Month: November 2022

Rules

• 2 or more players choose a Wikipedia page to edit.
• Each player edits the page and adds false, but not harmful, information.
• The longer the word count of the edit the more potential points it is worth.
• After 3 days the longest remaining edit wins.
• Do not delete anything on the page wiki page.
• Do not edit anything that is “important”. For example, do not edit the Wikipedia page about a scientific concept.

Playtest

The group chose to edit the Wikipedia page on toothpaste (the following gallery displays the additions made by the four players. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toothpaste#Ingredients

The winning edit was:

Artist Statement

For this intervention, I wanted to intervene in people’s search for information and show people how easy it is to spread false information. The main inspirations for Wiki Edit War are Crowd-Sourced Intelligence Agency (CSIA) and Going Viral by Derek Curry and Jennifer Gradecki. Unlike Going Viral, which uses deepfakes to correct misinformation spread about COVID by celebrities, I aimed to highlight how easy it is to spread false information. I chose Wikipedia as the medium for this game because of how easy it is to edit and because for most of my life my teachers have told us not to use Wikipedia because “anyone can edit it,” so I wanted to test this. I quickly learned that most of the “important” pages are no longer available to be edited by the public (i.e. pages about public figures, companies, organizations, scientific principles, and major historical events). However, there are still plenty of pages that are still editable, including my experimental design teacher’s wiki page (Celia Pearce). So while I was exploring this project I added a sentence or two to the page (it was actually constructive, don’t worry). It’s still there at the moment though. Getting back to the game, the rules are pretty simple. The players find a Wikipedia page to edit and each of them adds a random funny edit to it, with the goal of trying to have the longest remaining edit at the end of the 3-day period (or the last edit remaining if none of them make it the full three days). There were also some rules put in place to minimize the risk of doing any real harm. These rules were: do not delete anything on the page wiki page and do not edit anything that is “important” (though this is much harder to do because wiki won’t let you edit most pages that could cause harm). My playtesters chose to edit the page on toothpaste, and while the game was a little quicker than I expected it to be (it only lasted 30 minutes which is probably due to the heavy traffic on this page) I can happily say that it was quite enjoyable, and at least a couple of Wikipedia uses got to learn about “Democratic Toothpaste.”

The piece was inspired by Uncle Roy All Around You. The GPS equipment and the virtual avatar made me feel like a game with AR elements. A game should have a start and a goal, but what if both of them are generated by the players? Like the game rules in Uncle Roy All Around You. One player created the order, and the other one should follow it. The game designers just provided tools and basic rules. Then, I wanted to make a game with no specific rules, or the players may not feel they are playing a game.

Backroom inspired me a lot in the visual UI design. The huge black words were written beside a door, a pit, or a window. The character could choose to enter or not. Also, the words sometimes could be viewed as traps or decorations. When the player saw the black marks and started thinking about the clues behind the marks, the game was already started. So, I tried to make a similar one in the real life to see what they may do when they see the marks.

Then, I used black tape to decorate a public room with words and signs, making an easy treasure hunt. If people noticed the words, they would enter a room and look for the hidden treasure. The participants were the people who saw the words. Most of the participants were confused and ignored the information, but one of them joined the game.

When the player saw the information, he followed the “LEFT” sign to look left. Then, he found a “HEre” sign in a room. So, he entered the room and look around for more information. Finally, he went out and found the hidden candy in the public area. When I asked him about how the decorations felt, he was confused because he thought those signs were for the game.

I think the result turns out some interesting facts. A game can be started occasionally. Although there’s no clear start and goal, players still can make rules and play a game. Game designers’ job is more like building a playground for the players. When the players think it is a game, then it is a game.

Words in Backrooms

Instructions:

Switch recipes with your friends to expand your cookbook and expand your outlook.

