Clips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph6Eogxi0rk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jyn_zt-5-dY

Artist Statement

Initially, I wanted to do my intervention on Twitter, playing a game similar to Mafia that would last for a week. Because I could not get the number of participants needed, I decided to create an intervention that can be done alone. The new intervention, She’s NOT Your Toy, takes place in the digital game, “Dead or Alive 5 Last Round” for the PlayStation 4.

The purpose of the intervention is to call attention to the sexualization and objectification of the female fighters in Dead or Alive.

The intervention was done over several hours in-game. I enter the 3D fighting game, Dead or Alive 5 Last Round, in order to call out other online users who use the female fighters in-game with a specialized message. I enter the game using my PSN ID, “Mr_Rayshawn” and look for online lobbies that had several people inside. The maximum number of players in one lobby is 8. Inside the lobby, I enter spectator mode and look to see if someone plays as a female character. If they do, using the game’s text messaging system, I proceed to type, “[female’s name] is NOT a toy to fulfill your personal sexual fantasy”. I continue this pattern until there are no more players in the lobby or I am kicked from the session.

My inspiration for this piece came from the video I saw in class of dead-in-iraq done by Joesph DeLappe. In his piece, he too decides to intervene in a digital space and uses the game’s text messaging system. Also, his intervention fits in the context of the space he uses; he uses a game about America’s Army to give a memorial to soldiers who died fighting the Iraqi war. The game, Dead or Alive, is a perfect example of sexualization and objectification of women in video games which continues to be a problem. Anita Sarkeesian, founder of Feminist Frequency, looked at Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate in her episode, “Women as Reward – Special DLC Mini-Episode”. Reading the transcript, she explains what “sex sells” means.  Essentially, when super-sexual DLC outfits are put on sale, she says it is the publishers and developers way of saying, “YES, these women do indeed exist primarily as toys to fulfill your personal sexual fantasy”. I chose to flip this statement because women are not sexual objects and it is meant to call out anyone who thinks they are.

The reactions during the intervention met my expectations. Either I was kicked after a short time, or I was called a variety of names for bringing attention to this subject.

My intervention game name is “less digital product, more paper books”. I went to the cafe house and looked for some people who used phones or computers for long time and did not take a rest. I invited them to take part in my activity, put electronic equipment down, and read one passage to show they supported my ideas and activity. This activity is one intervention that interrupted people who were using phones or computers and reminded them of avoiding for depending on computers, phones or other electronics overly. For reading material, I chosen several paragraphs in one book “Mindset, The New Psychology of Success” and made participants to read. Because I wanted participants to read some materials about their mindset and had some thinking about their mindset. I think paper books is a good method for people to escaping from digital world, calming down, relaxing their minds and learning something they cannot obtain from digital world. Because the purpose of using electronics always represented people have busy work on computers, competitions in game, finish assignments and other tense and fast-paced activities. Few people can think deeply and calmly in digital world. Their goal is often finishing something instead of thinking about something when using computers and phones. Reading book is able to allow people to relax minds, especially for non-work-related books.

My ideas origins from several places. In the article “Spacewar” by Stewart Brand, when I read some sentences mentioned “computers, Threat or menace”, “computer technicians are out of their bodies, locked in life-of-death space combat”, “ruining their eyes, numbing their fingers” and so on. Although this article mainly described the Spacewar game, but I started to consider in our modern life, many people overusing and relying on computers or phones also ruined their eyes, numbed their fingers, even damaged bodies. I wanted to intervene this event for some people. Although I cannot prevent all people from it, I could intervene some people, reminded them, and expressed my opposed opinions to current situations about overusing computers and phones.

This intervention game is one challenge for us, because you need have courage to interrupt people using electronics, talk with them, invite them to read books and make them support this intervention. We also can invite more than one people to play this game. Players can compete with each other and winner who should invite most people to take part in this intervention. If several people invited the same number of people, they can compare lengths of reading paragraph in the book.

Furthermore, in the Jejune Institute Films, I saw people navigated some remote places and seek their spiritual destination that they cannot find in the fast-paced cities. Hence, using electronics for working, studying and doing other busy activities make people no time to involve in deep thought and relax their minds. Intervening them lived in digital world and utilized book to help people for returning back to the real world and think deeply.

Another idea of my intervention comes from the “Tactics vs Strategies” course. Because I learnt our intervention is one tactical practices in the society. It will critique some social phenomenons, interrupted something we do not want to see. All intervention tactics is one short term activity. And I found intervention is not stopping people from actions directly, rather than used a special way to remind people, made people avoid for taking part in negative events or something we thought terrible and need to be prevented. An innovative and special advocacy opposites something that caused negative effects to society is a successful intervention. This kind of intervention shows the tactics and skills, like some Anti-War Game, non-violent protest, and so on. So, my intervention is not stopping people from using electronics directly, I used book and my ideas to remind them and help them to escape from digital world. I believed people are more willing to accept my ideas through this tactical way. The experience in my video proved it.

