The School of Perpetual Training
January 14, 2009 10:00 amYou gotta love the irony embedded in this project: “Popular classic arcade games such as Dig Dug, Tapper, Space Invaders and Tetris are re-contextualised to train players for jobs in mineral mining, printed circuit assembly, box build and global shipping.” The School of Perpetual Training is an ironic corporate training program that uses audience participation to expose unjust labour practices and environmental concerns caused by the global digital game industry.
School of Perpetual Training is an instructional training program that exposes the underbelly and not so glamorous side of the computer video game industry. Most people associate jobs in the computer video game industry with information-based labour such as 3D graphics and coding game programs. Yet the majority of the industry relies on the sweat and stamina of migrant and low-income labourers working for electronics contract manufacturers in developing countries.
As the captured motion is projected back on the screen, does the “School of Perpetual Training” qualify as an “augmented reality” project? By Jacqueline Steck and Stephanie Rothenberg for Eyebeam, which we already know for creating the first virtual sweatshop. I had a great time browsing through these two ladies’ previous projects, I suggest you do the same and start out with NOSO! (which is a huge relief to us who are already on Plurk, Facebook, Twitter, Myrl, Second Life, ‘the blogosphere’, e-mail, … . ;)) “NOSO is a real-world platform for temporary disengagement from social networking environments. The NOSO experience offers a unique opportunity to create NO Connections by scheduling NO Events with other NO Friends.“
Tags: augmented reality, eyebeam, school of perpetual training
One Response to “The School of Perpetual Training”
I don’t think it’s very accurate to say the digital gaming industry — which makes software — relies on sweatshop labor. Maybe in the low end “physical disc” market, which is rapidly eroding, there is some of that, but the pirates more than take that back. The entire industry is going digital anyhow.
The cars and computers and hardware do all the damage, but that is next to nothing compared to air travel, petroleum-based food production, and the entire car dependent culture which propels the politicians and the armies and what not.
So I got to say it is really off base.
Care to comment?