Month: October 2022

Take Your F**king Meds

the original inspiration for this was a day when I was feeling kind of awful and when I sat down to try and figure out why I realized it was I had missed my meds not only that morning but also for the past two days! I got so angry that I picked up one of my pill bottles and threw it at the wall it bounced and rattled and hit my bed, It was an utterly unhelpful action. but throwing the bottle was rather satisfying. This may have been similar to the feeling the New York dada mush have had in their obsession with capturing motion. the soundness of the New York dada feels so satisfying because there are objects that are not art but by their combination and designation, they become art that is supposed to be played with. The kinetic sculptures are so interesting to me because if nobody touches them then it is not kinetic anymore. whether I was the sound or watching the bottle bounce I dont know but it made sense. It was very kinetically satisfying how the pill bottle bounced. In the spirit of experimentation, I threw it again, less satisfying due to the fact that the cap popped off and my medication went all over my bed (not my finest moment) however that did give me the idea to launch the cap at the bottle like a slingshot. this was not successful. On a table perhaps?  it was like bowling. in all this time I still hadn’t taken my meds. so I paused, took my various medications, and tried to figure out how to gamify this.

the rules are simple;

take your medications every day, on time until none remain in the bottle.

at your leisure separate the cap from the bottle and set the bottle up at the end of the table

place the cap in the launcher and attempt to knock over your empty pill bottle (preferably into a recycling bin).

 

 

Competitive Collaging

Game Rules Description

Materials:

  • Magazine / Assortment of images (Required)
  • Binding agent (tape, glue, pins, etc.) (Required)
  • Separation agent (scissors or tearable materials) (Required)
  • Limited drawing resource (single stick of mechanical pencil led) (Required)
  • Canvas (Required)
  • An abstract prompt (Required)
  • As many random and weird materials as you can find

Rules:

“Players, you have 20 minutes to create a piece that you feel best applies to a given abstract prompt. Your material pool stands before you and is shared by all of you. Your time starts NOW!”

Artist’s Statement

I created this game because I wanted to create a collaborative and competitive collaging experience that pushed people out of their comfort zone and forced them to create something different. Players are forced to negotiate how they will share resources and may have to change their designs if something they wanted to use it taken by someone else — The playing field always changes. 20 minutes is also not a huge amount of time so players must make compromises in executing their ideas. This game is intended to produce interesting art whether the players consider themselves ‘artists’ or not. Players are tasked with creating a piece that best fits a given prompt. This prompt should be curated so as not to be too literal. This is to ensure there is no “correct” way to make your art and that the players aren’t all trying to make the same thing (otherwise ‘art skill’ becomes a big factor instead of individual creativity). There should also be a wide array of materials for the players to use including a magazine and some binding agent (glue, tape, pins, etc.), as well as multimodal elements like plastic, cardboard, rubber, or any other unconventional material. This will further push players out of their comfort zone. I was inspired by Hannah Hoch’s photomontage art, appropriating a variety of images from all kinds of context into a new image. As such, I want players to draw from magazines that have a wide variety of imagery to work with. I was also inspired by Kurt Schwitters’ collages that often incorporated a variety of materials and sometimes multiple dimensions. I don’t just want players to cut and paste on paper, but to explore different ways of combining their elements. By providing a wide assortment of materials, players are (by the sheer quantity of different materials) encouraged to branch out. I also wanted to give users a canvas and limited drawing resource because I want players to try to walk down the ‘expected’ path of just drawing and pasting images together but then realize that this method will not be tenable in creating the artwork they image. In doing so, I’m allowing players to “play the game wrong” in order to realize why they should go out of their comfort zone and try something different. Additionally, by giving players little direction, they will need to think for themselves and tap into their creative sides. Ideally, the resulting works should be beautiful and hard to judge because they are so different and creative.

Playtest notes

Prompt: “Trapped”

Materials included (all shared unless specified otherwise)
○ Spring 2022 experience: The Magazine of Northeastern University
○ Scissors
○ Stick of mechanical pencil led (each)
○ Sheet of sketchpad paper (each)
○ Plastic orange and black bag
○ Domino’s Napkins
○ Empty Capri Sun box
○ Tape
○ A LOT of fruit shaped erasers

The playtest went great. Although I provided a sheet of sketch pad paper as a canvas and a stick of led as a drawing utensil, neither of the players used the stick of led at all and both used the sketchpad paper but not as a traditional canvas. One player cut up the canvas to use as a component of their collage and the other cut it up to use as a layer on their 3D artwork. They especially had to negotiate how they’d share the magazine and it’s images. The players created art that stood on their own with no use of the canvas at all. Both pieces had dimension and used a variety of resources available to them. They both approached the prompt differently too. The process is recorded below

Final Products

The Broken Box Game

Game Description

Number of Players: 2

Materials:

  • 3 tennis balls
  • 3 cardboard boxes, each of varying sizes, with holes cut into the bottom
    • The smallest box has 3 holes, the medium-sized box has 4 holes, and the largest box has 5 holes
    • The medium and large boxes also contain openings in the middle of each wall where the wall meets the bottom

