I’m looking for collaborators interesting in helping me reproduce “Please Do Not Enter” here in Perth:
For a basic reproduction, I will need:
A security guard: Amiable and willing to memorise and repeat specified lines
A venue: An exhibition space housing other works with a large empty space
Materials: Packing materials, a yellow bin, a sign, and a rope safety barrier
For a fully-realised reproduction, in addition to the above I will require:
A funding partner: Able to cover associated costs
A travel partner: Able to fly participants to Perth from the US
An advertising/promotional partner: To get behind this project
“Please Do Not Enter” has been described as:
A good comment on the disposable American society.
And:
Absolutely brilliant. There is so much debate about what is — and isn’t — art… It’s a conversation between two people on opposite sides of the issue
Another reaction:
Wow. I didn’t see all that.
Given the global impact of exported American culture, I feel that the social commentary made by “Please Do Not Enter” is pertinent within a contemporary Western Australian context. Moreover, the piece has a modern cultural reference which will resonate with the general public.
If this project achieves a high level of support, I would like to get the original materials and participants (chiefly the security guard from the original installation at the Smithsonian American Art Museum). I would also like to invite the original artist to comment on their work.
This site has been pretty quiet (with only one blog post for each of the last two months). Everything seems to be happening on twitter and facebook these days, and my blogging time is usually split between Let’s Make Games and Guts Up!.
In order to compensate for the lack of updates of late, I’m posting a brief summary of what I’ve been up to in the last couple of months.
April:
Broke my phone. Gah! The screen looked like it was shattered and then the pieces were stuck back on, but it was pretty new and still worked… so I had trouble justifying replacing it. Plus, I’m lazy.
Attended X|Media|Lab Perth. I’ve had a post about this sitting in my drafts for weeks, but I’ll summarise a little here: A great way to tap into experience and explore ideas, and critically analyse your project and team. Also, Minh was part of a winning team. Go Minh!
Moved house. Back into the family home. My parents are overseas indefinitely and the place has been renovated and emptied, but it still feels a little… nostalgic. It’s got a big yard and the cats are happy. We’re probably going to be unpacking boxes for a while… but we’re pretty settled now.
My poor broken phone (a Huawei IDEOS). It was my first smartphone and amazing value for money. I wish that I hadn’t dropped it:
Trip to Melbourne: Heidi had a practical exam in Melbourne and we turned the trip into a week-long affair. We celebrated our second wedding anniversary and mostly spent time with her sister’s family. I caught up with my brother and cousin, and spent the week in a state of perpetual satiety due to the abundance of goodfood (and vegetarian fast food).
Business planning: My love for spreadsheets has reached new depths. They’re one of the best tools for informed decision-making. I’ve also grown to love Google Docs, and I abhor when I have to go back to using non-collaborative office programs.
Got a new phone: Yay! Why didn’t I get this earlier. The screen is huge and it’s better than the old phone in every way. Except it’s quite a bit bigger…
Two of my favourite Melbourne dishes: Cucumber w/ Garlic Sauce and Deep-fried Chicken in Chilli (from Sichuan House):
Bruce all settled into the new place, and enjoying a tree in the back/side yard:
One last thought: I was amazed that Google doesn’t have Melbourne public transport in Google maps, and even more amazed to realise how much I depend on it (and my GPS-enabled smartphone) here in Perth.
My basic process was: fine line work using an Artline 200, followed by thicker lines using a Sharpie, and then shading using a 2B pencil. I think it worked out well. In regards to the actual sketches, the rhino is probably my favourite. After that the ghost bat eating a mouse, and then the zebra (although the head is a little big).
Simon and Jenna (the event organiser; thanks!) have also put some of their sketches online. It’s interesting to see how different people approach the same subject matter, and I feel that there is a lot I can learn at these events. 😉
Note: The photos are slightly amber due to lighting. They were originally even more orange, but I desaturated them a little using a command I picked up from Suovainaja’s blog post on using mogrify:
Minh, Simon, and I have been working on our web start-up Guts Up! which has subsequently become part of a much larger venture with Justin (our business development guy) pulling in contacts and lining up all sorts of stuff.
We’re now looking to form a parent company and various subsidiaries with very specific business models (one of them being Guts Up! with a focus on web development). We don’t really like to think about it in those terms though. Essentially, we are a deeply committed team and we want to collaborate with other people when it makes sense. So we’re viewing the parent as a band or record label (but less like The Man) and the subsidiaries as collaborations.
It all feels very exciting and we’re getting an amazing amount of stuff done each day. The lunch-time conversations and camaraderie are fantastic. Perhaps more important is how we resolve problems when they arise. We all want this venture to succeed, so we raise concerns with little reserve and work together to resolve them quickly. It can be a bit emotional at times (since we’re very passionate), but we produce much better outcomes and get to know each other on a deeper level.
