bordergames

Second day in Sant Celoni

jordiclar — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 18:57:38 +0200

Today we are going outside, just to talk with the people wandering around the Sant Celoni. we talk to them about the places at where they were, about their opinion about that places.

kheroujena derna wahde el hiware mea nase li katekoun moujouda fe amakin li mechinala matalan parekinat li fe sant celoni ou sewlnahoum la dik el amakin cheno li kayejboum fiha ou chemn ayam li kayemchiwe lila

El ravalgames goes international

jordiclar — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:52:04 +0200

El ravalgames goes international

Si la gente del metropolitan nos han hecho un reportaje,,, olvidad los sims, venid al jugar al ravalgames...¡¡¡¡¡

Además nos han tratado muy bien y descrito el teb y sus formas de trabajo. Ahora nos preguntamos: nos leeran ya en otras ciudades?

Pincha aquí: ravalgames2008_article_metropolitan_num24_april.pdf

Bordergames Lavapies Video

jordiclar — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 01:50:08 +0100

RifGames: Mustafa's story

jordiclar — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 21:37:44 +0100

Hello Alhuceimos,

I am sitting in a cibercafe which also functions as a barber shop, on a stop switching busses in Ouarzazat, in front of me they are shaving someone's neck, it is great.

I send you the first story of the guys from Al Houceima, Tarik, maybe you can interlace yours. The one about the shoeshine boy and the secret, that we talked about, that Mustafa could be a double agent, mafia and policeman at once. It resembles the closest, what the group said, but I have abandoned their considerations about what will happen once they arrive at the iberian cost. I hope it works out for the dialogues.

The plot start in the Florido plaza and ends at the beach, in the Cafe Chipula. The protagonist is a collective. A group of boys willing to leave for Spain are in the Florido and start planning the idea (this could be the presentation), they decide to start from the Chipula at night. Before that they have to collect the material and that is where the adventure starts: they split the work, three of them called Kamal, Shaib and Najib, have to collect money, another one the gasoline. To get the money there are different options: to rob, to lend it from their families or to sell something. They have to give the dough to one of the mafia guys of the village, Mustafa, who arranges the departure, the boat and bribes the police.

Mustafa is short with a belly, because he has money, he always wears suit and tie, is bald except for a pigtail in his neck and the most important thing in the game is that we never see his face: he always appears with his back or half profile to the camera. He wears black sunglasses. We can distinguish him as Mustafa because on his right hand he wears a very prominent golden ring and always smokes a cigar. He lives at the Florido plaza.

The material they have to collect and afterwards hide in the Cafe Chipula is: motor, gasoline, cigarettes, mobile phones wrapped in plastic and food: apples, bread and canned tuna.

The characters are - all of them get on the boat except for Mustafa:
- Mustafa
- Camal, Shaib and Najib, all three are strong, with a dangerous appearance. One is bald, another wears a headscarf. They wear knives in order to break the boat at the end of the trip so that everyone has to swim to the coast.
- Khalid is the best swimmer on board that will help the others to get to the coast if things get rough.
- Hussein and Halima, are married and pregnant
- Jamal, the gasoline guy
- Malika, a black woman
- Said, Yusuf, Hassan, Abdallah, Ayub, Hafid, Muhammad, Shukri and Alia.

The first dialogue we started writing is between Camal and Mustafa:
C - Salam, Draza en wawarn: mshar? Mani y mermi ghanefegh
- Salama, I only say two words: How much money, when and where do we leave
M - Come tomorrow at the same time with 7000 dh and then we will talk.

End of the story of the first group

The story I worked out with the guys is the following, our hero is a 15 year old boy that lives on the outskirts of the city and makes his living shining shoes in the Florido plaza.

On the plaza there is a kind of conspiracy going on (obviously the plan to leave in patera from the chipula beach) and there are some characters, with whom our hero has to interact. Those are:

a group of young people that make some sort of plans and send him away any time he gets close to him

a sir with a mustache and a white berber coat who owns a kiosk on the plaza but it seems that the kiosk is a disguise and he is really dedicated to trafficking, above all persons.

