EXPLORERS OF ZAUM 

Or,

A STORY ABOUT NOTHING

Explorers of ZAUM is an art game, an experience in collaborative creation and expression. It exists to cultivate procedural creativity.  

Think of our universe. It is vast and full of planets, stars, galaxies and other astronomical objects scientists have discovered and classified. There are also phenomena and distant places that we know of, but can only approximate. It seems that humanity has a pretty good understanding of the universe that surrounds us. Yet, if you compare the amount of matter you can see, to the amount that should be there, you’d be off by around 85 percent. Scientists call this missing stuff - Dark Matter. No one knows what it is or why we can’t “see” it. We are not really sure what it consists of and what it holds. For all we know, we might be covered in this dark “nothingness” and we have no way of knowing.

There might be a way of gazing into this unknown. On a some level each and every one of us is connected to the universe. We are all made of particles that have travelled light years through space and eventually became the atoms in our bodies. Those particles might have travelled trough, or even been the Dark Matter. To access those parts of ourselves we need to abandon reason and thought. We will travel to ZAUM.

ZAUM can be described as a state of mind, absence of thought, but also more than that. It is looking beyond one’s understanding of the world, a "transreason" of what we know. Reaching deeper than our subconsciousness and random chance, we can feel and sense ZAUM. We can channel this experience to create the graph of this unknown mass and the world as such. ZAUM is vast and in constant flux. It moves quickly, straight, vibrating, tireless. It is all pumping, all thrusting, all flying and climbing and shining. Above all it is ZAUM.

To play this game about the unknown – free of language and understanding, when time and pattern is free, when movement and sound and light are free – you and each of your friends whom you have gathered should consider the unknown and decide what sorts of things it calls to your minds. Then prepare your tools and your canvas.

Tools are things that can make a mark: pens, pencils, markers, paint, inks, pastels. Anything you have access to is a part of ZAUM! 
Canvas is anything you can make your mark on. It usually will be paper, but can also be a sidewalk, a wall or an actual canvas. Make it as big or as small as you feel comfortable. Whatever you choose is (and always was) part of ZAUM!

Each participant chooses few tools and positions themselves in that way that they can reach the canvas. Now, together, you and your friends will enter the unknown nothingness. You will enter ZAUM. Say it: 
All: ZAUM!
 
Each participant will now receive a random hint that will connect you with the unknown. All hints are part of ZAUM, but only when they are randomly chosen and only at this exact moment. Outside of this time they are just matter, like everything else we understand. Hints can be generated with tables and dice or be printed on a deck of cards. Look at your hint and make a mark on canvas that will represent it. Don’t think about your hint and what it means, do not pollute ZAUM with reason and thought. ZAUM exists outside of those terms. Look at it and let it guide your hand in making the mark on the canvas. Others will do the same, make your marks simultaneously or take turns. Do what feels right, only this way you can experience ZAUM and venture into the place where Dark Matter dwells. Only by experiencing ZAUM you will be able to graph it effectively. 

Avoid thinking of objects. Don’t imagine the unknown using particular people or places or things. Don’t think: skyscraper, woman, goggles, motorcycle, wristwatch. Don’t picture them in your heads and don’t say these object-words with your lips. ZAUM exists outside of reason, beyond senses. It cannot be represented by familiar things - it is indescribable in any of the human languages. Think in abstract terms: brightness, lightness, weightiness; growing, expanding, reaching; thinking, wanting, hoping. Hold your arms open and then close them. Look up. Sigh, whistle, drum. Think of shapes with straight sides. 

If ZAUM were a game about a story, these things that you have called to mind would be the characters in that story; however, ZAUM is not a game about a story and has no characters. In a story, characters make things happen. ZAUM is a story where nothing happens. ZAUM is a story about nothing, or it is not a story at all. 

When you have made your first mark, you have all entered ZAUM. To celebrate, announce your arrival:

	All: ZAUM!

See/hear/think/feel ZAUM as it stretches and shimmers and rises. Know its sounds and shapes. Consider its gestures that bend and twist and zoom. ZAUM is a city and you are its architects. The shapes and gestures you are creating are arching and soaring and jutting and they all are part of parts of this unknown universe. Now all you do is ZAUM.

You are now mapping the uncharted nothingness. You are ZAUM. Words die, the nothingness stays young forever. This is a prayer, a curse. A manifesto. A language unlike any other. Do this again and again until all meaning is left in the dead past. Break the chains that tie you to all that is not ZAUM. Rend apart from the confines of sensible syllables and handshakes and wedding dresses and decay. Move beyond the limits of our world, and of our understanding. Do it until you feel your canvas is a finished map, when you have graphed a piece of the Dark Matter somewhere in the universe.

When you are finished look at your creation. What do you see? How does it make you feel? Don’t try to understand it, experience it. Share your graph with others. Look at creations of others who have ventured into ZAUM. Connect them, map them together.

Hints - create a list or deck of them based on:
	Sounds or patterns of sounds
	Light or patterns of light
	Shapes or patterns of shapes
	Words (but not too many; verbs)
	Asemic Writing
	Equations
	Geometry
	Gestures
	Emotions
	Notations
	Repetition
	Values
	Size 
	Constant Flux
	Textures
	Smells
	etc.

-
Notes:
Listen: http://www.ubu.com/sound/russian_avant.html
Search: Malevich, Kazimir
Search: Kandinsky, Wassily

Dear anonymous designer. When I received this document, it was more akin to a free-form performance art. It was only 500 words long and read as an art manifesto. I have taken the idea of art and pushed it further into the direction of what most considers art - drawing and painting. It had a strong connection to Russian Futurists, so I have pushed it into the realm of abstract art. I wanted to make it more gamey, this is why I have introduced the random generation of hints. I think those ideas can be expanded into making a “procedural abstract art” engine, but if you see a different game here, push it in that direction. 
I was toying with adding some cthulhu elements (as they are both unimaginable and abstract to some degree), but have run out of time and creativity to connect it. Maybe you can use this idea? Good luck and I am looking forward to what you will create. Have fun!