Introduction

I have noticed that people sometimes are reluctant to interact with strangers in public. However, sometimes we have to interact with strangers, since we’re all living in the public places. Specially, every time when I took a subway, I saw people don’t sit next to strangers. There is always one or several empty seats between passengers. It’s kind of weird that people even would like to stand rather than sit with other passengers.

Pictures were took at 3:49 P.M on the orange line. Actually, there were lots of people standing, but they didn’t choose to have a seat in the middle of them.

The Game

By often being told to be nice to strangers to make the world better. I come up with this game to intervene the situation in the subway:

Players are given a double-sided paper note which one side of it has a sentence “You’re welcomed to sit next to me! :)” and the other side has “Please do not sit next to me. Sorry.” Players are asked to take a subway ride to certain stations and they have to show one side of note that they want. If player chooses the side with welcoming others to have a seat next to him, the player need talk to other passengers or do anything so that other passengers would like to sit next to him. If player chooses the side with the other side, they simply make others not sit next to him. (I know it’s so rude, but sometimes if we have a bad day or are bad-tempered , we would like to be alone.)

Game Start

I start from Massachusetts Ave to State. I choose the side with “sit next to me.”

  Before getting on the trains.

The first one. Give me a thumb up when I leave! Win!

The second one. Give me a fist pound when I leave! Win!

The third one? He actually came and sat next to me without looking my note. Give me a smile. Win or lose? It seems like he can’t understand what I was doing.

Inspiration

An example of intervention from the movie we watched on class tried to tell a story and bring people join together and give some instructions that they hardly do by themselves in real life. As a result, people feel involving in the story and get sense of fulfillment of finishing the given missions. This really inspired me to think about things that we don’t usually do as well as that can make people be involved in and feel better.

Often in classroom or on subway, I always notice that people sit so separately. They often like to sit with their friends or people whom they know rather than strangers. However, it’s common to meet with strangers in our life, since we’re all living in the public places. I heard some people complaining about they saw other passengers looking around and trying to find a seat, but ignore the empty seats next them. During my life, I was always told to be nice and passionate to strangers to make this world better from school or public service advertisings. Therefore, I really want to intervene the way people interact with strangers, especially in the situation that they have to share space with others together.

I sometimes also sit alone in classroom or subways, not because I don’t want to sit with others, but other people often choose not to sit with me. I am not sure the reason why they don’t sit next to me is they don’t want or they don’t know what I think about. What if I can tell them “Yes. Definitely you can sit next to me and I appreciate that”? Will they choose to sit next to me? It’s weird to yield out that I am glad others sitting next to me. As a result, I decide to use a paper note to let others know what I think and went to the subway or classroom to play my game. For subway, I need to choose a time that there are not too much and not too less people and most of seats were occupied by passengers. I notice that time from 9 am to 12 am in morning and 3 to 4 in the afternoon would be the best. The line I choose is orange line, since it’s the nearest one from school.

To intervene is to change some existing situations in our life or make these situations little better. Example of Barbie Liberation Organization really impressed me. I could tell from video of BLO that toy experts thought the event was terrible, but I thought it was really great and meaningful. I think Barbie Liberation Organization expressed that even a barbie doll wanted to be treated fairly. This example of intervention really challenges people’s prejudice to gender. Inspired by that , I wish my intervention could remind people to think about how will they treat strangers. Subway is a perfect place for doing this intervention, since people often are busy and running on their destinations. People will more likely neglect feelings of other passengers. I hardly see people smiling to me on the subway, maybe because they are too busy.  I wish people could be kind to strangers after playing this game at least in the public spaces like subway.

From my understanding of text reading, my game is more challenging than art performing. The game challenges the way how people interact with strangers.  If you treat one person nicely, that person maybe also treat others nicely.  By doing that we will make the city, the country and the world a better place. Although it is really hard to achieve this huge goal of making the world better, but why not start from doing little things around us.

What I thought

At the beginning, I was reluctant to do this game because I had never done such activity in public and I didn’t know how others will act to my game. However, I finished this game finally, so I think I also intervene myself to overcome my social anxiety. I am glad that some people would like to sit next to me and talk with me. They were actually so nice, but they just didn’t get a chance to show it if you don’t treat them nicely. It was also cheerful that some of them give me a thumb up and a fist pound.