Excellent little essay here by Dylan Horrocks, comic book artist and writer, who has been appointed the 2006 University of Auckland/Creative New Zealand Literary Fellow. In it he says,

We are used to thinking of Tolkien or Raymond Feist as writers who create imaginary worlds, but the same is also true of Elizabeth Knox, Barbara Anderson or Maurice Gee. The worlds in which their stories take place each have their own history, atmosphere, and sense of time. No matter how much it may resemble the “real world,” it is actually something else. This is neither good nor bad – it is simply an inescapable fact. Every time a writer tells a story, they also create a world.

and

In comics, even the laws of physics are side effects of the cartoonist’s ‘way of drawing’ – the way clothes drape across a body, the way shadows fall and water flows. In this sense, the cartoonist is a kind of God, creating a whole universe in their own image.

Horrocks goes on to look at this idea of world-building or sub-creating with the genres of comics, role-playing games and electronic gaming (incl. online gaming). Some interesting parallels with some of the stuff I’ve been reading about virtual reality and the metaphysical quests of technologists.

The essay can be found on Horrocks’ web site at THE PERFECT PLANET: Comics, Games and World-Building.

There was also an interview with him last Saturday morning on Radio New Zealand – Saturday, 18 February. (Link active for at least the next week)

I heard about Horrocks’ comic book Hicksville a while back but had never gotten around to reading it. Today I picked it up from the library so I’ll be thumbing through it tonight.

Something to bear in mind as I work through the interpretation and implications of the imago Dei in a techno-cultural society. In commenting on the interpretation of the imago Dei by figures such as Ambrose, Augustine, the Reformers, Hegel and Troeltsch, Barth writes of the Gen 1:26ff passage and its interpretation,

We might easily discuss which of these and the many other similar explanations is the finest or deepest or most serious. What we cannot discuss is which of them is the true explanation of Gen. I26f. For it is obvious that their authors merely found the concept in the text and then proceeded to pure invention in accordance with the requirements of contemporary anthropology, so that it is only by the standard of our own anthropology, and not according to the measure of its own anthropology and on exegetical grounds, that we can decide for or against them. Indeed, is it not almost refreshing to observe that in the end Troeltsch quite obviously makes no attempt whatever to expound Gen. I26f. but decides for an independent reconstruction of the concept? The procedure is characteristic of the tendency in much that has been said at this point by other writers both ancient and modern.

– Karl Barth, The Doctrine of Creation, Church Dogmatics, vol. 3 No. 1 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1958), 192-193.

Brilliant opening spell on Saturday by the Hurricanes before losing shape (and Smith) to get through in the end to a bonus point. I thought the Western Force played better than the score (29-5) indicated and expect them to knock off a couple of teams later on in the competition. Maybe even the Chiefs next week?

Big blow for the Hurricanes losing Conrad Smith to a broken leg for the season, plus not good news for the ABs either. Still with Tana, Ma’a and Tane in the mid-field the ‘Canes are better off than some teams in that area.

I’ve always liked Smith’s play – the perfect foil to Nonu’s style – and his intelligence and organization will be missed greatly.

Also see: New Zealand’s source for sport, rugby, cricket & league news on Stuff.co.nz: Homecoming heartache for Smith.

Oh, and it was good to see the Highlanders come through well against the Blues.

The UN World Food Programme has a video game out to educate people about different aspects of emergency food relief operations. it looks well done and runs on both Macs and PCs, with the only hitch being the several hundred megabyte download.

More information at WFP Foodforce – The Game, The Reality, How to Help and Wired News: U.N. Game Wins Hearts and Minds.

See also Greenflame: Education Arcade, day 1 for some links on edu-gaming.

On a related theme AKMA has some thoughts on religion in online multiplayer games and virtual worlds. See AKMA’s Random Thoughts: Faith In Terra Nova.

An article by Guy Kawasaki on generating community – Let the Good Times Roll–by Guy Kawasaki: The Art of Creating a Community. Aimed primarily at generating communities to support business it has some points that would translate into building communities – particularly online ones – for other purposes. The article is being updated and revised every so often too. Here’s a list of points raised that are expanded in the article.

• Create something that’s worth building a community around.
• Identify and recruit your thunderlizards—immediately!
• Assign one person the task of building a community.
• Give people something to chew on.
• Create an open system.
• Welcome criticism.
• Foster discourse.
• Publicize the existence of the community.

(BTW – a “thunderlizard” is like an “evangelist”)

Any post that combines the theme of creation with quotes about the greening power of God from Hildegard and another quote from Madeline L’Engle gets the thumbs up from me. Check out way out west: From Dreaming to Creation…

Thanks to Paul’s posting Prodigal Kiwi(s) Blog: Space – 2002 for the link.

A couple of links. The first to a robot that is controlled by the behaviour of a slime mould that has been integrated with control circuitry, and the second link a robot (EcoBot II) that is powered by a Microbial Fuel Cell that produces energy from dead flies and rotten fruit. See New Scientist Breaking News – Robot moved by a slime mould’s fears and Energy Autonomy: Towards a truly Autonomous Robot.

A year ago I posted a link to the New Zealand Short Films web site where, strangely enough, you could watch NZ short films online. Now you can download some of them as MPEG-4 files for your iPod. The MPEG-4 files should play in Quicktime on PC and Mac too.

One man’s quest to make his own life-sized Dalek. See Relative Dimensions: The Dalek.

A reflection on science and religion by by Gordon Atkinson at The Christian Century: The lion and the lamb.