VYS0036 | Infinite Game - Vayse to Face with Joseph Matheny - Show Notes

Some rare art transcends reality, some even rarer art seems to create a new reality altogether - the work of Joseph Matheny does both of these things while embracing the trickster spirit inherent in the magickal traditions in which his work has its roots.

Joseph talks to Hine and Buckley about Ong's Hat, his "living book" project, widely recognised as the first Alternate Reality Game, and how it took on a life of it's own, not only for the people who were playing it but also for the people who created it. The conversation also turns to synchronicity and how his recent work, the Liminal Cycle, seems to generate synchronicity in the lives of those who engage with it, how his work connects so closely to magick, nature and theatre, his experiences in the North Pole and how they affected his writing, the use of magic in political systems and how the internet we know and love (to hate) today retains the legacy of the ritual magicians and DnD enthusiasts who created it... (recorded 7 February 2024)

Thanks to Joseph for his time and thanks, as always, to Keith for the excellent show notes, you can hit him up on on bluesky: @peakflow.bsky.social

Joseph Matheny online

Website

Official Archive of the Ong’s Hat Project

Ong’s Hat website

YouTube channel

Twitter/X

Instagram

Substack

Facebook

Goodreads page

IMDb page

Hine and Buckley’s Intro

Neuralink - Wikipedia

Elon Musk says Neuralink has implanted its first brain chip in human - The Guardian

True Detective (Season 1) - Wikipedia

Ong’s Hat - Wikipedia

Ong's Hat: The Beginning (Authorized Version) by Joseph Matheny (Audiobook) - Soundcloud

Ong's Hat: The Beginning (Authorized Version) by Joseph Matheny - Goodreads

Alternate reality game (ARG) - Wikipedia

QAnon - Wikipedia

January 6 United States Capitol attack - Wikipedia

Pizzagate conspiracy theory - Wikipedia

Gamification in Politics: how does it influence Political Participation? by Elena Giordano - Medium

Liminal (The Liminal Cycle) by Cameron Whiteside (Joseph Matheny) - Goodreads

Xen: The Zen of the Other (The Liminal Cycle) by Ezra Buckley (Joseph Matheny) - Goodreads

Statio Numero (The Liminal Cycle) by Joseph Matheny, Jason Nunes (Illustrator) - Goodreads

Joseph’s early background in tech

Early Personal Computers, 1970s-1980s - Museums Victoria

Technology that changed us: The 1980s, from MS-DOS to the first GPS satellite - ZDNET

Berkeley Macintosh User Group - Wikipedia

Steve Wozniak - Wikipedia

ARPANET - Wikipedia

Dial-up Internet access - Wikipedia

Bulletin board system - Wikipedia

Email - Wikipedia

The History of Email: Digging Into the Past, Present, and Future - Email On Acid

Pony Express - Wikipedia

Joseph’s epiphany

High Frontiers magazine - Anarchivism

High Frontiers Issue #1 - Archive.org

Modem - Wikipedia

The WELL - Wikipedia

Dialer - Wikipedia

Apple Inc. - Wikipedia

Silicon Valley: How a Bunch of Hippies Changed the World - Techovedas

Joseph’s ‘living book’ art project

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Wikipedia

Ceremonial magic - Wikipedia

Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) - Wikipedia

The worlds of technology and magic are closer than you think - Dazed

Swiss Army knife - Wikipedia

This is Not the End of the Book by Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carrière - Goodreads

Nick Herbert (physicist) - Wikipedia

Bulletin board system (BBS) - Wikipedia

How Psychedelics Helped Shape Modern Technology - Psychedelic Spotlight

Mycelium - Wikipedia

Magic is theatre; theatre is magic

Live action role-playing gamer (LARP) - Wikipedia

Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) - Wikipedia

Rimbaud's Systematic Derangement of the Senses - Language is a Virus

Arthur Rimbaud - Wikipedia

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn - Wikipedia

John Dee - Wikipedia

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