A well-dressed sir sitting on the terrace of the cafe florido who asks the boy to clean his shoes, and he ends up asking him suspicious questions, it results he is a secret agent.

The boy has to interact with those characters to later end up in the island of chipula, where they have to take the patera directed to the coast of Andalucia.

End of the story of the second group

We have only worked on the foundation or synopsis of the story and explained a little bit how the structure of the dialogues functions...

We did not have enough time to develop it. There was also talks about forged cheques, gasoline, golden jewelry... but they exagerated and it seemed more like a screenplay and we had to cut it short. I thought it would be more important to create a basic story, to which we could later, by way of the dialogues add different possibilities. It was something that took them some time to understand but it came out fine.

Tarik

RifGames: Last day of the workshop

jordiclar — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 02:06:35 +0100

Al Hoceima, 11^th december 2006:

Last day, each group reads the argument of its story. Later we introduce them to the construction of characters: bones, skins and the textures from the photos. They all understand immediately and start taking pictures of themselves for the posterity of videogames. (The kids always flip out appearing in internet or any other thing that presents themselves, same thing happens to me, I guess.) Finally the moment of the final meeting arrives. The guys, the girls really, far from being shy and chary, assault us with questions where all this leads to and when we will come back. Once again we are very astonished, we have taken a big responsibility and apparently made a big hit with what we have done. Mohamed, our contact on the institutional side, has thanked us and repeated what the kids have said: a project like Bordergames, people like us do not come here every day. We are even more happy.

Finally we reflect about cultural or technological colonialism, rooted deeply in the history of this place, and conclude that this project should flee the european paternalism like the pest. One girl surprises us with some final words that lead to a song accompanied by the guitar and a chorus of everyone. Tears.

RifGames: Day of reflection, beach and islands

jordiclar — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 01:00:18 +0100

The farewell has been marvellous, and we are slightly hung over. The generosity of these people does not stop to surprise me... Finally, today we escaped to relax on a nearby beach, Nakor, the only plain in the mountains of the Rif. Why the spanish build their city in Al Hoceima and not here is a legendary question. Down here we found a deserted and precious beach and the startling spanish isles. It does not seem true, but there they are, at a distance of a few metres, a few swim strokes away. The isle of Al Hoceima is great and useless in its shape of a stranded boat. It is funny that it has been the prison - as part of the headquarters - of our beloved neighbor Luis Candelas from Lavapies (a famous bandit), and that many prisoners fled and integrated themselves in this land, opening their arms to the muslim religion. Talking about integration.

My suggestion is not to give back the islands, I image that the people here would not have much use of them anyway, but to give Morocco some rock or island near the iberic peninsula that allows the moroccans to request their formal entry into the EU. What? You think that is stupid? Come here and look at these shabby islands with the waving flag on top of them and you now what is a well-done stupidity.

Tarik, Noe and I, apart from our visits to our mother country, discuss the script and summary of the project. These days before christmas we will send them to you.

RifGames: Reaching the homestretch

jordiclar — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:33:51 +0100

Today the workshops end. Really, we stop working in the computer centre, but not working with the kids nor with the local team. We have been lucky, because in this land working without permits or letters of recommendation in this kind of centre was definitely an accomplishment of Tarik and his rifenian diplomacy.

Maybe things are changing, some years ago everything was organized by the ministry in charge, but now it is the associations (and international cooperations that take charge of running places like this). I personally feel allergic to these kind of places, the more when I see the state of things outside these clean "missions" with the plastic coating still on the new seats. I am not criticizing, I hardly have a personal impression of it, but I simply feel more relaxed in the cybercafes. The people are there, chatting with their cousins (I have just seen a whole family: mother, father, kids,... they have been sitting in front of a webcam, shouting with someone on the other end of the videochat - real, very real). It is not like you could not find this in a cybercafe in Figueras or Lavapies for example, but if I see the kind of hole this city is, the cafes are a good metaphor for the escapism you can sense all around.

