Christopher

Artist’s Statement:

An important genre to me and for the history of gaming is the Shmup genre, or the Shoot ‘em up genre. One of the most well-known video games is Space Invaders, which is one of the first and earliest games in this genre, following in its footsteps comes Galaxian and eventually the more popular Galaga. This is usually where the common knowledge of the genre stops and I wanted to showcase what the history as well as what comes after, what the genre looks like now. I was inspired by how Andy Warhol was able to use appropriation and historical moments to both make art and share knowledge about the topic of art. Appropriation played a very large role in my artwork. This artwork was done in Unity, by switching scenes around once a certain part is reached. The artwork starts as Space Invaders, recreated in Unity, then switches to a recreation of Galaga using Assets from an asset bundle in the unity Asset store, after that it switches to a bullet hell boss, created using Danmokou, which is a bullet hell engine made within unity. This is all to show the evolution of the genre

Here are three videos showing parts from each portion of the art/game (I suggest muting the video since the sound did not record properly even though there was not much sound anyway, if sound is not muted there will be a loud buzzing sound):

Space Invader

Galaga

Danmokou (Touhou Clone)

Space Invaders artwork is recreated from Space Invaders

I used a tutorial from Zigurous on youtube: How to make Space Invaders in Unity (Complete Tutorial) 👾🛸 – YouTube

For Galaga the artwork is originally from galaga and recreated by Playniax

The Galaga Essentials from the unity asset store: Galaga Essentials | Systems | Unity Asset Store

Danmokou created by Bagoum: What is Danmokou? (bagoum.com)

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

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.

Score:

Color the ball and play a game of tennis to reveal hidden art

Artist’s Statement:

Tennis is an artful sport if one watches it closely, it is either one on one or two on two which is very personal in terms of sports. Some people have noted how it looks like the players are almost dancing as they are waiting for the ball to return to their side, as players are constantly moving their feet during a point. Higher level tournaments took it upon themselves to show where and how most shots hit by the champion of the tournament ended up. This created almost a collage on the court. This reminded me of the Open Score performed by Robert Rauschenberg with Billy Kluver at 9 Evenings, 1966. Turning the court into a canvas in one way or another was done by both the tournament that mapped the shots as well as these two Dada artists however, the dada artist’s idea was more interesting. As a man and woman played a set the sounds of the ball being hit were amplified and sounds were controlled by vibrations in the racquet, on top of that little by little it got darker and darker. This is how the engineer Billy Kluver and the artist Robert Rauschenberg turned the tennis court into their own canvas, and it is what inspired me to use tennis as well.

Tennis has many shots, and many types within those shots, meaning that the trajectory of a ball and how it bounces has many different outcomes depending on topspin, if it was sliced or not or if it was hit flat. These are all nuances that tennis has that are not always shown off. I wanted to use the chance to physically portray the differences as well as use a non-conventional tool for art, which is what the dada movement and specifically scores focus on. With these sets of instructions, the outcome will be different every single time but there will be similarities across the board as well. After a tennis ball is covered in paint then it allows to see hidden artwork in a seemingly normal point. My favorite part about this score is that technically, every point in tennis throughout every level of playing, has art like this hidden right beneath the surface.