Artist’s Statement:

This idea was thought up when I noticed that within my group of friends, when it came time to prepare food for the group, each person had their own area they stayed within. That seemed normal to me but once I noticed how different each of the styles were and how they were all from different origins and cultures I became curious about it. I began to wonder what would happen if recipes were given to one another, the person who focuses on Mexican and Tex-Mex would get the recipes from someone who focused on Slavic foods for example. This would not only expand the recipes in our back pocket but add experience we would not normally get as well as learn about a new culture potentially.

Some inspiration from this came from the Yes Men since they would impersonate others to showcase the truth, in this exercise however, we swap recipes and get to learn about new styles of cooking. Different subject matter but the additional amount of nuance and fun it added was well worth it. The Yes Men aim to bring awareness through various means and similarly swapping these recipes proved to bring awareness and knowledge of other cultures and their cooking habits.

When it finally came time to swap and cook the other’s recipes everyone was a little nervous since we all knew we stayed in our comfort zones usually, especially when cooking for others. So, one person got shrimp fried rice, one got stacks and queso, one got brownies and one got a Slavic dish known as plov. The person who got shrimp fried rice never cooked with shrimp before and was shocked to see anything more than soy sauce in the mixture. The person who got the stacks and queso, which is a Tex-Mex item that puts filling in between two tostadas and wraps it in a tortilla, had never heard of it before making it. The person who got brownies doesn’t bake much and the person who got plov had never heard of plov before. It was a learning experience for everyone involved but with the help of the original cook for each, everything turned out great. After this experience everyone had a new recipe in their back pocket and learned more about each of the dishes.

Shrimp Fried Rice

Stack

Brownies

Plov

Art Work:

• Send pictures of instructions to people around me through AirDrop in order to let them drop their phones.
• Selected locations
  • International Village Dining Hall
  • Classroom

Artist Statement:

The ideation of this project came from social circumstances around people these years. We might notice that over the years people have become more prone to hunchbacks, and that is mainly because of the existence of smartphones. People are always downing their heads and playing with their phones almost all the time, and that is a really bad circumstance. That is not only bad for people’s health and also would let them miss the environment around them. Therefore, I was considering doing something to let them drop their phones.

I was inspired by Men in Grey (Julian Oliver & Danja Vasiliev, 2009-2014). The feeling of that intervention would give the participants a strong sense of being monitored. The reason is their screens are going to be shown on the case which would let them feel unsafety and drop their phones or close their laptops unconsciously. I want that feeling to appear in my participants, therefore I select AirDrop as my examination tool.

AirDrop is a powerful tool for this project but still has some limitations. I could use AirDrop to send pictures of instructions to strangers without having their contact but the limitation is I could only send pictures to Apple users. Also, I did some variations of my project because I can’t clearly get people’s reactions and feedback if I do not know who I am going to send pictures to. Therefore, I chose to send pictures to my friends without telling them anything about the project and it works perfectly. They were feeling really weird and stunned, one of them even showed the picture to me and ask do I also received that picture, and soon they dropped their phones. The location of the project could also be diverse, I chose IV Dining Hall and one of my classes for this project. I made different pictures of instructions for different locations in order to enhance the feeling of being monitored. Overall, the intervention works perfectly, and the participants’ reactions really achieved my original purpose.

Inspiration

Throughout the development of technology and information dissemination, it is easily for people to receive the latest news on their digital devices. However, those fragmented information also cause some anxiety and stress to the viewers. Meditation is one of the useful ways to help people release the pressure. There are two main advantages that meditation brought:

• Wipe away the day’s stress, bringing with it iner space.
• Help restore your calm and inner space.

Also, the mechanics of the game was inspired by Pac Manhanttan, which is that one designated player is trying to catch or interrupt the other players, while players have to elude that player to achieve the goal.

Rules

In the game, there will be:

• n Mediataors, 1 Interruptor
• A 15 minutes meditation audio will be played. After it is finished, the game ended.
• Meditators should close their eyes and follow the instruction until the game ended.
• Interruptor is going to interupt meditators by talking around them. (NO touching or pushing)
• If the meditator laughs or speaks or opens their eyes during the game, they are knock out.

