Abstract Chess

Hello Art Murmur Patrons!

itchybiscuit — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 22:56:18 +0000

Thanks for coming by and playing, and thanks for checking out the site!

I’ll be posting the games this week; got to finish unpacking the ridiculous abundance of supplies I brought…

Best moment–when the two players in the photo were greeted by another couple, and they all exchanged high fives, and I recognized the new lady was a friend from my backpacking orientation week at college, and her date recognized the chess sets in the yellow-capped tubes as something he’d found in a saddle bag after leaving an airport, some few years ago… I guess I must have been standing behind him in the security line, and had a mischievous impulse? I have a dim memory of doing something ridiculous like that. Shocking.

Thanks to the Rock Paper Scissors Collective for making the event happen, and giving me a space for my table!

What to bring for next time:

6 big poster sheets, 4 half size

Blue tape

Two packs of markers, two packs of crayons (all in a single bin)

Two folding chairs and two camping chairs

Table

Dolly

Lots of cards

Poster markers/big thick sharpies

Business cards!

Print out the instructions on glossy paper

Extra instruction sheets…

A bunch more sets!

Whose photos are in that feed?

itchybiscuit — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:17:20 +0000

Apparently someone else on flickr has started using the “abstract chess” tag, and while I like the look of those works, they seem more expressionistic to me..?

~~Something will have to be done, by gum.~~

Fix: Changed the tag feed to “abstract chess game”

Lost some games submitted by others though, maybe…

Greetings Neuro-Aesthetes!

itchybiscuit — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 17:23:56 +0000

I hope you enjoyed the distribution set, & I hope you see the link between this project/game and the topic of the conference. We may be a long way off from understanding the role of mirror neurons in making judgments about other people’s perspectives… Certainly there’s as much spatial-position-processing involved in playing Abstract Chess as there is “action based inferences about the other.” But the distance from theory to knowledge makes fertile ground for speculation, don’t it?

Hello APE 2008 / Nixon Fans!

itchybiscuit — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 03:03:11 +0000

Hope you weren’t too creeped out by the deliveryman, and thanks for trusting a masked stranger!

The set you got is the last of the batch I printed for the Bizzarre Bazzar about 18 months ago, and the instructions have a sort-of-small-sort-of-a-big-deal typo…
The word ‘avoid’ is missing between the words ‘should’ and ‘recognizable.’ The intent is probably clear… but maybe not.

I hope you enjoy the game, and the crayons, and thank you for the amazing (overwhelming) amount of art and story on display at the Expo!

No Questions Asked

itchybiscuit — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:16:56 +0000

If you found a leather briefcase with 30 or so capsules, containing crayons and cards and instruction sheets bearing this web address, you can redeem it all for 1$ per capsule and 20$ for the briefcase. Maybe a meal, too, if there’s a good story about how you recovered the satchel from wherever the car thieves tossed it…

A Sailor Always Knows Which Way is Up

itchybiscuit — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 03:54:43 +0000

But can you tell which way it’s been turned?

According to the internet, Allied forces in World War I used cubist paintings to break up the silhouettes of warships.

Jim and Jamie Richter have the story at their website, along with many more photos. What you see above is an artist’s rendering, which I’ve cropped and spun around a little. They’ve got one shot of an actual vessel with the anti-pattern pattern. It would have been a sight to see… I supposed there’s room for a Battleship variant of Abstract Chess… Something with a cartesian plane, where moves are made by linear equations and html code?

Things that need doing

itchybiscuit — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 21:59:57 +0000

1. Upload the power-point

2. Write instructions for assembling a set

3. Photo and upload more past games

4. Create separate flickr account?

5. Distribute all of the “Arnow’s Flaw” sets

6. Make new sets

Hello Pandorans!

itchybiscuit — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 21:39:05 +0000

A few people may be finding their way here from the website of Pandora’s Trunk, a collective boutique and bazaar for the bizarre and beautiful. A few capsule sets were sold, and a few games were played, and it was a very pleasant time indeed. Also they were very nice about the fact that I was horrendously late.

And thanks to Rob for catching a few typos on the instruction sheets. I guess since you found them, it’s your responsibility to fix them all, right Rob? Right?

Hello, APE folk…

itchybiscuit — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 21:50:03 +0000

Post a pic of your game, ask a question about how to play, request another set of instructions or crayons…

And if you happened to catch any of the Spiegelman/Mouly panels on Saturday, and want to tell me about ‘em, please feel free, ’cause I sure wanted to catch ‘em, and I equally surely din’t.

Hello BarCampLA-ers…ites…ryans? Hmm…

itchybiscuit — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 01:25:18 +0000

Most of you were asleep, hung-over, or checking out the extremely neato hack-your-disposable-digital-camera presentation, so you missed my demo of this neat little game called abstract chess.

Abstract Chess is a fun game we used to play once upon a time in college, and it spread a little but never caught on the way werewolves did. I’ve been meaning to do up a nice presentation to introduce more people to it, and make some Abstract Chess sets as well, and BarCamp LA provided a viable deadline (and 3 person audience!)

You can jump ahead to the next post if you like–it’s got the whole text from the powerpoint, so all you need is an index card and some crayons… Or read on for a little more rambling and reflection.

Just to dispell any mis-notions, Abstract Chess is not a typical BarCamp theme thing. It’s not wired, it’s not java-tastic, it doesn’t narrowcast a MUD over WiMax, but you could use a soldering iron on it…

And it’s not very chess like, except for one superficial similarity (turns begin when you touch a piece and end when you let it go…) and a Chomskian deep structure analogy (if I may be permitted a truly sophomoric statement).

But Abstract Chess is kind of very Web 2.o; it’s super-duper participatory and democratic. Yep, I’ll stick with that.

It’s an art game for people with no art ability, and a competition game for people who like to collaborate but also like to be (or just see) a winner. And it’s a great way to use stolen office supplies.

Thanks to the Jeff and Jennifer and Ace (?) who played, and the handful who might have looked at one of the slides and thought they were pretty.

I’ve given up loading the PPT as a wordpress file for the moment…

But all the text is contained in the first post here (the rules), and all the images (sans cropping and rotation) are in the flickr stream.

As for the vast cultural potential of this little game we used to play at UCSD and has migrated to Vassar and Oakland and other parts, well, let’s not go overboard. It’s a fun game you won’t regret trying–I like how that looks so let’s leave it at that, agreed?