Rules:

  • Determine which player will start the game holding the box and which player will start the game throwing the tennis balls into the box.
  • The player starting the game holding the box must take the smallest box.
  • The throwing player and the box-holding player stand 6 feet apart from each other.
    • Both players must keep their feet firmly planted in place until they switch roles or the thrower misses a ball.
  • The throwing player will throw each ball one at a time into the box.
    • Balls that miss the box entirely can be retrieved and rethrown.
  • The player holding the box must attempt to balance each ball inside of the box such that each ball is in the box at the same time.
  • The round is over once each ball is thrown.
    • If all 3 balls are not in the box, the players will switch roles and repeat. If the goal is not met within 6 rounds (each player plays both roles 3 times), both players lose.
    • If all 3 balls are balanced in the box, the players repeat the above with the box of the next largest size.

Goal:

The game is won when the players have successfully balanced 3 balls at once in each of the available boxes.

 

Artist’s Statement:

This game was inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s use of a urinal in his piece, Fountain (1917). Duchamp’s idea to use an object that many people see every day as an art piece while commenting on its original purpose inspired me to do the same with the stipulation that I only use items that I could find in my room. This design restraint was implemented for two main reasons. The first of which was to emulate Duchamp’s appropriation of an every-day object into a work of art, or in my case, a game. The second was to minimize the costs of producing a game.

My apartment room is a fairly small one, and in order to neatly organize all of my belongings, I have a lot of storage containers and boxes lying around with various items inside of them. This game was inspired by two that were sitting right beside each other: a box for an Instant Pot, and a crate container with multiple holes on each of its sides. I thought about how often smaller objects fell out of the holes on each side of the container and what good a container was if it couldn’t contain things. I then thought about turning that idea into a game with my very busted-up Instant Pot cardboard box. The box was fairly used-up, and if it ever got to the point where it could no longer fulfill its purpose of being a container, I wanted to use this game as a way to give it new purpose. In the game, the tennis balls act as the item to be stored, and the player holding the box signifies the attempt to hold onto that box’s purpose while turning it into a fun cooperative game.

Ramenara

Score:

Take a dish with all its ingredients and preparations

Find another dish

Experiment in a way to bring the two together in an artful way

 

Artist’s statement:

I love cooking and I also love experimenting with cooking, testing out different spices with different bases resulting in mixed reactions, sometimes good and sometimes not so good, but every time I experiment with cooking, I end up learning far more than when I just follow a recipe. Each ingredient adds something to a dish, for example, certain spices mixed will give a “tex mex” feel to a dish like cumin, paprika and cayenne mixed with lime, or an Italian feel from Oregano parsley and lemon. Dishes have a unique and deep taste to them, so what if we experimented a little further and combined two of them together. There are many ways to achieve this and none of them wrong, but some would probably taste better than others. I went with trying to combine Carbonara and Ramen, I also made sure to not break even a little bit of pasta in this process since I had already offended Italy by suggesting this. I initially wanted to try and add some bacon bits and a little bit of egg to instant ramen to replace the broth it is normally cooked in. At the end this tasted a bit off and a little greasy, like a hint of bacon in starchy noodles, then a friend informed me that Binging with Babish had made an episode on “Ramen improvements” where he had a “Ramenara” recipe. I of course tried it, and he added on top of the bacon bits some parmesan and some pasta water as well as he cooked the ramen in pork flavored broth. This version tastes much better and combines two storied dishes together in an artful way. I did not expect to eat all of this dish, but I did.

 

Using and combining two objects to create art is a staple in dada appropriation art, seen in Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel 1913, Man Ray’s gift and Indestructible object and most of all Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q 1919. I was looking at these simple combination of ideas that created art trying to figure out what to make for mine, then I got hungry and went to make dinner while still thinking about it, leading to my idea to combine two dishes into one edible “art” piece.

 

ROTATOR

Game Requirements: A device with the ability to reverse audio

Game Rules: There are two characters in the game, one is going to be the Speaker and the other is going to be the Listener.

  1. The Speaker is going to record one clip of their words. In this case, the Listener can’t hear them talking. (put on a headphone)
  2. The Speaker needs to Reverse the clip and show it to the Listener.
  3. The Listener is going to imitate what they heard and record it.
  4. The Listener is going to Reverse their clip again and guess what the Speaker said.

Artist’s Statement:

I was influenced by many later Dada artworks on my Appropriate. As the main point of Dadaism, we need to use existing things as prototypes and make a re-creation on the basis of it. According to some modern works, such as Open Source, by Super Soul, 2012, they chose to use technology as creative conditions to make people get more interesting feedback on this activity. Or Mary Flanagan, Giant Joystick, they have a very shocking understanding of the Appropriate in the Digital Age. I was deeply influenced by the use of technology on existing technologies, and the influence of Open Source on me, so I wanted to create my project focused on sound.

