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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:

My current design for this game has deviated a bit from my proposal, so here’s what I’m currently working with:

NOTE: It may enhance your experience to play The Only Human Defense Force before reading about it.

The player finds themself partaking in a game that appears, for all intents and purposes, to be Space Invaders. They are given basic controls (move left, move right, fire) and told to earn points. Aliens advance down from the top of the screen, firing regularly, while the player shoots them down. There are no barriers to hide behind (mostly because I didn’t have the time to program them). The player has three lives.

The first indication that something is off is the score: the player earns no points for killing an alien. By itself, this might seem like just a glitch.

When the player dies or kills all aliens, they are taken to a GAME OVER screen, with a tally of LIVES LEFT and LIVES LOST. However, these tallies display seemingly impossible numbers: 2 lives left, 55 lives lost, for instance. After a moment of thinking, the player may realize that each dead alien is tallied as a lost life.

In addition, the GAME OVER screen displays a message for the player. In order, depending on how many times the player has reached this screen, these messages are:

WHAT MAKES AN ALIEN?

WHO SHOT FIRST? WHO SHOT LAST?

WHAT IF THEY WERE ONLY DANCING?

HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE?

These messages prompt several realizations. The aliens will try to flee after enough of their number are gunned down, for instance. They only fire as many shots as the player fires, never more. And if the player waits and refuses to kill them, one will eventually fly down to make peaceful contact. After this event, the player earns a single point and  is taken to a victory screen that reminds them not to worry too much about earlier failures. After all, they are only human.

It is my hope that this game will inspire players to think about their reasons for responding to situations with aggression and the biases they hold that cause them to do so. Why did they interpret the aliens as aggressive before they had fired a single shot? Why did they not notice that the aliens were only firing in response to their actions? By examining questions such as these, we may be able to break out of real-world cycles of violence with other humans.

Influences  include art games like Mike Builds a Shelter, which inspired an exploration of unusual win/loss states, as well as the Extra Credits episode on Missile Command (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQJA5YjvHDU) and every movie ever where humans overreact to peaceful aliens (Avatar, Arrival, etc.), which always make me angrier than they have any right to. Pretty sure Undertale’s use of traditional gaming motifs in a pacifist narrative has gotta be mixed up in there somewhere, too.

I was really challenged in making this game to find the balance between adding enough explicit Meaning™ that the audience would catch on, while not beating them over the head with a preachy hammer of pacifism. I’m not sure yet if I’ve succeeded.

Download the game here: The Only Human Defense Force

Score for the Stars

Sit on the roof at night

(Alone or with others)

Look at the stars

Light a candle

Remember where you came from

and where you will be

Artist Statement

Score for the Stars draws on the human need for connection, both with others and the world around you. In a world so focused on constantly moving, on doing the best you can be, it can be hard to forget that you need a moment to breathe. Score for the Stars intends to give you that moment, allowing you a short break to sit quietly, by yourself, by those close to you, with strangers, and remember you are not alone. As you spend more time gazing upwards, more and more pinpricks of light appear. While at first you could see only a dozen, the way your eyes adjust to the dark bring out more and more reflections. Soon the candle you brought with you is one of hundreds, each returning the light you are sending out into the darkness. Even by yourself you are not alone.

This piece was primarily inspired by three works, Yoko Ono’s A Piece For Orchestra, Ben Vautier’s  Total Art Matchbox, and a two hundred word role playing game by Daniel Adams called Stardust. Stardust’s message of being one with the stars created a jumping off point for the idea, as it intends the players to feel like stars themselves, to remember what being a star was like. This idea resonated with me, but I decided I would rather keep the individuality and humanity of the participants- the people engaging are not stars, but have been, and will be again. Yoko Ono’s piece inspired the observational aspect, as you observe you take a more active part in the things around you- your watchful eye draws you closer to the stars, or windows in Yoko Ono’s piece. Total Art Matchbox was not inspirational for it’s view of destructing art, but rather it’s basis on the temporary nature of things. Over the course of the night, the candle the participants lit will burn out, finally leaving them in the dark, with only the light of the stars. In this world of remembrance, isolation, and permanence, there is still the fleeting aspect of this candle, a reminder that all things end.

Documentation:

IMG_1455

Write a secret on a piece of lined paper
Become Robert Frost
It cannot be your own
Take the Path Less Traveled By
Fold it lengthwise, then crumple it
Return to your body
Throw it away
Regret your life choices
Do not wonder what the garbagemen think of you now
Move on
Do not follow the instructions in italics

Artist Statement:

I created the piece, Ambiguity, to show the different ways instructions can be interpreted if not given hard guidelines, as well as reactions to finding out that previous instructions were changed or nullified by future ones.
In Ambiguity, the reader/enactor does not know that only the unitalicized (or, in the physical copy, written in print rather than cursive) instructions are meant to be followed. When strung together, those create a rather direct set of instructions to write a secret not belonging to you on a piece of paper, fold, then crumple it, then throw it away, ignoring potential changes in attitude from “the garbagemen”. At the end of the piece, an instruction tells the reader to ignore the italicized lines, which are the more difficult ones to pull off, being primarily of a metaphysical nature, such as Move on.
My reader/enactor, a friend, took a very different approach to the piece, as she approached every index card as its own complete instruction, unconnected to the rest of them. This led her to interpreting the numerous uses of “it” as random objects of her choosing, such as her hoodie, her scrunchy, my notebook, and her girlfriend.

This piece was mostly inspired by various scores in Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit, mostly for their tone and somewhat backtracking nature if you do not read the entire piece all in one go. It was also  partially inspired by Flux kits, with their various parts that were individual pieces that made up a whole that overall still didn’t quite make sense.

Documentation:

My friend follows the first instructions

She is Robert Frost (obviously)

The confusion sets in

My friend throws “it” away

She finds the path less traveled by

(this was a .gif but apparently wordpress hates those)
(she climbed up to the floor above us via indoor balcony)

She returned to “her body” (aka her girlfriend)

(I have several more steps that I took as video but wordpress will not allow the .gif versions of them)

Materials: pencil, paper, trash can
Additional materials: friend’s random item choices, the environment

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 –