The guys of Rifsystem, real enterprisers in the local computer business run several cybercafes. Some, like our friend Hicham, a computer expert that you could imagine having a great job in Europe, left in patera seven times. The last time he arrived, closely escaping death, but 14 other passengers did not. He arrived unconscious after swimming randomly for seven hours at a beach in Malaga. There he was cured, but once so, he got on the first bus back home. He has not left Al Hoceima again.

Entrevista en Bergen: "The most important thing is not the product, but integration"

jordiclar — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 14:32:37 +0100

Barbara W. de Berl�n y Javier R. de Barna estuvieron en Bergen (Noruega) en octubre 2006, llevando a cabo una presentaci�n de la trayectoria de Bordergames, en un encuentro llamado Games, New Media and Democracy� de la UiB.
Os pasamos una entrevista (traducida al ingl�s), que un medio de all� les hizo a ambos:

Bergens Tidende, Thursday Oct 26, 2006

Computer games create integration

Bordergames lets both legal and illegal immigrants tell their stories through videogames. This can also be done in Bergen, says Javier Rodrigo and Barbara Weigel.

Walter N. Wehus, Vegar Valde (Photo) walter.wehus@bt.no

�The most important thing is not the product, but integration.
Javier Rodrigo from Spain and Barbara Weigel from Germany are part of an art collective based in Madrid and they are in Bergen to present their �Bordergames� at a video game conference at the University of Bergen (UiB).

Positive self representation

�We got the idea in 2001. We were invited to Los Angeles as artists in residence and came in contact with a youth organization that worked with kids to create positive selfrepresentation, says Rodrigo.
It is precisely self-representation that Bordergames is about. In Madrid, they organized a three-month series of workshops for young immigrants. The kids had access to video equipment and computers. The goal was for the kids to go out and find stories dealing with being an immigrant.

�It�s about autonomy. In Spain there are many undocumented, illegal immigrants who have entered through the Mediterranean. These kids could relate to stories about difficulties with getting jobs, problems with the police and so on, says Rodrigo.

Do the programming themselves

In �Bordergames�, you play an immigrant without papers, starting on a square in Madrid.
By talking to social workers, police, friends and strangers, many stories are being told.
The programming and the development of the game platform are also done by the immigrants at the workshops. The game can be downloaded for free at the website bordergames.org. It is important to the two creators that all the work is based on open source code. This way, the game and the process can be exported to anywhere in the world.

Exported to Germany

�In Germany there are not many immigrants without papers. There are mostly Turks who have passport and houses, but who still have troubles getting accepted, says Weigel.
Bordergames was recently started in Berlin, where they made a local version of the game using the same methods of workshops and giving kids digital video cameras.
�You have to remember that borders are not only physical, but also cultural, she says.
The result is two-fold: You do not only get a videogame that everybody can play and that contains a wealth of information that can be useful both to immigrants and to others who want to learn more about them. Even more important is the process itself that
gives many of the kids a sense of belonging that they didn�t have before.

UiB�s video game environment

Rodrigo and Weigel participated at the seminar �Games, New Media and Democracy� at UiB.
�There is not much research on video games in Spain, so we were impressed by all the different approaches here. We got in touch with people that have to deal with the same problems as us and not least with experts from all disciplines, says Rodrigo.
Weigel points out that it would not require much to start Bordergames projects in cities like Bergen or Oslo
�You need someone with contacts in the community, but asides from that, you only need a physical place with computers. For example a school or a closed caf�, Weigel explains.
They now hope that the game and the concept will spread to more cities in Europe.
Photo caption: IDENTITY AT PLAY: �Bordergames� is a completely new way of thinking integration in Europe. Barbara Weigel and Javier Rodrigo hope the concept will spread to more cities.
Quote: �You have to remember that borders are not only physical, but also cultural� BARBARA WEIGEL.

