Archive for March 2015

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citizen


We went into this interview without a project -- or at least without a "cause" -- but instead we had a person we wanted to focus on.  Relying less on the "institution" and more on the intrinsic values or beliefs that one person -- Jesse Baird -- actually had allowed us to get to the meat of a problem he actually cared about instead of a cookie-cutter "mission."  In fact, we tried to prompt Jesse to talk about various topics that we thought might provoke a discussion (politics, abortion, feminism, female circumcision, etc.) but sometimes smaller issues take precedent over these universal issues and can provide a basis to build up to them.  Jesse's thoughtful critique of passivity in societal interactions relating to harmful behaviors actually does address sexism, racism, homophobia, rape culture, etc. but not in the rah-rah, grandiose Big Topic way that we are used to in confrontational social settings.

Furthermore, our aim was to capture the actual essence of what Jesse cares about and finds valuable just by himself.  Our project is about how not everyone has to be the director of a food bank or spend their Saturdays volunteering at a soup kitchen to be an activist.  Jesse, in his everyday interactions with other people, stands up for a cause that isn't getting enough attention from media, politics, society, etc.  Moreover, not everybody has the societal influence to start their own campaign or charity, and not everyone has the opportunity or time to make a drastic global change. Thus, it's the day-to-day, interpersonal human interactions that can actually start the ball rolling toward social evolution and away from antiquated paradigms of bigotry and injustice.

As for outside media, we referenced home videos to capture a more realistic aesthetic instead of a clinical and polished experience.  In home videos, you get the unedited truth and probably gratuitous material -- like Jesse on the broomstick or screwing around with a camera -- even though not all parts of those moments relate directly to the cause, they still relate to the individual.

Goldbard makes an statement claiming that "encroaching on the old paradigm, knowledge from many different spheres reveals how cul- ture is key to creating the conditions that enable human rights and therefore, security rooted in caring rather than coercion."  Jesse's project is not to be the next President of the United States and change the world that way, instead he just wants to add to the conversation to create "the conditions that enable human rights" and it's as simple as that. 

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game for slay


"Slut-shaming" is a part of colloquial and scholarly vernacular that emerged in the mid-2000's that describes "the act of making, or attempting to make, a woman or girl feel guilty or inferior for certain sexual behaviors, circumstances, or desires that deviate from traditional or orthodox gender expectations, or that which may be considered to be contrary to natural or religious law" (and that definition is from Wikipedia, because I am pond scum). In it's most typical -- and maybe most tragic -- state of being, slut-shaming emerges as besmirching women for their clothing/appearance choices and adhering sexual implications and assumptions to the women based on their dress. 

One of the most basic (and cowardly) forms of slut-shaming is cat-calling in any of its many mutations. We are all familiar with the classic Yelling Something Vulgar Out of Car Windows at Women Walking on the Street. There's the stereotypical Construction Workers Verbally Violating Women as They Innocently Pass By. There's the Anonymous Wolf Whistle in a Crowd. All of these, no matter how innocent or well-intended, are forms of sexual harassment. Feeling the right to comment, especially sexually comment, on a woman's body is not only gross and embarrassing, but also misogynistic and derogatory. 

 My Twine game, "SLUTS R US," features an array of scenarios that hopefully address a wide-ish variety of reactions to slut-shaming and possible misconceptions about what it is and how to deal with it. For example, one of the common yet problematic mindsets that people have is that only women wearing "slutty" clothing will be slut-shamed. This is definitely not the case. Besides the fact that modesty is relative, even women wearing traditionally "decent" clothing may be assaulted for the sight of their body in any clothes. That's why I included clothing options that were more likely to be viewed as "suggestive" -- like a bikini top or a pair of short-shorts -- but I also added the option to pick a ΓΌbermodest pair of BYU-approved knee-length shorts and a school t-shirt. But no matter what the player chooses to wear, slut-shaming and cat-calling are still problems that they, as literal or virtual women, have to face. That's why the Twine format is so useful in the discussion and education of objectification of women in media/games; instead of trying to talk about how to portray "strong" or "realistic" depictions of women (like Anita Sarkeesian talks about with Stephen Colbert here), Twine forces the player into a position that isn't just a "realistic" woman, it's actually you.

