 1
June 20, 2009 (noon – 6 pm)
Alberta Legislature Grounds, 10800 – 97 Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta
Contact: [email protected], 780-495-6728
Web: City of Edmonton: National Aboriginal Day

Weekend Festival – Day 2
June 21, 2009, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Alberta Legislature Grounds
Edmonton, Alberta
Contact: Mary Dion, 780-452-6100
Web: Metis Child & Family Services Society

Regina
Regina National Aboriginal Day Celebrations – Wascana Park
Sunday, June 21, 2009  10 a.m. – 10 p.m.
Wascana Park, near Royal Saskatchewan Museum
Regina, Saskatchewan
Contact: Orenda Yuzicapi, 306-596-5131
Web: Regina National Aboriginal Day Celebrations

Winnipeg
National Aboriginal Day – Time to Celebrate
June 21, 2009 10:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Indian and Metis Friendship Centre, 45 Robinson Street
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Contact: Clayton Sandy (Event Coordinator): 204-945-8319
Web: National Aboriginal Day – Time to Celebrate

British Columbia Region:

Vancouver
National Aboriginal Day Celebration
June 23, 2009, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
745 Clark Drive
Vancouver, British Columbia
Contact: 604-872-6723

Kamloops
National Aboriginal Day – Simon Fraser University (SFU)
June 21, 2009, 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
McDonald Park, North Kamloops
Kamloops, British Columbia
Contact: 250-828-9799

Quebec Region:

Montreal
Solstice des Nations – Open to all
June 21, 2009, 10:00 a.m.
First Nations Garden, Montréal Botanical Gardens
Montréal, Quebec
Contact: Land InSights, 514-677-1377 (Info-festival line)
Web: First Peoples’ Festival 2009

Trois Rivières
Benefit day for the future Native Friendship Centre
June 21, 2009, 11:00 a.m.
Espace de créativité émergente l’App’Art, 45 St Antoine
Trois-Rivières, Quebec
Contact: 819-694-1843

Nunavut Region:

Arctic Bay
RCMP Barbeque
June 21, 2009
RCMP Detachment
Arctic Bay, Nunavut
Contact: S/Sgt Steve Wright, 867-975-4413

Iqaluit
Alianait Aboriginal Day Concert
June 21, 2009
Nakasuk School Parking Lot
Iqaluit, Nunavut
Contact: Heather Daley, 867-979-6468
Web: Alianait Arts Festival

A much more extensive list can be found here.

Like a kid in front of the cake at their own birthday party, I’d like to take a chunk out of the middle to start: The Antiwar Survey, an attempt by the editors to give a picture of the cultural expressions of anti-war sentiment in California. The editors describe the journal as three books in one, so for fun let’s start with number two.
By way of an introduction, Robby Herbst describes what the Antiwar Survey section aims to do. He says that the anti-war sentiment in the States since 2003 can’t exactly be described as a movement. The anti-war struggle had and has pushed past being an activist thing to being the opinion of the majority of Americans, and certainly much of the rest of the world.
Much like many of the activists I’ve chatted with, Herbst agrees in his introduction to this section that the anti-war movement in the States is not so much a “movement” with leaders but a splintering of committed individuals and individual nodules of effort, spontaneous, creative eruptions against perceived injustice. Herbst concludes that maybe it was/is not so much a movement but a culture.
The Survey
The Antiwar survey simply documents the results of a survey that was sent out to groups in California. Each group answered the where and why of their anti-war action, and included what they learned from it, how they measured success, and what it would take for them to do it again. The actions include everything from pottery, postermaking, and dance to more traditional forms of “direct action.”
What I found striking about the survey is the question that asks “Are you connected to any other organization?” The number of respondants that said no is equally as moving as those who listed a host of other connections. It’s amazing to think of so many groups and lone individual artists needing to express their rejection of the unjust war, even if they did it alone.
Some of the projects included Hillary Mushkin’s “Far from War” video project where the artist interviewed folks about what their neighbourhood might look like if it was at war. The video was initially displayed in a barber shop in Eagle Rock, CA for a month. Other projects included improvised postering campaigns; “holding up” business at a Wells Fargo bank by keeping the lines jammed with volunteers; and a still dance collective that staged resistance theater in public space.
Another artist, Ehren Tool, made “war awareness art,” printing war imagery onto tea cups. Tool has distributed over 7,000 cups and sees it as a way to sneak war awareness literally into people’s hands and homes. It’s a way for the art to linger with them.
Another moving part of the survey is the way that artists and activists (also a contentious term) responded to the questions “What was the outcome of this activity?” and “How did you measure success?” Equally poignant was the answer of those who felt their action had made a significant difference, and those who answered “I don’t know.” Bringing these creative actions together in one volume gives them a place and a context within the broader anti-war culture.

Two things that have come through my life recently have me thinking about problems and solutions. The first is an incredibly well-presented online video and website called The Story of Stuff. In it, activist Annie Leonard describes her years-long investigation of the lifetime of consumer goods: where they come from, how they get in our homes and what happens when we trash them. The video is about 20 minutes long and worth a look. Its design is simple and elegant and features clever animations and plain, urgent language.

But something about it makes me feel uncomfortable. It’s 19 minutes and 30 seconds about the problem at hand and roughly 30 seconds about hope for change. It appears to be aimed at the average consumer, but its educational tone comes across as a bit pedantic. It encourages viewers to stay on the site and click around for information and stories about positive change, and that’s probably where the real use of the site comes in, but I expect only a small percentage of viewers take the time to stick with it — especially if they approach the topic as skeptics.

Contrast this with a talk I went to last night by Chris Turner, journalist and author of the book The Geography of Hope: A Guided Tour of the World We Need. Through a photo slideshow and Q&A session, Turner outlined some of the amazing strides being made in sustainable living in places like Germany, Denmark, New Mexico and Thailand. Concrete examples of new ways to live, with an emphasis on renewable energy, reducing consumption and recycling. He mentioned a new wave of environmentalism, moving beyond doom-and-gloom predictions and concentrating on what is possible with the technology and willpower we already possess.

In my mind, this is the best way to reach the constituencies of people who remain doubtful about the urgency of climate change or the problems with the free market system. Enough warnings. Those who will listen to the warnings have already heard, and those who will not need a new kind of motivation for change. By getting the word out — and Turner mentioned an activist he knows who consults for Wal-Mart, and the importance of spreading our messages through the mainstream, commercial media — we are best positioned to inspire change in others.

IMAGE: STILL FROM THE STORY OF STUFF