Gameplay process

We played this game in my friend’s house. In the game, there were 5 meditators and 1 interruptor. The interruptor was really good at interrupting. He knocked 2 players out at the very beginning of the game, even though at that moment he was trying to interrupt another player. The player he was trying very hard to interrupt insisted to the end, which is the only meditator who won the game.

Video: https://youtu.be/1e6ph-whpzc

Score:

• Acquire the following dice:
  • 2 Four Sided Dice (2d4)
  • 2 Eight Sided Dice (2d8)
  • 4 Six Sided Dice (4d6)
  • 1 Twenty Sided Dice (1d20)
• Gain access to a Baby Grand or Grand Piano
• Open the lid of the piano and prop it open
• Take the 2d8 and simultaneously roll them onto the strings of the piano
• Note the position of the leftmost d8
• Find the corresponding piano key that vibrates the strings the leftmost d8 lays upon
• Add the values of both d8
• Starting at the key we identified earlier, count up from that key a number of adjacent keys equal to the sum of both d8
• Keep note of these two keys
• Now take the 2d4 and simultaneously roll them onto the strings of the piano near the 2d8
• Note the value of each d4 and their proximity to the d8
• The value of the d4 provides the number of times (in a four note sequence) that each key is played
• The number of times each key is played is taken from the closest d4 to the d8 the key is connected to
• Now take the 4d6 and simultaneously roll them onto the strings of the piano
• Note the position of each d6 and their value
• Find the key corresponding to the position of each d6 upon the strings in the same manner as we did earlier with the d8
• These keys will also be played as the two earlier keys we determined are played, but can be played at any time
• The value of each d6 represents the number of adjacent keys, going either up or down, that can be alternatively played at any time
• Now take the 1d20 and roll it onto the strings of the piano
• Note the value of the d20 and multiply it by 10. This is the number of seconds you will play the piano for. Set a timer for this amount.
• With the correct starting keys identified, and the various values of dice rolled as well as their corresponding effects on how the piano is played in mind, prepare to play
• Start the timer and begin to play
• Stop playing when the timer finishes
• Observe the dice upon the strings of the piano. Repeat all above steps without rerolling any of the dice. Instead note how they have been agitated by your playing and have both new positions and values.
• With these new positions and values identified, prepare to play again
• Start the timer and begin to play
• Repeat ad infinitum

Artist’s Statement:

I was inspired by a number of existing historical musical works both in the form of experimental compositions and musical games. As a whole this section of music that inspired me is referred to as “Aleatoric Music” or “Indeterminate Music.” Music that has some element of its final product left up to chance. The first example of this can be found in the “Musikalisches Würfelspiel” (Musical Dice) which exploded in popularity during the Age of Enlightenment. This was during the “Classical Period” of Music from the mid 1700s to early 1800s and these games allowed even someone with barely any musical knowledge to roll dice and following the instructions of the game put together a new composition every time. Johann Kirnberger’s “The Ever-Ready Minuet and Polonaise Composer” (1757) is one such example, and Kirnberger himself was a student of J.S. Bach. Musical dice games can also be found in C.P.E. Bach’s “A method for making six bars of double counterpoint at the octave without knowing the rules” (1758) and Mozart’s “Instructions for the composition of as many waltzes as one desires with two dice, without understanding anything about music or composition” (1792). While the names of such games are quite overwrought, they serve as the main inspiration for this project. As the concept of using dice to inform various components of performance and provide musical limitations comes directly from these games. However, there are also other elements interacting. The idea of rolling the dice directly onto the strings so that they would interfere with the strings vibration and create a unique sound came from John Cage’s practice of creating “Prepared Pianos.” There was also inspiration from Terry Riley’s “In C” and Earle Brown’s “25 Pages.”

Documentation:

Video of Performance: https://photos.app.goo.gl/YJvM96vsuNFPDkb48

Before Playing

After Playing