The Incunabula Papers: Ong's Hat and Other Gateways to New Dim...

“…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”. – The Chronicle of Higher Education “Ong’s Hat was more of an experiment in transmedia storytelling than what we would now consider to be an ARG but its DNA – the concept of telling a story across various platforms and new media- is evident in every alternate reality game that came after.” - Games Magazine 2013 Though Ong’s Hat may not have set out to be an ARG, the methods by which the author interacted with participants and used different platforms to build and spread its legend has been reflected in later games. - Know Your Meme

About the Author

Some of the things Joseph Matheny has achieved as an inventor, creator, product manager, CEO, CTO, writer and artist include: Playing a role in establishing and evangelizing standards and practices such as PDF, DVD, Social Media, Podcasting, & ARG/Transmedia. He is an inventor . He has designed apps for iPhone, iPad and other mobile platforms. he is a published author of screenplays, white papers, technology, sci-fi, marketing and gaming books. His pioneering work in Transmedia is chronicled in the University textbook: Legend-Tripping Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong's Hat - University Press of Mississippi (May 17, 2011).He has also been the executive producer and originator of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival Podcast the first film festival to podcast from the event, the executive producer/director of the Los Angles Film Festival podcast. He was one of the two founders/curators of the Greylodge Podcasting Company, a Independent film review site covered on MSNBC, Wall Street Journal and others. The Book he edited and contributed to : "This Is Not a Game" was included in the annual Tween market report that went to marketing executives worldwide in the toy, gaming and youth market industries. His work has been featured on CBS Marketwatch, CNN, CNET TV, Kiplinger's, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, NHK, MTV, PBS, LA Times, Clear Channel Radio, BBC, MSNBC, Boing-Boing, and many other weekly newspapers, trade magazines, local and regional radio, television and newspapers.Recently, his interactive work was profiled in Games(TM) magazine, where it was said of my interactive work, Ong's Hat:"Ong's Hat was more of an experiment in transmedia storytelling than what we would now consider to be an ARG but its DNA - the concept of telling a story across various platforms and new media- is evident in every alternate reality game that came after."

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