For the recreation of sound, TENET has given me great inspiration. Because when the main character enters the counter-world in TENET, everything around him will operate in the opposite direction, including sound. When the voice is reversed, people cannot understand its meaning. So I want to create games by playing the sound upside down. Like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, players convey information and give feedback to teammates through language. If we create a “meaning” for the reversed voice, will there be a chance for people to understand the reversed voice? So I was thinking that if people were asked to imitate the reversed voice and then reverse it to guess how the original sound was, it would also add difficulty to the game. Because people need to speak according to the reversed voice, which means they need to talk to people in the counter-world, making the game interesting. Players can also increase the fun of the game by increasing penalties for not correctly guessing the original sound and exchanging characters.

Zen Tsuru Piece

Event Score:

“Grab a long novel,
But read every other page…
Find an unknown word,
And make several paper cranes…
Go until it’s “true,”
Then count every crane in sight…
Write a short haiku,
Using all your newfound might…”

 

Artist Statement:

During the brainstorming process for this artwork, I was reading through a multitude of “event scores” written by Yoko Ono in her famous book Grapefruit. One of the most defining characteristics about her written artwork is her astounding usage of unorthodox actions to reveal greater truths about existence, and I wanted to create something a bit similar for our first assignment. Ultimately, there were three “event scores” included in her collection that resonated within me, and they were “Number Piece I,” “Number Piece II,” and “Paper Folding Piece” respectively. Each of these “event scores” involved words, books, and paper in some way shape or form, and as someone who loves language, linguistics, & literature in their entireties, I personally wanted to compose an “event score” that was thematically relevant to both reading & writing. More specifically, I wanted to compose a written piece that encompassed the intrinsic beauty of novels, poetry, origami, and education in a rather unorthodox way, and these three “event scores” gave me the inspiration to conceptualize “Zen Tsuru Piece.”

For additional context, the name of this “event score” is a mixture of “zen” (the Japanese sect of Mahayana Buddhism) and “tsuru” (the Japanese word for “crane”). Furthermore, it is derived from the Japanese term “senbazuru,” which is an Eastern tradition with some remarkably wholesome folklore. In short, it was believed that any wish would come true if you manage to fold one thousand paper cranes, and it is generally practiced by communities for the sake of mitigating and mourning other people’s suffering (such as injuries, sicknesses, memorials, etc). Because of the inherent nature of “senbazuru,” I always found this phenomenon to be a heartwarming display of both empathy and condolences, and it definitely played a major role in the composition of my “event score.”

In the end, I wanted to incorporate certain aspects of both the fine arts and Japanese customs in my artwork while simultaneously expanding upon the subject matter at hand. While many Dada movements do involve appropriation, the “avant-garde” is best characterized as being “ahead of the curve” by providing a differentiating perspective through innovative processes. Moreover, I did not want to blatantly appropriate these particular practices because in my eyes, it would’ve been extremely insensitive to neglect their original meanings and cultural significance. The overarching intent behind my art piece was to create a love letter for the limitless potential of the written word (as well as the materials used in its production). Obtaining knowledge through reading books, appreciating culture, reflecting on tradition, and pursuing innovation can result in both intellectual growth and creative expression, further cementing these ideas as the central concepts for my project.

 

Documentation:

Telephone Commands

Score:

  1. A few people (more than two but not more than ten) stand in a line
  2. The first person whispers a command that can be done right then and there to the next person
  3. The next person whispers the command they heard to the person after them, and adds one of their own
  4. This continues with people saying with they heard and adding another command until it gets to the last person
  5. The last person says what they heard aloud (it could be incorrect, similar to a game of telephone)
  6. Last person has two options
    • Either do all the instructions they heard (regardless of if they heard them correctly)
    • Or try something they wanted to try, or start learning something they wanted to learn, because they want to, not because they have to, but never started or got around to doing, within a week.

 

Artist’s Statement:

Initially, I wanted to do something related to the game of Telephone, as it’s already very chaotic, and is centered on communication and misunderstanding with the message the final person heard being nearly always different from the one the first person said. I was also inspired by Exquisite Corpse, and the idea of a score using different people’s contributions and ideas to create the final product. This was also a difference from the game of Telephone, commands from different people “pile on” to create the final product. Everyone’s expectations and wants are piling onto one person with this score.

With this score, I wanted to relate to misunderstanding and miscommunication, and also misunderstood expectations, and wanting to do something because you think it’s what others want or expect you to do, even when it might not be, which is a really big part of our world. So, it was meant to be a metaphor for this happening in the real world. It was also about others’ wants versus your own, and how people can add new expectations on a person because they misunderstood other expectations of them. It’s also about conformity. On the other hand, the other option for the last person forces them out of their comfort zone, rather than keep them with the possibly comfortable conformity. But it is for them. Something they genuinely want to do, not something they have to do, but have not done yet. Why? Fear, self-consciousness, procrastination? Though the person is trying, or learning, or doing something they genuinely want to do, sometimes doing something for you takes a little push and a little bravery.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jic_1W5Yo3TcHB6fXReBk3sqtKm5_f2o/view?usp=sharing