Metacortechs ARG: Code and Genre

So the Metacortechs (Matrix) alternate reality game reveals, as a clue, a package of binary files which, upon decoding to ASCII, reveal a narrative of a meeting between one of the ARG protagonists (Beth, who works at Metacortex) and a strange figure. From the strange figure’s point of view. In XML.

An excerpt:

20031031172951 – October 31, 2003 17:29:51

<communication protocol=”cg://ara9975.lka18383″>
<bootstrap interop=”standard” value=”true”/>
<interware status=”err259″/>
<message type=”response”/>
<context_inference subject=”null” confidence=”0.0″ status=”failure”>
<support>
<subject raw_data=”what’s happening” expansion=”what is happening” type=”local_event”/>
<error local_event_count=”84720075″ heuristic_narrowing=”active” heuristic=”immediate_vicinity” candidate_event_count=”64492″ identification=”failure”/>
</support>
</context_inference>
<generalization>
<events count=”64492″>
<condition type=”foreach”>
<method id=”is_aware_of” return_type=”boolean”>
<parameter value=”self”/>
</method>
<operator type=”equals” value=”true”/>
</condition>
<result true=”64492″ false=”0″/>
</events>
</generalization>
<response type=”boolean” value=”true” confidence=”0.4″/>
</communication>

Which is perfect: XML, as a language strongly influenced by a desire for mutual human- and machine-readability, becomes an authentic way to express, to humans, a communication made by a character who is revealed, by the use of this mode of communication, to be a machine. XML is used artistically as a genre of speech.

Read the solution thread at unfiction.com and a summary of the game’s progress.

This is also a good time to point out A.O. Scott’s New York Times review of Revolutions which had some interesting thoughts going on… I was worried he was going into a grumpy “these whippersnappers with their films that look like video games” direction, but he’s actually juggling the conceptual frameworks of multiple media in a neat way…