chengann

Artists Statement:

My goal for this game was to emulate  a snippet in the life a person that is observing a situation from the outside in. They are a child looking in on a situation that is familiar to themselves from their bedroom window.

I wanted to explore the ideas of sympathy and pain. The child is looking in on a situation that they remember going through and is unsure of how to follow suit. They do not know the stranger that lies in the room across the yard from them.

It was deeply inspired by some of the games we talked about in class. Depression Quest and The Path helped inspire this game. I wanted to explore narrative as game and also tell a story poetically. I wanted to test the boundaries of what is a game and what isn’t a game.  Depression Quest stood out to me because of its simple game play, it inspired me to attempt to do a text based game.

I hope to be able to add more chapters to this game as I progress in my game design career. This completes only one chapter in a story that will continue to bloom.

If I were to place it on Schrank’s avant garde table: I would say my game falls somewhere in the middle of Radical Political,The game allowed players some interaction, but most of it was an experience and it was all about the game and its story.

Documentation:

I had multiple people play this small twine game. I received multiple reactions. The game is simple and straightforward. It provides moments for choices but ultimately it is a chapter that will unfold later. Some argued that it wasn’t a game because of its lack of interaction, some enjoyed the poetic verses, some just stared at the screen and mumbled some words.

The Game: 

(I will email you the game, as it won’t allow me to post it here)

Do not try to open in Google Drive. (It will appear as just text, we want it to look like an actual game). Instead download to your computer and open using a browser. This has been tested with Google chrome and should work for Firefox as well.

Materials: 

1. Two Hula Hoops
2. Two People

Approach random people asking if they will hula-hoop with you. Hope that they say yes and will hula-hoop with you.

OR

Find a position in the commons and start Hula-hooping. Hope that people see your sign and join in.

Attempt Number One: 

This occurred at the commons on March 21st, 2016. It was a quiet Monday night and it was a little late, about 7:00 pm.  I was with a friend and we prepared to have a night of pure fun and hula-hooping.

This a collection of the most interesting results.  There were about double the encounters but the rest were not memorable, usually people just looked, said no, and walked on their way.

Stranger One and One and a Half: Two people were walking together when approached with the question. Neither people responded and both continued walking and one turned to the other to say: “That is probably what Bernie Sanders’ fans look like”

Stranger Two: One person approached and was genuinely interested with what I was doing. Thought I was doing something having to do with slut shaming. Did not want to hula-hoop with me.

Stranger Three: One man was approached and politely said no. He proceeded to tell me he reminded me of his daughter.

Stranger Four: Looked  like he really wanted to hula-hoop with me but said he was late for a friend’s party. He proceeded to leave.

Though there was no hula-hooping involved, this act really did interrupt the space and cause for some conversation (which is what I wanted to achieve anyways). I still wanted to see if anyone would hula-hoop with me if it was in the daylight so I tried again.

Attempt Number Two:

This time I was prepared. It was a nice breezy Sunday. It was nice outside and people were walking around. Tourists were everywhere. A perfect situation to talk to people.

I set out a sign, it read HULA HOOP WITH ME. I had another hula-hoop sitting around. I started with having my friend record people but I got no one to hula-hoop with me. Just a bunch of people staring at me hula-hooping.  When I asked her to stop recording a couple of people joined in.

This encounter will be recorded through writing for those reasons. It was probably for the best considering many children were the ones to hula-hoop while their parents watched from close-by. It was Easter Sunday and they were all in their little dresses and dress slacks. One parent joined in and I allowed him to hula-hoop with his son.

Overall:

I was really glad to see people participating. It really does help that it wasn’t on a late Monday night. More people were friendly and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Artists Statement

I wanted to start a conversation with people, I wanted them to stop what they were doing and live in the present with me. In this aspect I set out to achieve what I wanted to during the first run through.

I was inspired greatly by the videos shown in class about the  Yes Men and some of the readings and artwork by Yoko Ono. Yes Men inspired me because they are all about creating conversation and leaving things up to interpretation. Yoko Ono inspired me because her art is very much about the process and not the end product. I wanted my piece to be about the moment, taking people out of their heads and into the present with me.

Documentation was difficult and overall I am happy that I chose to write rather than photograph. Taking photographs would take away from the moment I was hoping to establish with the participants (also many of the participants were children and it is really weird to ask parents if you can take pictures of their child).

Materials: 2 Hula Hoops and two people

Walk up to a random stranger and challenge them to a hula hoop challenge. See who can hula longer.

Materials:

• A deck of cards
• A ruler
• A large amount of string, you can use multiple colors if you wish.
• A large sheet of paper
• Some type of adhesive: hot glue or tape.

Rules:

1. Place the paper on the floor or a hard surface, whichever you prefer.
2. Attach one end of the string to any point on the piece of paper with your adhesive. This is your first point.
3. Shuffle your deck of cards and deal out two piles.
4. Flip the first card of each pile.
5. Determine the larger card and take that number and double it. (2 will be 4, 5 will be 10, and so on).
6. This number will tell you how many centimeters from the first point will be your second point.
7. You may decide to go in any direction from the first point. Attach string here with hot glue or tape.
8. Flip another card from each pile and repeat process.
9. If your string is too short, feel free to start a new piece of string by attaching to a point of your own choosing.
10. Continue until satisfied or out of room.
11. Admire your work.

Questions:

• Does the string have to be straight? : No the string can be hung however you’d like, as long as the points (the adhesive areas) are the correct distance between.
• You can go in any direction from your point?: Yes. you can go in any direction you’d like.
• What numbers are associated with the Jack, Queen, King, and Ace?: 11,12,13,15 respectively.

Artist’s Statement:

With this piece I hoped to establish a conversation between two seemingly opposite topics.  I wanted to show that sometimes, things that are disharmonious can still produce harmony. I decided to work with a meticulous method because art and war is just that. Bits and pieces that work together to form a strategy. I have worked with systems within my previous pieces and I found this idea useful.

My inspiration for this piece came from the artists in the Dada movement that we are currently exploring. They were so anti-art that they redefined art. Art wasn’t necessarily about technique, it was about expression and redefinition.

From the common themes in their pieces came mine, but in a more literal form. They talked about themes pertaining to WWI to create art and in my piece I used the literal game card game of War.

Photos

Pick up a pebble that reminds you of

your worst memory.

Leave it to rest on a window sill.

Mist the pebble  generously until you

create a puddle.

Pick up and throw pebble outside.

Let the  puddle dry up.

Artists Statement:

I am a self-described memory hoarder. I have a tendency  to dwell on the past and this was a way to  let go of the past.  The idea of a pebble came to me when thinking about memories that tend to stick with me. They are always the small ones, the small insignificant ones that tend to stick to a person.

Sometimes you have to give into  a memory and let it die, let it rot away.  Then and only then can you leave it all behind. This was the main concept behind this score.

The inspiration for this score came to me when I was gardening. I put a lot of care into the plants that surround me. The plants grow bigger as I put more thought into their care, but shrivel when I forget about them. I figured if it worked for plants on my window sill, why not the figments growing in my head.

photos

Pick up a pebble that reminds you of

your worst memory.

Leave it to rest near a window.

Mist generously all day until you

create a puddle.

Throw pebble outside.