APD Week2 Play and time

Link: https://youtu.be/Y7fzpR6ANWY

Build: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JjglaRgjKixPZ_UtDVfTMUQbdwkPkxW9/view?usp=sharing

Theme

Play and time

In my interactive work, the concept of time is divided into 2 parts – the day and light cycle following the sun and the actual time spent on each activity. The day and light cycle represent the linear time. In this work, a character’s activities are distributed to different location which transfer the linear time to a parallel time. As while as day and light cycling, it conveys a contrast between our normal perspective of time and another form of time. Overall, the options of activities are limited which reflect the time loop – players can arrange the character’s time but still looping in a group of results.

Context

In class, we did an activity about listing words associated with time and play. After that, I started to think about my response to the concept of time and play. I was inspired by an interactive work Possibilia produced by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (2014). It describes a breaking up story in an interactive way – the dialogues are fixed but the video could be switched. I decided to make an interactive work has an overall linear time with switchable activities in different time period. Furthermore, I used locations (up, down, left and right) to represent time periods. Play is also a way of interpreting things (Geertz, 1973) and is classified as the rhetoric of the imaginary by Sutton-Smith (2001). In my response, players could explore the character’s actions in different ‘time locations’ and interpret those symbolic actions in their own ways which makes it a playful interactive work using time as a mechanic.

Method

In practice, I started from modelling the character and stages of different ‘time locations’. I chose 5 activities of daily life which are sleeping, working, walking, entertaining and talking. Then I animated those in a very symbolic way which allows players interpreted them widely.

After that, I programmed it in Unity and added day and night cycle to represent linear time. By that I wanted to convey a contrast between different time concepts.

Reflection

1. The result of ‘time locations’ is not ideally due to the structure of my work. Instead of separate locations, I should connect them together to convey a clearer concept of non-linear time.
2. The volume of animation is too small which caused a difficulty of interpretation.
3. The consistency of different ‘time locations’ is weak.
4. The concept of time and play could be combined better. I was over focused on the loop time than time + play.

References

Sutton-Smith, B. (2001). The ambiguity of play. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Geertz, C. 1973. The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books. - - - . 1983. Blurred genres: The refiguration of social thought. In C. Geertz, Local knowledge: Further essays in interpretative anthropology. New York: Basic Books.