I have invited the researcher
Stefanie Kuhn to respond to my documentation on these pages. Stefanie is part of the Presence Project and I am very interested in her perspective on this autobiographical diary. I am particularly interested in what this documentation can offer to someone who is not in the game.
Friday, 6 October, 20.50 pm
Hi Gabriella
I have read the entire diary now as a 'linear story'. It is a very good text, so dense and opens up manifold questions that are very valuable for presence research.
Funnily enough, when I was tracing you near-real-time in Berlin I felt homesick, which I didn't for quite a long time, the images of the city, your talking about people who are somehow related to me (She She Pop coming from Giessen as well).
Regarding concerns about documenting the game in this form, I can't share them, on the contrary I think it is a very valuable form of letting non-players participate in the pervasion of your life and that of your figurine.
The decision to merge the two reality layers in one continuous text (also in terms of layout) made reality and virtuality blurry, especially when only skimming your texts over breakfast. I had to re-read if it is you or your figurine passing YMCA for example.
You could maybe write at some point more about Andy Crabtree's idea of documentation as differentiating 'records, documents and data' (5/10/2006) and how this relates to this form of documentation?
How does your relation to your mobile phone change?
There seems to be an interesting dynamics in your decisions what to document and what not (apart from the aspect of too much intimacy, obviously). You are not revealing the identity of your figurine. You make ethical decisions not to give away the secret about who is HASSAN. It almost seems as if there was a (hidden) dramaturgy that this as a second layer of the game, where you try to lead your readers in a certain direction, leave them without knowledge about some of your experiences (in and out of the game), giving them hints etc. Will you reveal the identity of your figurine in the end? Are you playing with us?
The game now even pervades my life: I am curious about the name of your figurine. I get an e-mail from the Trampoline-Mailing List (which I am part
of since the conference in Nottingham) with rumours about Day of the Figurines, where I combine from my reading of your weblog and some hints in
the rumours which one could be your figurine...
very best,
Stefanie
Gabriella Giannachi's reply to Stefanie will appear on
Day of the Figurines 7/10/2006.
