Month: October 2025

From ICEbreakers to RAD-aways

A couple years ago we started releasing some short episodes of the podcast along with the main line episodes. We called these ICEbreakers, after the cyberpunk software hackers used against IC (Intrusion Countermeasures) in cyberspace, and as a conversation starter within public speaking. It was a good fit. Of the 5 ICEbreakers recorded, we released 4, and were looking to do more, though that didn’t come to pass. However, due to recent events, we felt a name change was necessary.

Enter the RAD-away.

RAD in this case stands for Rapid Access Dataport, which seems suitably cyberpunk.

I guess I could call these short episodes “takes”, but in this case we’ll call them “aways”. A quick factoid, a bit to deal with a current event, or address some common bit of misinformation.

Of course, there is a bit of a tie-in with RADaway to the larger geek universe via Fallout series. Not wholly intentional, but a nice bonus, all the same time.

We’re not going to go back and rename the released episodes. But we’ll continue the numbering with the new ones as they come up.

In the meantime, we’ll resume with new episodes shortly. Look for them in select podcast apps shortly.

Gaming Machines: Gaming as Allographic Art

(This post concludes the set of examples we began with the Cybernetic Machines and Science Machines over the last few weeks.)

We might call a gaming machine as something where a “game” is a set of instructions written by a “developer (or designer)”* fed into an assemblage (or cybernetic bio-technical machine) called a “studio” that outputs a “program”.

Hmm, that doesn’t quite work.

We need to spend a little more time with our construction here, to figure out what the roots are.

The generic version breaks down to: a Machine is a given Input (written) by a (Creator) fed into an assemblage called a (Mechanism) that produces an (Output).

If we were to extract those terms from the examples in our previous posts, we’d get this:

Machine, Input, Creator, Mechanism, Output
Science, Method, Scientist, Laboratory, Experiment
Game, Game, Developer, Studio, Program
Film, Script, Director, Production Company, Movie
Music, Composition, Composer, Orchestra, Symphony
Building, Blueprint, Architect, Construction Company, Building
AI, Context Model, Prompt Engineer, AI, Virtual World
AI2, Prompt, Prompt Engineer, AI, Experience

So now a gaming machine looks like this:

A “game” is a set of instructions written by a “developer (or designer)” fed into an assemblage (or cybernetic bio-technical machine) called a “studio” that outputs a “program”.

And we can talk about…

Gaming as an Allographic Art

Back when we started with Cybernetic Machines, we brought up the concept of an “allographic art”, from Nelson Goodman (1962). An allographic art is an art that is crafted by others based on a set of instructions. The artist in this case is the creator of the work that is replicated, like a composer or architect.

So by this definition, a game – either tabletop or electronic – would fit as an allographic art form.

Granted TTRPG rules rarely rise to the level of “art”, often seeming content to aim for “technical manual”, but things are improving. A lot of smaller indie games, have been focusing on the presentation and the while package – games like Root, Mork Borg, and others – to say nothing of the beautiful games released within the boardgaming space (Canvas, Sagrada, Azul, Hues and Cues, and a host of others).

But there are competing visions of “art” here, as art in game design may occur irrespective of the aesthetic appeal of the components, and a dry technical manual with pretty pictures may still not make for an engaging or artful design. However, there is no reason why a black and white typed zine might not contain artfully designed gaming systems either.

And while we previously also discussed how a scripted performance like a symphony or ballet would count as an allographic art, gaming as performance – again, either tabletop (e.g. Critical Role, Dimension 20) or electronic (e.g. Twitch, YouTube, etc.) is a different form of art.

To be clear: both design and performance can be art. Both count.

In the same way that Mozart of Composer and the London Symphony Orchestra as Performer are artists, in different ways, of the same work. And while this is commonly accepted in those art forms, in others it rarely occurs.

Take film for example: one of the very instances of this in film is Gus Van Sant’s 1998 shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). Here we have the same script, and much of the same direction, attempting to remake a film in much the same way that we would see with other allographic art forms. Psycho (1998) is a performance of Psycho (1960). Or rather, both Psycho (1960) and Psycho (1998) are performances (or interpretations) of the original script. I.e., allographic art.

But it is so rarely done in that medium. What would it look like if it happened more often?

This discussion of film brings us back to gaming, hopefully. Here we can have artistry in the play, of the code or rules created by others for the gamers to showcase their interpretation to the world, and we can have artistry in the design, in the instructions as they are created, with the elegance or aesthetic appeal of the rules and their presentation showcasing that form of art.

Which leads us to the implied question: is gaming art? Of course!

Though there have been many arguments that video games aren’t art (with some stating that they are incapable of becoming so), these arguments have been always been false. Gaming is art.

And gaming machines can make it.

Science Machines

A “method” is a set of instructions fed into a cybernetic bio-technical machine called a “laboratory” that outputs an “experiment”.

Or something to that effect.

And then the artistry is in how that experiment comes together, much like the orchestra playing a symphony.
And this artistry occurs in the context of science as well. Or in the social construction of science.

The cybernetic machines madlib above show one way this can be constructed; of course there’s more, or other variations on a theme. It follows from the field of Science Studies – that understanding that science is a social undertaking – and so would likely be familiar to anyone aware of that field.

But I wanted to bring it up as it helps illustrate what we mean by “cybernetic bio-technical machine”. Bruno Latour would call this an “assemblage”. So swapping that in to our madlibs would look like: A “method” is a set of instructions fed into an assemblage called a “laboratory” that outputs an “experiment”. Which is much shorter and to the point, but ends up obscuring the details I wanted to focus on. Which in this case is nature of that machine.

By cybernetic and bio-technical, I mean that the machine is a combination of humans working with technology, in highly specialized ways, and those humans working with each other, as each of the examples we’ve used so far are most often done by people in groups.

An orchestra consists of musicians (the bio) each deeply focused on their instruments (the tech) working together to produce a symphony. So too with a film crew, their cameras, lenses, lights, microphones, and all the myriad tools that go into editing and finishing a film. Architecture and science are the same way.

But perhaps we need to add another term into our madlib. Where does the scientist fit into the above equation? Or the composer? Or any of the other creators, in relation to their specific assemblages? (I realized I’m playing fast and loose with my metaphors here; I trust you can follow along).

For a science machine: A “method” is a set of instructions written by a scientist fed into an assemblage called a “laboratory” that outputs an “experiment”.

(We added other creators to the footnote of the original post).

Each of these assemblages comes together under the auspice of a creator who crafts the set of instructions. This is where human agency lies – these things don’t instantiate on their own.

And to follow it back to the previous post, this pattern holds true with AI art as well. An allographic art form that follows the familiar pattern that we’ve seen above. At the time of this writing, there is no sentient AI on planet earth.

There is no autonomous art.

All art, even AI art, is human created, even if there are layers of machines behind the surface.