Sponsor
Support Future Tense with your Amazon.com purchases
Search Amazon.com:
Keywords:
  • News/Talk
  • Music
  • Entertainment

Sponsors

Johnstech

August 19, 2005

Re-shelving George Orwell

Listen in RealAudio

At bookstores around the world, naughty customers are moving Orwell's 1984 from the fiction section to non-fiction, current affairs, and U.S. politics. The Internet-based mob calls itself "The Ministry of Reshelving." Members are posting pictures of their handiwork on the photo-sharing site Flickr.

The person responsible for this performance art game is U.C. Berkeley doctoral student Jane McGonigal, a game researcher and developer. McGonigal says the Ministry is motivated by what it sees as 1984-style war-time doublespeak from the U.S. government and military, and concerns over surveillance and privacy.