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My Final Project, From Above, is a on-rails first person shooter in which the player is tasked with destroying as many enemy targets as possible in thirty seconds, while avoiding civilians. However, the twist is that there is no distinction between enemy and civilian, and there are no consequences for destroying any potential civilian targets.

The game is very simple, and short, but it aims to address the effects of warfare upon our modern society, and the effects of modern society upon warfare. With the advent of Unmanned Arial Vehicles (UAV for short), many soldiers are now completely detached from the suffering they inflict upon people. UAV pilots can be sitting in an air conditioned office thousands of miles away while dropping bombs on civilians from thousands of feet in the air. While the player in From Above isn’t that high up, being above and away from the people you’re killing makes it seem much less personal and nasty.

As mentioned above, players are unable to distinguish between civilian and enemy targets. The main reason behind this choice, and why there’s no score or docked points on the “Mission Complete” screen, is because, much like in real life, there aren’t many immediate consequences to these actions. Despite being one of the highest funded branches of the government, the military lacks accountability. As seen during the infamous My Lai Massacre,  the military would rather try to bury a massacre than convict those responsible.

In the end, the root of problems like detachment from the battlefield and the lack of accountability is the military’s detachment from the people they’re supposed to be helping. During the Vietnam War, the US Military was ostensibly trying to help the South Vietnamese, but a lack of connection with and understanding of the Vietnamese made their mission doomed to fail. The same can be said for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, who are told that the United States is trying to help them after their village is destroyed. The player character in From Above is ostensibly there to help the unnamed people who they end up bombing.

As for inspirations for this game, two of my biggest came from very different places. The first is Kieran’s Space Invaders game, in which the only way for the players to truly win the game was to not shoot at the approaching aliens. While what the player does in From Above doesn’t really affect the final outcome, I liked the idea of a game that subverts or messes with your expectations. The second is the famous, or infamous as the case may be, “Death from Above” mission in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.  While the player character is a AC-130 pilot instead of a UAV Pilot (meaning that they’re actually inside a plane right above the battlefield), the outcome is still the same. Death is rained down from above, and there is nothing that the moving dots can do about it. It is hard to tell whether the game was trying to make this a cool moment, or was actually trying to send a message by showing how cold and dispassionate this kind of fighting is, but it’s a mission that’s always stuck with me, and many others.

Appropriation Game: THE SHIP OF THESEUS

Gameplay:

1. A Judge is picked for the round. For the first round, the oldest player is made Judge. After the first round, the winner of the previous round becomes the Judge
2. The Judge selects one of the groups of pictures and passes them out to players.
   1. All of the pictures are separated into groups based on what they represent. There’s four copies of the Mona Lisa, Four copies of the Birth of Venus, etc.
3. Players are given one minute to transform their image the most while alternating their image the least (The most change with the least effort)
   1. Players can use the tools provided (Colored Pencils, Colored Markers, Felt Stickers), as well as whatever tools they also have (Pens, Scissors, Glue, etc.)
   2. Players can also alter the image physically (rip, fold, etc.)
4. Once the minute is up, players present their transformations to the Judge
5. The Judge goes through them all and determines which one they think best meets the criteria
6. The Judge selects a winner, and returns their transformed image to them. The other transformed images are placed in a discard pile. The winner then becomes the next Judge, and the next round starts.
7. After all of the pictures have been transformed, players see how many rounds they have won by counting through all of the transformed images they had returned to them. The player with the most won rounds wins the game.

Artist Statement:

The Ship of Theseus is a party game in the style of Apples to Apples in which three players are tasked with transforming pictures of famous paintings the most, while also doing the least amount of work or effort to transform said image. A judge then picks the piece with they think best meets the criteria, and the player with the most rounds won wins the game.

The Ship of Theseus is less a game with appropriated elements and more a game about appropriation, asking questions like “When does something become art?”, and, more specifically to this game, “when does one piece of art become another piece of art?” To a lesser extent, the game is also a critique of the legal processes that affect the art world, because in the end, the guidelines for rulings are vague, and it’s up to a judge to make the final decision.  

The two major inspirations for the game are 1.) Richard Prince and his body of work, and 2.)The Ship of Theseus Paradox, the game’s namesake. The Ship of Theseus Paradox is a metaphysical thought experiment which goes as follows:

The hero Theseus sails his ship into battle, and afterwards it is placed in a museum in the city of Athens as a memorial. After many years, the boards on the ship begin to rot, and one by one the boards are replaced until, finally, none of the original boards remain. Is the ship that’s in the museum now the same ship that entered? If not, when did it change?

This conundrum of identity also affects the work of Richard Prince, whose entire career has been based on the grey zone between altering an existing piece of art and creating an entirely new piece of art. Prince’s 2008 series Canal Zone, and the subsequent legal battle between Prince and the photographer whose work he appropriated, was the main inspiration for the goal of the game.

The images that players appropriate in The Ship of Theseus also draw inspiration from other famous appropriation artists, such as Marcel Duchamp (specifically L.H.O.O.Q., 1919) and Andy Warhol (Mao 91, 1972). On top of that, some of the other art featured (Mona Lisa, The Sistine Chapel, The Birth of Venus) was chosen because, on top of them being famous, they are the kinds of work that the Dada movement was responding to.

Documentation:

Final Score:

SHOE PIECE

1. Gather a few participants
2. Get all participants to take off their shoes (socks stay on)
3. Put on two new shoes, each one from a different pair
4. Note the shoe’s feeling
5. Walk in one big circle, clockwise, seven times
6. Take off shoes, return to owners
7. Put your shoes back on

Artist Statement: 

The aim of SHOE PIECE was to, quite literally, allow the participants to experience what it is like to walk around in another person’s shoes. Part of SHOE PIECE’s goal was to approach the common saying “Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes” in a more playful and interactive way.  While some might see this as a satire or subversion of that phrase, especially as the participants wear shoes from two different pairs, SHOE PIECE does want its participants to appreciate interacting with each other in a way that many people don’t. Shoes may universal, but each has a lot to say about the individual that owns them.  As for inspirations, the Fluxus movement is an obvious influence, with particular regards to the work of Yoko Ono.  Another influence, specifically in regards to the fifth step of SHOE PIECE’s score, was the Celtic tradition of Sacred Springs / Holy Wells. From the time of the druids until well into the 18th century, many people in Ireland would congregate in secret at Sacred Springs and walk around it seven times while a priest read a blessing or, later on, a passage from the bible for good luck from the spring. This tradition, which I experienced while in Ireland, really made you think about the land you were walking over and, had there been a priest there,  and the blessings or verses/hymns you were listening to.

Documentation: 

Notes –

People had very different reactions to the shoes (sometimes comfortable, sometimes uncomfortable)

Walking in the repetitive shape helped with feeling the shoes

Some shoes didn’t fit

People got dizzy from walking in the circles

Started walking in their own circles, before the big one

Everyone talking about size, how the shoes felt (insert, comfort, style, size)

Variable size good

Variant Blind shoe swap could also be interesting (finding owner of shoes could be interesting)

Interesting Gender perspective (different styles for men and women, different shoe sizes, etc.)

Photos –