The SCP Foundation is an ongoing collaborative work of fiction which began in 2008. It’s a wiki with presents itself as the archive of a secretive extra-governmental organization which has charged itself with protecting the world from anomalies – objects, beings, and even concepts which defy the laws of physics and conventional understanding, from a lizard which is practically impossible to kill to a previously undiscovered integer which causes math to break down. The entries which form the bulk of the site take the form of articles detailing the procedures used to contain and study these items, and the site’s community tends to be exacting when it comes to the language and style of these entries, stressing rigor and the need to impart a believable atmosphere. The result is a vast collection of short stories which mostly conform to a well-defined style, and for those willing to dig into the wiki and read between the lines more details of the setting and how the Foundation operates and sees itself can be found. It’s an experience akin to watching a “puzzle” movie like Memento as you have to work to unravel what exactly the object you’re reading about is and what it does to people. The orientation for their Memetics division is a great example of this, rewarding both close reading and interaction with the text itself (try highlighting the whole page).
One of the most common themes across the Site’s many disparate canons and stories is the idea of the control of information. Unsurprisingly for a perhaps centuries-old secret organization, censorship and redaction are common practices in the Foundation, and there’s always more going on underneath the surface of what you’re reading. Early on in the wiki’s existence, the site’s authors decided that there would be no one true canon. There is no definitive explanation for neither how the Foundation came to be nor the source of the anomalies it contains, with several possibilities being put forward with the in-universe explanation that they all exist simultaneously for purposes of disinformation and because reality itself may have been altered multiple times, so they could all potentially be true.
As far as my project goes, the SCP wiki serves as a key point of inspiration. It represents a massive undertaking of worldbuilding and a blueprint for how to use a well-defined format to both structure a story and reveal information about the setting in a way which rewards close reading and prompts the viewer to question some of the assumptions they may have brought with them into the work. It’s also written in a way that encourages the audience to regard themselves as something closer to an active participant in decoding the work rather than just a passive receiver of information and story.
This relates to my project as this week I’ve zeroed in on what feels like a tangible direction for it. The working title is Bringing You Yesterday’s Tomorrows, Today! It will be an interactive video that takes the form of an interactive training module for the viewer/participant’s first day on the job in the Department of Hyperreality. It is 2056, and thanks to both ecological and context collapse brought about by climate change and AI respectively large swathes of the world are functionally uninhabitable. Most people live their lives in sealed habitats and conduct much of their business and social lives and leisure time via screens. The content on these screens is fully under the jurisdiction of the Department, and this training module’s content will give the viewer a glimpse into a society that has fully and shamelessly given itself over to living in a world oriented primarily around mediated signs and symbols. In order to function effectively in their job, the trainee needs to understand the importance of preserving a shared, cohesive narrative and how to keep it intact while still offering citizens the chance to exercise their imaginations – just so long as they don’t exercise them in the wrong ways.
The interactive nature of the piece is intended to make the viewer question their own relation to the media environment we live in now and also what it would mean to try and reassert the real in a world which doesn’t much care for it. Naturally, this means I’m going to have to learn how to design interactive videos as well as bone up on principles of game design and choice in narratives, and next week I want to start building out the full future history and details of the setting I want to create, then start working to decide how much I reveal to the viewer/participant, as well as how to get them to push for confirmation of whether that information is even true. After all, if practically all the information you receive in your daily life is curated and distributed by a Department whose mission statement is predicated on eliminating competing narratives so as to avoid chaos, doesn’t that imply that there’s a lot they aren’t telling you? And what does it do to culture and imagination when those forces are contained in a walled garden?
Site referenced: Rounzie. (2015, July 18). Memetics and Infohazards Division Orientation. https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/memetics-and-infohazards-division-orientation