APD Play and Forces - Exquisite Corpse 2

Theme: Play and Forces

Context:
This week I thought about the differences of affordances between digital games/interfaces and non-digital forms of play. I find it interesting that work will be given greater validity if it incorporates technology even if the ultimate outcome would be the same without it. As an example, think about singing or dancing games that track your voice and dance movements respectively. Ultimately, whether or not the game properly tracks the player shouldn’t matter as it has had the desired result of getting them to sing or dance. However, seemingly if the technology was not present the game would lose all validity and people would be less enticed to engage. In a sense, this affordance we grant technology is a force that alters our engagement with a game.

From here I wondered if you could create a game that transfers the validity of understood rules in a digital space into a fuzzier informal structure in a non-digital interaction. I hope by creating this close relationship between a digital and a non-digital interface that this affordance of validity may be questioned. I am inspired by works in the interactive theatre space that use actors and improvisation as a sort of fuzzy logic within a game-like structure.

Method:
Introducing the long awaited sequel… Exquisite Corpse 2. The main gimmick of this work is the relationship between the digital game and a live painter. The game is projected on a wall with three panels separating the head, body and legs of our soon to be creation. The first panel flicks on as a timer counts down. Two players control various body parts (eye, nose, mouth etc) as they jump around the panel collecting pellets and transforming into different body parts. While this is occurring, it is the painter’s job to fill out the rest of the details by painting over the projection of the game. The painter will have to try to anticipate and incorporate the ever changing positions and shapes of the digital body parts. When the timer countdown reaches zero, the current panel will flick off and the next panel will flick on and the above process is repeated until all panels have been completed. When the game has ended, all the panels will flick on at once revealing your creature along with the body parts placed by the players in the digital game, now animated with winks and hand waves.

Response:
Introducing the long awaited sequel!! This is Exquisite Corpse TWOO. This game mixes digital elements with live painting to create animated murals through a collaboration between the artist and the players
Video Showcase: https://youtu.be/ExlZ8n1ALP0

Reflection:
Interestingly, Exquisite Corpse 2 doesn’t have a shared goal between the painter and players. The players are competing to collect more pellets than their opponent, seemingly indifferent to the struggles of the painter. The painter similarly has no reason to take interest in who has collected the most pellets. Despite this, there still seems to be some kind of relationship between the participants and shared ownership over the resulting creature.

In general, I am interested in exploring this area a bit more. Currently, the force transfers from the digital to the painter. I wonder if it were somehow possible, outside of technological means, to afford the painter some influence over the digital space.

Ideally this work would be played in public spaces, creating animated murals as a collaboration between the artist and the community.