RifGames: Two sceneries

jordiclar — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 23:00:38 +0100

3^rd day Rifgames 12-10-06

All together we decided that the game will be developed on two sceneries: the plaza del Florido (in spanish and now called Rif Plaza) and the beach with the impressive ruins of the Cafe Chipula, an antique touristic construction on a little off-shore island, that has been destroyed by the wilderness of the sea long time ago.

In the morning we have divided in two groups, the ones that did not take photos the day before stayed with David, Hisham, Said and Iman in the computer room, working hard with photoshop. The others - mostly girls that could not come the day before - went to take pictures of the other scenery chosen, the Plaza del Florido, which is the centre of comunication in Al Hoceima, where all the busses, taxis and trapis stop. And it resembles a bit Lavapies (in Madrid) in the past.

Afternoon: Workshop on scripts in two groups, one with Tarik, one with Noe

The two stories will start in the plaza del Florido:

Ahmed is a minor who earns his living as a shoeshine boy. He usually walks around the plaza, where he meets haragas - youths that want to migrate illegally -. They do not accept him, they throw him out of the group. A boat owner, disguised as a kiosk clerk is the contact person for the guys that want to take off. There is also a well-dressed gentleman that askes Ahmed to clean his boots and at the same time tries to get information from him. In the end he has to deal with all of them at the beach, where they are going to leave for Europe (second scene) One of the kids suggested, that the shoeshine boy could be the main character of the Lavapies game. (Heureka!)

The protagonist of the other story is Mustafa, a mafia guy who controls the patera travelling business. He has three men working for him, strong and bad guys. It starts in the plaza with one person who is willing to leave saying to Mustafa: - Salam, I tell you three words: how much is it, when do we leave and where do we stay -
The action is nothing but the preparation of the trip; who is taking care of the ressources: gasoline, motor, tarp and collecting the money. It ends or starts in the Cafe Chipula - the beach - where twenty people take off in the boat, among them three women. Before they leave, the cops arrive, get bribed and then help to push the patera towards the sea...

RifGames: Logo and Textures

jordiclar — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 21:57:40 +0100

This morning we have worked on the "brand" image. A typography more "amazich" ("berber" for us, surely they consider the term contemptuous, they know that it means something like "foreign" and do not like it) has triumphed. Since decades people here study the classic arab language and moroccan arab, while everybody here speaks his own amazich dialect. Now, for the first time amazich is taught in the schools and is considered more normal, like the basque language in the 70s. Amazich does not have a clear grammar and alphabet. But it is spoken by everybody who is here. Another language, that almost everybody speaks or smatters is spanish, thanks to TV. The satellite dishes have a strong impact and the arabian channels are popular as never before. Is there a connection to the new fashion of the girls wearing headscarfs?

The textures of the videogames are ready.

RifGames: The cemetery of the gambling-hall

jordiclar — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 22:49:11 +0100

Today, december 9^th, we have gone out to take photos for one of the scenes of the videogame: it is a more or less ruined building on a rock island in front of the beach, the Cafe Chipula. On the way we found a fascinating wasteyard of gambling machines. An elephant-size cemetery of pool tables and pinball machines. A lot of colors, a pile of old pinball machines with paintings in style of the 60s. You will see the photos, we have used them for the logo of RIFGAMES.

On the construction on the beach there were some fishermen. We explained to the kids that for the 3D-scene we would need photos of various fronts and textures. We gave one camera to each of the two groups. One photographed the details of a ship and the building, the other took more panoramic photos. In the computer room we passed all the photos to everyone and David demonstrated photoshop. When we tried to install the programs and the editor, big surprise, we discovered that the dvd-drive is a dummy! It is painted on the shell, with logo and buttons, but it does not exist.

