The Incunabula Papers: Ong's Hat and Other Gateways to New Dimensions Version 2. 0: Ong's Hat and Other Gateways to New Dimensions Version 2. 0

Joseph Matheny

Jan 1999 · Wildcard Interactive

About this ebook

“…a bizarre Internet phenomenon: an “immersive” online experience—part mystery, part game, part who knows what—known as both the Incunabula Papers and Ong’s Hat. The Incunabula Papers/Ong’s Hat was, or is, a “many-threaded, open-ended interactive narrative” that ”weds an alternate history of chaos science and consciousness studies to conspiracy theories, parallel dimensions, and claims that computer-mediated environments can serve as magical tools…. the documents provoked a widespread “immersive legend-trip” in the late 1990s. Via Web forums, participants investigated the documents—manifestos—which spun up descriptions of brilliant but suppressed discoveries relating to paths that certain scientists had forged into alternate realities. Soon, those haunted dimensions existed in the minds and fantasies of Ong’s Hat’s many participants. That was evident as they responded to the original postings by uploading their own—all manner of reflections and artifacts: personal anecdotes, audio recordings, and videos—to augment what became “a really immersive world, and it was vast”.

Ratings and reviews

Lit

Amazing

About the author

 Joseph Wayne Matheny (born December 24, 1961, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American writer and transmedia artist who has created works using alternate reality gaming and transmedia storytelling methods.[1] He holds patents for prediction, recommendation and behavioral analysis algorithms and software design.[2] He is a published author of screenplays, white papers, technology, sci-fi, marketing and gaming books. He currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. He is probably best known for the avant-garde work, Ong's Hat, which has been called the proto-Alternate Reality Game by academia,[1] the mainstream and alternative media[3] and Ong's Hat is often cited as the first ARGs on many List of alternate reality games.