The primary aim of this project is to create and promote new rules for chess in which pawns join forces to defend world peace. Rethinking Wargames uses the game of chess to find strategies that challenge existing power structures and their concomitant war machineries. Those with a talent for strategic thinking, are invited to contribute to the reevaluation of an evidently inhumane, anachronistic and violent system of human institutions, mirrored on the chessboard.
Welcome to the Pawns Unite Blog, which provides running documentation of the collective research for Rethinking Wargames, a participatory net art project initiated by Ruth Catlow.You can start at the beginning of the blog, work backwards or select from the blog entries linked below that document a few of the key ideas and exchanges in the research.
- Notes on Axelrods' The Evolution of Cooperation- RC
- Playing cooperative games...or is it just because you're crap at chess?- RC meeting with Maf'J Alvarez
- This idea...is misguided- ICCF International Chess Master, Kenny Harman
- Carol Webb's New Chess- Carol Webb
- Walking with Dad in the Lake District- RC
- Collective Manouvers- first live tournament with the new rules at the Bristol Urban Olympics.
- Phase 3- Infiltration Strategies - RC
After the successful launch of the new online game, Activate:3 Player Chess,( Low-fi Net Art Commission 2003), plans are afoot, to infiltrate the international chess playing community on and offline with the rules of the new game. The idea is to spread new peace-promoting, non-heirarchical models of organisation and conflict resolution like a virus. Please mail me with ideas about ways in which this might be achieved.
-Ruth Catlow