RifGames. Work begins.

jordiclar — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 21:00:36 +0100

It has been decided to call it RifGames instead of Bordergames Al Hoceima. Which is fine with us.

The presentation was very pleasant. As actors in the theatre know, the attitude of the audience has a strong influence. If the audience is bullheaded, stiff, the artist does not get inspired � But here it is a pleasure. The boys and girls are charming, funny and very bright.

We have cut our presentation short, without jokes, but it did not matter, they were very excited about the game. Immediately the first hands rose and they suggested scenes and above all stories, or, more likely to say: THE STORY: the patera.

The game is going to be about how to plan a little trip across the estrecho with your fellows. It was their idea, honestly; they are more conscious as we think they are about the representation of real life. You know, this place is not normal, there are full cybercafes in every street, I do not exaggerate. And opposed to the normal cafes the girls come in here. It seems to be a necessity to communicate with the outside world.

Walking around we have found ourselves in a mars-like city, first of all because it is winter. But its strangeness is not related to the calender, it is a result of the elements present here, that to us seem very peculiar: a post-colonial city, anti-morrocan, isolated because of the bad infrastructure, it resembles a toy-like kitschy Beirut but without the visible traces of war. War has been very important to this place, the people from the Rif were so tired with war, that now they could not care less about it. Nowadays everything depends on smuggling, foreign investments and the word of Allah. There were no wars here recently, but a whole generation disappeared, alive, but living abroad. The future is on the other side. Without any doubt the patera is the clear expression of an existential crisis.

RifGames: First day

jordiclar — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 15:39:22 +0100

We have known part of the kids, it is a youth association called izzowran (roots). 18 boys and girls between 12 and 18 years will take part in the workshop, the equipment is very good; we have a projector and 18 computers connected to internet. Some programers of a cooperative called Rifsystems also come here.

We cannot wish for more, this afternoon we have our presentation and we will tell you about it.

Greetings.

Bordergames Alhucemas (Al-Hoceima) / Rifgames has arrived

jordiclar — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 20:53:15 +0100

We present the first guerrilla-videogame of Bordergames.org. We have installed ourselves in the capital of Rif, Alhucemas, preparing the first self-financed videogames seen on these grounds.

Alhucemas, formerly Villa Sanjurjo, is an spanish ex-colony, which was product of the spanish invasion and was destroyed by an earthquake in 2005. Capital of Rif, independent, submitted by different parties, poor like rats, fishermen, smugglers and patera-passengers. Possibly, it is one of the places that never appears in the tourist-guidebooks on Morocco. It is a place linked to Spain by language, history, the TV-stations rtve and telecinco, where the pateras form part of the everyday life. The other side of the mirror of capitalism, the other side of the estrecho ...

This is the context where we will work on a new version of Bordergames, a new version in the self-declared guerrilla format. There is no external founding and I do not think there will ever be. Everything has to be done from zero and we are going to work without the support or localization of any institutions. We are going to work! The idea is to develop a project with a strong political load (beware of the morroccan cops) but also create continuity, starting from the beginning, as well as in programming as in the working group.

For us it has been 30 hours of travelling, boat, bus, taxis, tapas, border-crossing, five inspections by the police, an incredible movie of football-kung-fu in a no less incredible bus station of Nador at midnight (surely a city not to recommend at that time...)

By these postings we will tell you day to day about the working process with the kids in Al-Hoceima, if the mixed up keys on the computers allow us...

BORDERGAMES FIGUERES

jordiclar — Wed, 17 May 2006 16:34:54 +0200

Podeu descarregar-vos una presentaci� del videojoc clicant en aquest link-->

http://rapidshare.de/files/25148880/border_presentacio_low.avi.html

BorderGames arrives in Berlin…….

jordiclar — Tue, 16 May 2006 11:24:27 +0200

BorderGames arrives in Berlin��.
from http://mappinglucy.blogspot.com/

�..and it was my task to lay out the �red carpet� and make all the necessary arrangements before they (�the Spanish People�) arrived. This entailed making a flyer�..making a workshop space�..and then this week running around Kreuzberg gathering cables, batteries and other technological confetti that usually malfunctioned to ensure the thwarting of a smooth start.

