APD Play and Self - Play for One

Theme: Play and Self

Context:
When exploring this week’s theme I first thought about self in a solitary sense, being by yourself, and the kinds of ways we play when we’re on our own. As I struggled to identify my own personal, solitary rituals of play I started to wonder how much of my motivation or inspiration to play comes from others, or indeed having an audience. 

Following on from this, I thought I could collect mundane outtakes from previous video and audio recordings of myself to show a version of myself when I'm not “switched on” for an audience. 

Reading Thomas S Henricks “Play as Self-Realization:Toward a General Theory of Play I was struck by this idea presented by Greta Fein that play is an important tool for children to assume new roles and distinguish self from each other. If there is no one to differentiate ourselves from, then would we ever feel inspired to play?

With this in mind, I tried to combine these two ideas. I wanted to build some kind of game that’d capture our solitary rituals of play (or lack thereof) while pushing us to play off or differentiate ourselves from earlier versions of ourselves. This makes me think of the game “You See” by Kalonica Quigley where the player is placed in an endless empty room. After every 10 seconds the player is reset and the room populates with previous versions of themselves wandering around as they had done. The movements become more exaggerated as new stimuli is added to the scene in the form of more and more versions of you.

Method:
When the player opens the game,they’ll be presented with the title “Play for One”. Secretly, the game will begin recording the player. After 5 seconds, the footage recorded is played back to the player on a loop while a new video starts recording their reaction/response. This continues until a full grid of 9 videos are all playing back in unison showing the various versions of the player. From here you can observe the ways in which the player tried to differentiate themselves between each recording, often escalating and getting more chaotic by the 9th recording.

Response:
Video Showcase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYxWqTSjmDE
Making of Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAcl7oqCoCI  
I created a small video game in Unity that uses your webcam and microphone to capture a series of short recordings. I then played it several times and recorded my own responses, compiling them into a short video to showcase the game.

Additionally, I created a second video compiling a series of candid recordings that were saved in the process of building and bug fixing the game. This less polished and unedited video stands as a complimentary piece that showcases the outtakes of the playful process.  

Reflection:
I went through various ideas before landing on “Play for One” as I faced various technical limitations. Ironically, the first idea of capturing a portrait of myself through outtakes was preserved as I struggled to build a functioning recorder within Unity. Although I was making slow progress, every test meant inadvertently capturing candid footage of myself as I struggled to create something representing my playful portrait. I was pleased to see that there was some sense of my original idea within “Play for One”. I had also planned to display the webcam feed while recording the videos and give the player a more guided experience offering prompts of actions to take. However, I felt capturing this candid footage was more interesting and provided a fun surprise every time a new recording shows up.