Month: January 2016

Boston/Marshfield

1. Leave dorm/house

2. find someone and ask them for an opinioned locaton

3. go to said location, find someone different, and ask them for a different opinioned location

4. repeat the process a few times and see where I end up at the end of the day.

Score Iteration 1

Old School Spam

Open the first book you see in sight

     flip the page eight times to the right

Find the first word that comes to sight

     that’s the word you’re going to write

Now open another book and follow the same steps

Also open a browser and search for the two words you found in the books

Write the url of the page down on a piece of paper and fly it as a paper airplane across the room.

 

Alexander Nathanson

Experimental Game Design

Score:

Step 1: split up in groups of four each two people will form an arch, and they will be placed one directly after the other, this will be known as a caterpillar.

Step 2: to move the caterpillar one group of two people needs to pass under the upside arch and reform a and arch.

Step 3 : caterpillars are hungry, to eat the group that is in front needs to grab another caterpillar’s back.

Step 4: the end goal is to have one giant caterpillar.

Group Dance

Can be done with any group.

Moves are done based on your surroundings and encountering people.

A player takes three steps and spins, after the spin the turn to the right and do the same.

However they turn to the left if another player is directly in-front of them.

Score Iteration #1 (Final)

Sing:

Sing a song of your choice everywhere you walk.

Results:

Literally no one took note whatsoever (to my knowledge). I went to various locations, mainly around campus. The general “control” factor throughout this was the volume which I would describe as a moderate speaking level. This due to both the limitations of my voice, and my comfort levels. I tried singing various songs from various genres including nearly the entirety of Les Miserables to selections from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. I assumed part of the unnoticeability of my actions may be due to people not recognizing the songs — Adele’s “Hello” disproved that. Overall I find it interesting as obviously a lot of this had to be due to the daily distractions while walking of texting, or listening to music to block out the world around you, but also factoring in that this is college, where that sort of activity is honestly seen as normal.

Sever

Sever

 

Take the hand of someone close to you.

Tell them them the worst thought you’ve ever had about them.

Tell them that you love them.

Walk away.

The Snowball FINAL

Go outside on a winter day.

Make a snowball that you can hold in one hand.

Go back inside with the snowball.

Name your snowball.

Now:

A) Try to save its life and keep the snowball from melting. 

Or

B) Watch it melt and let it die.

Score (Artist Statement)


Documentation

Choosing Option A)

I went outside and made a snowball. I affectionately named it Steve.

S1

This a picture of Steve shortly after being created by me.

Option A is about trying to save your snowball’s dear, dear life. Unfortunately snowballs tend to have extremely short lives.  The good news is that modern medicine has evolved to the point where we can keep snowballs alive inside giant ice boxes (A.K.A my fridge).

Here is Steve in its new ice box. I think Steve is enjoying it there.

Choosing Option B)

I went outside and made a snowball. I affectionately named it Olaf.

S2

Hey look! It’s Olaf the snowball.

Option B is all about watching your poor snowball die in front of you. It begs for help, but all you are allowed to do is what helplessly as its life slowly slips away.

S5
S4

Olaf in the ER. It’s so sad. I can’t watch!

Olaf has been slowly melting for the past few hours. Olaf is now essentially a puddle of water.

S6
S7

It was nice knowing you Olaf.

Forest – FINAL

Instructions:

1. Enter dense forest, alone.

2. Don Bose QC-15 noise-cancelling headphones.

3. Proceed to cut down nearest tree.

4. Look around to ensure that nobody saw.

5. Forget.

6. Repeat.

 

Didactic Statement:

For this project I chose to focus my score more on the idea of using instructions to embody a metaphor rather than creating a set of actionable instructions for one to follow. During the process of coming up with an idea that I wanted to work with and expand upon, I jumped around between topics, but one thought resonated with me more than the rest. I wanted to create a piece that would reflect on the internal dialog that people have regarding their core values and integrity, while at the same time illuminating the inherent greed that is within everyone.

My score is a representation of the popular question/phrase that I feel embodies this principle, which is, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” The idea that something only “happens” when it is observed and otherwise has not yet “happened” in an observable sense is a not only a mind blowing concept with roots as deep as quantum mechanics, but its also the driving force behind how people justify doing something alone that they would otherwise not do while in the presence of others. The universal expectation that one should treat others as they wish to be treated, themselves, is usually enough to discourage someone from advancing their own agenda at the expense of someone else’s, so long as both people simultaneously understand what is happening. However, if that same person has the ability to advance their own agenda at the expense of someone else’s, but this time WITHOUT the other person immediately knowing, then the original person will not factor immediate shame into the cost of their action and will be more likely to justify a greedy action.

In summary, I initially decided to write my score not only as an attempt to embody the popular hypothetical question that seems to confuse everyone, but also to show the aspects of human personality that usually remain unseen. While I believe that I accomplished this task with relative success, I am much more satisfied with the personal gain that I received from this project and the newfound interest I have discovered.

Shape The Darkness

Material: clay

-Have a piece of fist-size clay in your hands.

-Imagine an animal/vehicle/leaf/bottle/whatever.

-Shape the clay into the thing you are imagining with eyes closed.

-Ask a friend to touch and guess what the thing you’ve made is with his eyes closed.

-Restore the clay into its original shape with your eyes closed.

-Make sure none of you could see the object during the whole process.

 

 

Documentation of Score Assignment

This material was chosen randomly from all the stuffs on my friend’s desk and I think clay is one of the things that people can easily inject creativity and inspiration into them.

“There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes.” That is, anyone may have his or her unique thought on an object. Even when you think it is the only way to understand something, there is still posibility that other people don’t agree with you. People only believe in what they thought the things are instead of what the things actually are. Or maybe for most of the time we cannot find out the “truth”. This point is perfectly shown in this game that, imagining is the only way to shape and figure out the what the object is when you lose your visual sense. The whole game only exists in our minds and the result, whether or not the other player can get the correct answer, doesn’t matter at all.

Each of the two players needs to be creative and realistic simultaneously. That is, the maker needs to be creative while making the works, however the works he makes should stick to reality in order to let the other player be able to get the correct answer.

Because there is no rules on what to make, I believe the process will be interesting and challenging.

 

Yue Yu