What is BorderGames? Make-Your-Own Computer Game software developed by Jorde, Javier and David (aka Fiambrera Obrera), three part-time activist-artists of varying levels of humour and intensity, connected by their anti-capitalist sentiments and an interest in community practices with a resolutely anti-do-gooder attitude. BorderGames turns users into producers, presenting the opportunity to construct a computer game using your own neighbourhood, friends and enemies. Representations of daily life experiences are navigated through a series of dialogues with multiple choice answers and a specific goal in mind. In the case of the Madrid game it was developed with a group of Moroccan teenagers who were in the country illegally. Thus the central theme of the game is to acquire papers that allowed you to work in Spain. To do so you have to negotiate the challenges of the police, potential employers and youth educators along the way.

The software is essentially a tool of political representation for those whose voices are rarely heard on public platforms. The character who introduces the game comments that the user will find real stories very different to the narratives of politicians distributed through media channels. I realised some of my own biases when I played the game - how come the youth educator in fact turned out to be bad guy, who despite good intentions perhaps ended up increasing the chances of my deportation? Likewise I was confused by the fact that all of the multiple choice options for interactions with the police ended up in a brick falling on my head and the game being over. Nor in fact was there any certain way at all to get papers - all conversational routes end with the falling brick even after you have finally managed to acquire a temporary set of papers. I realised of course that the game follows not the logic of the average computer game formula but the real experiences of the teenagers.

The Kreuzberg workshop is taking place in a ground-floor storefront under a large housing block in Kottbusser Tor. Our design challenge was to make a �teenager-friendly� space for the workshop that didn�t resemble an internet caf� or a new media office (think of an ensemble of chairs, tables and computers in an otherwise bare room) for under $100, with access also to MDF, wood, paint, a lime green carpet and a series of shipping pallet �seats� of varying shapes and sizes. We (Martin, another Raumlabor intern and me) constructed what you can see in the photos below � signage using the graphics of the flyer including oversized letters, a good deal of yellow and black caution tape (borders�..) and a basic asymmetrical wood �auditorium� structure.

This week�s activities have centred around familiarising the kids with the concept of the game and walking around the neighbourhood with them to collect interviews and photographs of places and people of significance in their lives. The next stage is to assemble dialogues of typical interactions between them and the characters they decide to include in the game.

I have been impressed by Fiambrera Obrera�s practicing of what they preach. They are insistent that the development of the game should happen on the terms of the kids rather than them imposing a structure. In other words the process and methods shift with each new location and group of participants. Previously they have worked with a fixed group of illegal immigrants between the ages of 16 and 18. Here in Kreuzberg they have found a situation where because of the location of the space opposite a playground almost all of the participants are under 12 and with varying and unpredictable levels of commitment to the work. They are mostly of Turkish origin, legal residents and with consciences consumed more with soccer (boys) and animal stories (girls) than politics. Thus the methods have morphed to accommodate this flux and working includes as much football playing as it does time in front of the computer. After the first week it seems that the �Kotti� game is more likely to be a patchwork ensemble of stories centred on the housing block that crosses Adalbertstrasse (where our workshop is taking place)/the problem of a lost football and the encountering of various figures in order to recoup it (uncle in a kebab shop, punk, policeman etc)/the assembling of a �dreamteam� football league made up of characters from the neighbourhood.

Meanwhile interesting gender differences manifest themselves in the opportunities to draw � girls invariably make escapist worlds of flowers, clouds and princesses while the boys territorially �tag� their names and neighbourhood gang (the number �36�, the old postcode for the area). I have been very impressed by the self-confidence of kids interviewing and photographing friends and strangers to be characters in their game and the beautiful video footage shot by some of the older girls. At the end of one week we have some dialogues, a range of stories and histories with accompanying photographs, a 3D computer model of Kottbusser Tor thus far Madrid characters in it and some video interviews.

