Text: Twelfth Night.
Tried this in the studio with Rob and Thom, Rob does sound design and lectures in Gateshead and Thom is an animator and works with digital technology. I was going to try two game versions but did just the one. My worries about the fact that the words are just text on card seemed to not be a worry to them. Thom said playing cards, are just card, but it is what is on them, and maybe the simplicity is a key element. I thought relating it to a pack of cards, and therefore it is what is on the card that makes the game, is a good point once more going back to the idea of components. But still is the text lacking in aesthetic visual oomph. Though making them out of something that would have more worth would limit an idea I had that I could make batches of the game and give it away to people to play at home or their workplace.
I have learnt to rely on the numbers for the order of the text to be discovered. I wondered about showing the lines on a big board and moving away from the numbers, do the numbers distract from the text, but would it be too hard if they were actually looking for the text. I may try this next as an experiment. Print out the text big, then connect it to the text on the body, and not use numbers. I could try that on my own to start with, though then it negates the idea of mirror writing, so maybe won’t try this, though is there a way to find the text without the numbers.
Myself and Murray did start to help Rob locate the text on his body as Thom ws pulling ahead. This is something I have been wondering about and wanting to develop, to look at maybe two teams playing the game and that the people round help the person representing their team to find the line.
What is the optimum number of lines, tried 8 each this time. So could this be some kind of team game, with those around helping to find the lines> I hope I can try this. So maybe there is looking at the way that I am creating a map of engagement two levels to this, those inside playing it, and those outside helping those in it to find the word sentence. So there is incorporated participants and incorporated spectators.
I have never before thought of the spectators as being part of the game space, art happening. Yes I was interested in the idea that those around were drawn into the activity or that those around supported those in the activity, but now, have moved to this new notion that those around can help those participating in the activity. Opening up the space for involvement. But also creating a notion of teams almost.
WAIT – I may be on to something here, as there is the whole culture of participants and of computer games making active participants, but also in game culture there is the idea of people watching others play, and also the idea of Twitch and Esports. But what about a game where the audience actually do have a role in helping out the participants in the experience? So it all comes back to Mozart a la chocolate. The work with two layers of audience, those outside and those inside the experience. The inside outside, but maybe you can make something that covers it all.
Rob seemed pretty into it, of all the games we played, which was good, and he said he might try it with his kids. Though he’d have to make it with mirror writing etc I thought. But a nice sentiment. He said that he felt like he wanted to rush into the mirror each time, so he was working with and as an opponent to Thom, even though there was no clear end goal for victory.
research 