: Radical Software Group | Kriegspiel

screenshot KS | RSG click2XL

Ideas improve. The meaning of words participates in the improvement. Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an author's phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, and replaces it with the right idea.

So wrote Guy Debord, prominent member of the Situationist International and major instigator of the infamous Paris uprisings of May '68. In his most famous text The Society of the Spectacle, Debord articulates the belief that free trade of thoughts and ideas is not only acceptable, but necessary for the intellectual advancement of culture. He did not simply advocate plagiarism as a means of reference, but as an active way to critically engage and subvert dominant media images - what he and his fellow Situationists referred to as 'détournement.' Put simply, détournement is the appropriation of these prevailing images for meanings in opposition to their original intent - a strategy that has influenced generations of activists, academics, and artists. So when the estate of Guy Debord recently sent a 'cease and desist' letter to a group of American artists for copyright infringement, people familiar with Debord's oeuvre were rightly shocked. Beyond the obvious irony of the situation, this particular case has raised questions about the complexities of copyright, monetary compensation and the historical legacy of our anti-establishment icons.

The recipients of this letter were Radical Software Group (RSG), a loosely affiliated group of artists and programmers who recently developed a multi-player online game called Kriegspiel based upon Debord's second best known work, Le Jeu de la Guerre (The Game of War). The Game of War is a military-themed board game with an accompanying text that Debord spent decades of his life working on. With roots in the long history of chess-based military strategy games known as kriegspiels, Debord was particularly influenced by the Prussian military general and strategist Carl von Clausewitz, a general whose approach to militarism was informed and shaped by broad philosophical and cultural forces–strategies akin to Debord's own revolutionary theories. The game itself consists of a board of twenty by twenty-five squares divided into Northern and Southern territories with pre-determined obstacles (such as a mountain range, mountain pass, two arsenals, and three fortresses). Game pieces include cavalry, infantry and cannons that can be moved up to five spaces per game, with the resulting play somewhat akin to a chess/RISK hybrid. When The Game of War was first produced in a limited edition in 1978, Debord expressed great confidence in its potential, writing in his text Panegyric, 'It might be the only thing in all my work - I'm afraid to admit - that one might dare say has some value.'
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:. Radical Software Group | Kriegspiel

Kriegspiel | german google-trans
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tags : rsg, game