And then after every workshop we find a spot to consume beer and Turkish meat and reflect, and the Spanish entertain us with stories of their other projects which include rethinking various aspects of pornography and shoplifting, all littered with references to �relational aesthetics� and �performative theory�. Insightful indeed!

Bordergames is a project to empower young migrants through the process of designing and programming a videogame fully made by them.

jordiclar — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 12:13:32 +0200

Bordergames is a series of workshops, a videogame engine and an editor which allows young migrants not only to design a video game where their experiences are the main element, but also to learn the importance of taking over new technologies and using them to self organize and recover the control over their own lives and environments.

Bordergames is a working project directed to young migrants , in this first stage moroccan teenagers living in Madrid. Our basic tenet is providing a series of tools for them to fully recover their right to their own word and expression, and doing it in a language they feel specially close to them : that of videogames.

Bordergames organizes meetings and workshops (there is one of them currently happening in Madrid from September 15^th to October 15^th ) through which the moroccan kids discuss the stories they want to tell and then learn programming, editing and producing 3D scenarios and characters for the videogame they have decided to produce.

One very important aspect in this first stage of the project has been that of the scenarios chosen, namely the "Barrio de Lavapies" in Madrid where most of the kids live. A nice part of the barrio has been photographed and turned into a 3D scenario by the kids themselves promoting an unexpectedly, for us, intense process of reappropiation of a barrio where they lived but that somehow they did not consider entirely their own. Turning it into a 3D stage for their adventures and interactions has helped them reconsidering the importance of having strong links with an urban space.

Equally relevant has been the process throgh which the kids learn to take digital pictures of themselves and other popular characters in the barrio to turn them into 3D animated characters for the videogame.

Not to talk about the importance of the technological alphabetization happening there, we would highlight the sense of relevance the kids feel when taking decissions and giving life to this or that character.

The usual structure of the videogame industry excludes its users from the design and editing of the games. Bordergames works just on the basis provided by a free software and editing engine scripted and designed by ourselves (in C + + and Lua) which allows completely free intervention to migrants’ collectives in all the stages of the proccess. Technically the videogame engine and editor can be implemented either in a Windows run PC (through Direct X) or in a Linux run one (through an Open GL Port). We have also taken good care to develop graphics and animations which do not need the latest generation graphic cards or computers, considering that the free distribution of the videogame is likely to take it to the cybercafes of Morocco, or to public schools which might not be able to deal with such resources.

After the workshop happening currently in the MediaLab, in Madrid, we have already established contacts and networks with some collectives of senegalese people living both in Dakkar and Madrid. The free software and the workshop structure would allow us to develop collaborations in different locations and with different collectives, something we do look forward to happening.

A beta-version of the videogame and a video-rendering of the work currently developed can be downloaded in www.bordergames

Directions for an Action-research workshop.

jordiclar — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 16:59:37 +0100

Working ideas for the forthcoming workshops to be organized.

Introduction

Our proposal consists of working on two different levels using the action �research method as a way to work and dialogue with people.

1. First : During the morning sessions we could work with educators/ social workers/ mediators like Social Pedag�gen - Erziehers- kunst und Kultur erziehers und cultural workers, vermittlerinen/ vermittlerenen, etc..

Our intention here is to discuss and get to work with the software and the dynamics used in the videogame workshops so the cultural and social mediators can gather technical skills and pedagogical strategies to build up new curricula or educational applications.