I could write more about the last few weeks, but I’ll just list some practical tips:
Work the same hours at the same location
Write about what you are doing while you are doing it
Talk to people (in person, on the phone, or over Skype)
Have some methodology and time-frames (we use Agile)
Share a vision for what you want to be (individually and as a group)
Your gut feeling is right 99% of the time
Some of the above tips may be pretty specific to us (eg. other people may be super-productive even when working remotely), but I would imagine that they would apply to lots of other people.
The relevance of the last tip may be conditional on your having a highly-developed gut. I guess what I was getting at is: don’t work with people or on projects that give you a bad vibe. Assuming that you’re not a judgemental jerk, there’s probably a good reason for the bad vibe.
Minh, Simon, and I are working on a new project to explore web development. Our goal is essentially to become super-proficient with web technology so that we can create exciting web-based media. When we have the skills to efficiently realise our ideas and deliver them to the web, we will have achieved our goal!
If you want to follow what we’re doing, we’ve started a group tumblog for project updates: http://gutsup.tumblr.com/
To be honest, I never really though much of web development while I was at university. It just didn’t seem hardcore enough (likewise regarding databases). I was all into real-time rendering and computer graphics. I also didn’t really understand the need for XML (Why try to make data human-readable? It’ll always be interpreted by a program right?).
Over the last few years, I’ve become increasingly interested in web technology. I think it’s because of the accessibility and universality of it all. I can access websites from pretty much anywhere, and on a whole bunch of different devices. Nothing to install. Nothing to maintain. On top of that, there is a huge amount of content online. The web is far and away my favourite source of media.
Complimenting my increasing usage of all things online, I’ve seen a marked decline in my consumption of all other forms of media. I don’t watch TV. I don’t buy CDs (I prefer Grooveshark). I dislike buying games on physical media (I don’t want more stuff!). I even dislike installing programs on my computer and portable devices. Just give me a browser and an Internet connection, and I’m happy.
Bearing all that in mind, it feels very natural to want to work in web development. It’s the cutting edge. It’s the future. It’s relevant. Moreover, it’s a fantastic time to be developing for the web: consider HTML5, CSS3, Javascript – and more specifically the Audio, Video, and Canvas elements, and WebGL.
I really enjoyed developing my HTML5 game, “It’s Lonely Being Alive“, and I want to find out what else I can do in a web browser. It’s great to know that I can produce stuff quickly, and easily link it to the rest of the web. I want my media anywhere and at any time, and as a result I only want to produce work that can be delivered in that way.
There’s been a decline in traditional media consumption and massive consolidation in the “AAA” games industry. I’m guessing it’s because online media is dominating consumer interest. I know that most of the time I’d rather browse the web than play games or watch television, and I can’t see that changing.
Bring on the future! Oh wait, it’s already here. 🙂
I recently encountered two interesting examples of interactive storytelling.
The first is “1979: The Game”, a work that explores the history of Iran in 1979, during the Iranian Revolution. Russia Today interviewed the creative force behind the game, Iranian-born American Navid Khonsari (of Ink Stories).
Here’s a video:
And here is an quote on why the game is set in Iran – touching upon how games can present a unique form of engaging interactive storytelling:
I became to realise that there’s a number of different sides to a story, and that this aspect if introduced in a game kinda revolutionises the way we play games.
It’s not a matter of good guys going after bad guys or bad guys going after good guys. It’s a matter of a whole bunch of people in a number of different colours, whether they’re Iranian, American, pro-democracy, pro-theocracy. Whether they want to just make money on the side by sneaking in alcohol, or whether they want to make sure that everyone follows the religious rules of Islam.
These are all different stories, and to be able to actually convey that and let people interact as those players, I thought would just open up this entire genre of gaming.
The key point is that games can allow players to make meaningful decisions to guide the narrative. Rather than have the authors’ views (explicitly) imposed upon them, players form their own unique experience. This approach may make the game more like a documentary film.
I generally feel that player experience will be guided somewhat (often implicitly as a result of game design decisions; I wrote about this in a post on narrative in Minecraft), but players can explore a wide range of roles and reach their own conclusions as to the effects and merits of their actions.
Khonsari later talks about how “there are no good guys” to which Anastasia Churkina inquires “In the game, or in the real world?”. Khonsari’s response:
In the real world, in the real world. In games it might exist, but games are really a reflection of what we’re seeing in entertainment, what we’re seeing in politics.
Clearly this work is coming at the convergence of games and film from the other direction (film), and it appears to be more of an exploration of how interactive elements can be used to interface with a branching story (rather than completely empowering players to make difficult moral choices).
Still the limited interactivity is probably more to do with subject matter and technology (filmed scenes rather than simulated 3D environment). Most of the appeal of this project come down to the high production values and focus on an accessible user interface and playful interaction, and I feel that this project has the potential to open up interactive storytelling to a wide market of people who wouldn’t ordinarily play video games.
I feel that the most intriguing characteristic of video games is the option for players to essentially write their own stories. Game designers essentially write meta-stories – frameworks within which players are invited to contribute to events as partners.
In many games, the player contributes little more than slowly progressing the story and there tend to be negative ramifications if the player acts against the game designers’ intent. However, games have the capacity for much more and I’m glad to see mainstream developers pushing games in that direction.