 I referenced Chimanda Ngozi Adichie's TED talk, "The Danger of a Single Story," in the creation of SLUTS R US, particularly the part where Adichie has to reconcile the fact that she initially believed that all stories were about foreigners with the reality stories can be about anyone and any place. I added an option to my game where players who didn't understand the harm of cat-calling and in fact felt flattered by it could learn about why it's actually offensive and destructive, which hopefully kind of mimics the way Adichie had to come to terms with something she assumed she understood, even though that wasn't the case.

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world building

Welcome to FLEA*.

Population: 600 Billion

Year: 3209 A.D.

Swine Flu wiped out the human race in the year 2075.  After disrupting the life cycle of Earth, the only species that was self-sufficient enough to survive were the genus musmusculus (MICE).  After decades of research, we enter the year 3209 where mice have developed synthetic human bodies that they use as vessels to carry out every day processes more effectively and efficiently.

They do so while wearing visors.

They are: Mice In Visors ™.

How it Works
They work together in cubicles within the pseudo-human skull.  Each body contains about 10 mice working together to control the central nervous system.

The mice use these bodies to do everyday life things that they had observed back when humans roamed the earth.  But despite their strides to be as human as possible, they still only care about one thing: obtaining food.

And so, in order to get food, they barter with items that they observed to be desirable and beneficial to humans when they existed.  Things such as: uncharged iPhones, tampons, cigarette butts, etc.  These are all items that they saw humans interact with frequently, and therefore are thought to be important for trade.


Bartering
 
The mice also can't seem to shake their animalistic desires like cheese and being warm, comfortable, and safe.  So these things are in abundance in their world: furniture resembles cheese, they wear a lot of sweaters and their houses are covered in fur.



Things they like
The mice have a tacit agreement as to who is in charge.  So there is no government, they all just know what their place is in life, and stick it through.  This makes for a very peaceful world, and within the body they all work together to create a single mechanism. Mice (In Visors™) are basically successfully doing exactly what present-day humans are trying to do.


Artist's Statement:

In the initial stages of conceptualization, the only thing we knew about this world was that mice were sort of like overlords. When we started considering what was and was not realistic, mouse overlords couldn’t possibly run Earth because of their general smallness and lack of know-how. But mice inside human bodies would be unstoppable. I literally cannot think of a single thing more powerful and sensual than a mouse in a human body. So we thought about how cunning mice would overcome their fragility to ultimately survive. The solution was relatively simple: of course mice would figure out robotics and put together realistic human host bodies so that they could thrive in the harsh conditions of a post-apocalyptic, humanless world. With their new found access to things like Opposable Thumbs™ and legs long enough to reach the pedals in Cadillac Escalades, etc., mice could finally do all the things that they envied about human life, including (but not limited to): skateboarding, hot-tubbing, drinking beer, cat-calling at babes (RIP), flippin’ burgers at the local Five Guys, smoking weed, etc. Mice could do it all AND MORE!  

For outside media, we took the sort of obvious route and referred to the Pixar movie, Ratatouille. In the film, one rat figures out a way to control a human’s body by sitting on top of his head and pulling his hair (science?). Instead of this charming, albeit unrealistic approach to rodent/human control interactions, we decided to capitalize on a more pragmatic version of the same principle. Thus, mice would inhabit cold, humanoid shells that they themselves had crafted in their rodent laboratories, and they would have to work together inside the pseudo-human body in their own collaborative efforts mouse-to-mouse instead of human-to-mouse.

After researching mice and their typical way of living, we began to see just how crazy a world controlled by mice might be. By finding their unusual habits, we realized just how different the society would be. For example, mice prefer dark, and they do have their own type of “classes” among them. With just these two details, you would have a world in the dark and a new anarchy system. Even the littlest changes could cause the most dramatic difference in a world.

From the reading Julian Bleeker said, “Design fiction is a way of exploring different approaches to making things, probing the material conclusions of your imagination, removing the usual constraints when designing for massive market commercialization.” This quote indeed expressed the different ways to approach in making a new world. We tried to figure out what one small detail would do to the rest of the world. For one thing, furniture would look like pieces of cheese. Cheese became the new barter system, which in millions of ways changes the world. We then had to approach a world that functioned without money, but instead cheese. How would this world actually function? It was an interesting experience in trying to create a world that would actually work. In the end it brought many new ideas and pieces to the creative table.


(*I guess this is our project. I'm sort of sorry.)

  

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