Our aims here is to discuss and design with the mediators involved from different associations/groups which activities could be developped, which strategies are needed to work with technical resources and which motivations and issues can be discussed and negotiated within the workshops with the community we are going to be engaged with. Here we hope to establish a "short term" learning community with the local mediators to enrich and produce real interchange, a shared environment of different activities and pedagogical strategies to work with Bordergames as a real toolkit to work within critical multiculturalism, intercultural projects , antiracist and no border campaigns and community and social work either with migrants or not.

2. Second : During the afternoon sessions, we could work in different Barrios ( Berzirke) and with different organizations getting some of the "morning" discussions and dynamics into the field work : scenarios, characters and basic story lines could be drawn out of these sessions, with technical applications and practical work with the people that want to be involved as future authors/user of the just produced version.

As we consider ourselves active practioners , the aim here is to put in real practice the morning discussions and activities, and then to rethink the translation of theorical frame in reality. After that we can gather more perspectives and critical reflexions of the applications, to inform again our theories and strategies, in a continuous reflexive circle between theories- praxis- theories and so on� Here we think is necessary to have a specific educative and mediating experience with groups to think about the process, and a first prototype version of Bordergames to use as a real toolkit.

Finally , some of our nicest experience has been checking how the limits between the people working in these two levels can be deleted to create dialogical learning and networking situations in learning communities. Our aim is not only to participate as teachers, but to engage new people to be in the position of teaching and appropriate the Bordergames project in new contexts and realities.

In fact two of the people coming to these workshops are two kids who started coming just for the storytelling and who are now coordinating workshops themselves. Of course, also in Berlin if there are kids willing to discuss and learn dynamics and tools we should be able to include them in the morning sessions and engage them as future educators/mediators as well�

In these last two years Fiambrera Obrera has been working to develop a completely free software for a videogame engine and editor. This software lets us not just producing easily conversational videogames but also modifying and adapting them from quite a friendly interface.

Our aims are to work/collaborate with those organizations working to enhance the autonomy of migrant populations (kids, second generations refugees, asylum seekers, no border associations etc..) who can through this set of tools approach a number of objectives:

* endowing migrants and refugees with the possibility of expressing directly what they feel to be some of the most relevant elements of their stories by writing themselves the scripts and choosing the characters and scenarios of the game. In this sense it is a possibility to recreate their own realities and life experiences in the urban space.

* getting technological literacy in 3d, character animation and basic programming which might prove useful not just for the development of their own versions of the game, but also as experience and skills for their access to the labour market and as critical application of technical resources .

For us action-research here means a formative resource method to develop workshop with mediators in which first we discuss and provide the technical skills required to use the Bordergames engine. After that we apply it into reality fostering this translation with a real community of group. This step will translate the discussions and theoretical frames to the reality itself, hoping to apply a reflexive praxis of what can be done and what it is possible in the social field to do with/by Bordergames. In this sense we hope to discuss, apply, and improve Bordergames and its critical possibilities in our shared different realities.

Our main purpose with action �research is to create networking situations and working groups, and to articulate our Bordergames proposal in the complexity of the "already activated" initiatives in the different local contexts, and then to create a level of self-sustainability for the different collectives and associations.

bordergames

Second day in Sant Celoni

El ravalgames goes international

Bordergames Lavapies Video

RifGames: Mustafa's story

RifGames: Last day of the workshop

RifGames: Day of reflection, beach and islands

RifGames: Reaching the homestretch

Entrevista en Bergen: "The most important thing is not the product, but integration"

RifGames: Two sceneries

RifGames: Logo and Textures

RifGames: The cemetery of the gambling-hall

RifGames. Work begins.

RifGames: First day

Bordergames Alhucemas (Al-Hoceima) / Rifgames has arrived

BORDERGAMES FIGUERES

BorderGames arrives in Berlin…….

BorderGames arrives in Berlin��.from http://mappinglucy.blogspot.com/

Bordergames is a project to empower young migrants through the process of designing and programming a videogame fully made by them.

Directions for an Action-research workshop.

BorderGames arrives in Berlin��.
from http://mappinglucy.blogspot.com/