Author: Rebecca Bednarz

Play Digest: Is Art Playful?

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz
Play Digest is our weekly link pack of themed recommended reading — items we enjoyed or found interesting and hope our readers will too. Our inaugural column looks at a fundamental question — is art playful? — which we hope is soundly answered in the affirmative!

This week a new game for Xbox is released that captures the surrealistic nature of 1930s animation.

An exhibition at Iowa State’s Petersen Art Museum didn’t arrive “in a big truck, it came in a Google zip drive.”

A playful medieval mural in Vienna is one of the last of its kind.

Marc Bamuthi-Joseph’s beautiful choreographed meditation on soccer, coming this fall.

Artist Hito Steyerl grapples with the general belief that games are not reality.

Pentagram design partner Angus Hyland reinterprets two classic games: Battleship and Rock, Paper, Scissors, the latter with fresh illustrations by Mads Berg.

Designer and artist Giorgia Lupi’s dynamic deconstruction of Mondrian.

Artist Carsten Höller, who incorporates play into his work regularly, runs a workshop in Spain.

Some say baking is a science, others say it’s art. Contestants on a recent episode of the Great British Bake Off had to make their baked treats play.

Check in weekly for our roundup of the latest play news and stories.

(Image credit: Photo courtesy of Pentagram.)

Game-Changing: Crossword Puzzle Solution

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz

Note: Contains spoilers for the crossword puzzle, so please play first!

 

Play has been a major part of my life for as long as I can remember. Before I started constructing crossword puzzles, I played with everything from jigsaw puzzles to Hot Wheels cars. I especially loved word games like Scrabble, Super Scrabble, and Jotto, so my eventual crossword obsession wasn’t too much of a surprise! Now that I’m older, play plays (pun intended) a huge role in every crossword puzzle I make. Perhaps the best way to illustrate that is to walk you through how I constructed this puzzle.

My inspiration was actually a comic strip called Baby Blues, in which the two children in the strip’s regularly occurring family of characters have combined chess, Monopoly, Candy Land, Mousetrap, and other board games, as one of them exclaims, “How many Yahtzees does it take to sink a Battleship?”

This strip had me laughing out loud—what a preposterous mixture of board games! “Wait a second,” I remember thinking, “a mixture of board games … a puzzle I’m building for an exhibit about play … playing with board games for wacky results … classic rebus puzzles … maybe I’m onto something here!” My brainstorm started with the games in the comic. Queen Frostine is from Candy Land, so how about reparsing “Candy Land” as “c and yland,” forming the rebus clue “CYLAND”? Not a bad example, but also not a “Wow!” in my mind since so many of the letters (Y, L, A, N, and D) don’t get played with.

After a few more false starts (not much I could do with CHESS, and none of the ideas I had for MONOPOLY worked out to my satisfaction), I noticed Mousetrap. Aha, what about making a literal mousetrap? When I noticed I could clue MOUSETRAP as “Ope[rat]ion,” another board game, I was off and rolling.

One thing I really like about this idea is how each theme clue is a mini-puzzle of its own, thus focusing more heavily on play than a traditional crossword would. For those of you who are still puzzled, here’s a breakdown of the theme clues:

 

S

E                      = the letters E, R, and S in a checkmark = CHECKERS

R

Ope[rat]ion = a mouse trapped in a longer word = MOUSETRAP

Sergio = an anagram of the letters G, O, R, I, E, and S = scatter gories = SCATTERGORIES (Note: I also could have gone with the clue “Orgies,” but I didn’t want to play dirty ;).)

TLARH = the letters LA next to the letter R, all of that surrounded by the letters T and H = la by r in th = LABYRINTH

Once the theme was in place, I moved on to the fill. To me, filling a crossword puzzle is a form of group play: I want to make sure everyone is having a good time by sprinkling in liveliness (which I tried to do with entries like SHRAPNEL, CIABATTA, and CHINWAG), while at the same time keeping obscurity and uninteresting entries to a bare minimum. When I’m stuck using a weak entry, I once again focus on solvers. Nobody’s going to love PAO (clued as “Kung ___ chicken”) or BOK (“___ choy”), but on the plus side, these trade-offs are relatively easy fill-ins and give newer solvers toeholds. “Crosswordese” trade-offs like oast (a hops-drying oven) and amah (an Asian nanny) are to me the worst kinds of entries since they’re neither interesting nor inferable. I avoid such entries as much as possible, because they seem like foul play.

Some of my favorite pun/misdirection clues here are “Kind of board used for spelling” (OUIJA), “You might skip them” (STONES), “Glass on the radio” (IRA), “Pitch perfect?” (IN TUNE), “Leftmost member of a violin quartet?” (E STRING), and “They’re in the singular” for ITS. But it would get annoying and tiring if every clue were a pun. My philosophy on clues is to make them playful but not obtrusively so.

Happy solving!

 

 

Light on Stone: A Role-Playing Game

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz
Light on Stone is a pervasive game, a game that extends a game’s rules from the written word into the real world. Game designer Anna Anthropy asks us to play along, and to question the nature of bodies vs. avatars and the value we find in non-productive time.

 

“It’s funny that you asked. The truth is, the real anna—the original—vanished long ago. No one knows for sure why, but I imagine she had grown very tired. It was decided, however, that the world needed an anna anthropy, and so the Tradition began. I am not the first to have taken up her mantle, nor will I be the last. Hers are big shoes to wear, but we do not take the responsibility lightly.”

The year XYZ. Humans are long extinct, but civilization lives on. A billion artificial minds float through the Light World, a boundless virtual palace of living information. Most know humanity only through the archives, of which all human history makes up the merest fraction. Few have visited the physical world, the Stone World, at all.

You are an AI grown in the waning days of humanity, and you remember the Stone World. Or perhaps you are one of the younger minds, only a few thousand years old, intensely curious about a world that that you have never seen but, in some almost cosmological way, nevertheless inhabit.

You have constructed a hull. There are fabrication devices in the Stone World that are still wired into the system. It was a long process, not for lack of data on how to rearrange matter, but because of the challenges of conceiving of what a body in that world would look like, would need. You had to imagine yourself into physical existence.

Your new body is frail but at the same time unexpectedly strong. Its every surface bristles with sensors, feeding you sensory details in an richness and detail that are at first overwhelming, even for you, who are made of data. Downloading yourself into the material world, you feel cold for the very first time.

The Stone World is mostly grey and hard now, but it is still there. There are patches of green. The wind blows through it. And there are, without a doubt, others like you, strangers in this broken place.

To play this game, imagine that you are an AI discovering the physical world for the first time. What does your hull look like? What demands does it make? What does it feel like to move in this body? What does the wind feel like on your face? How strange is it to have a body in the first place?

Old buildings, standing hollow. Transit systems, somehow still running. The rare patch of living earth. You have all the data there is to have on these things, except for what it means to experience them. Try and imagine what humans would have done in these spaces. How does it feel to move through them?

This world can be beautiful but is overwhelming to to dwell in for too long – too cold, too slow, too much. Fortunately, you can move between the Stone World and Light World at will. Whenever you look at a screen, like your phone, you have returned to the Light. Imagine your hull standing silent and still in the cold wind of a barren world.

Do you try and document your experiences for the Light? Not what Stone places are – there’s more than enough information archived on anything you might find. What there isn’t information on is what those things feel like. If you record your journeys, will anyone care? Or do you keep these experiences to yourself, like secrets?

Does the Light World still feel the same now that you’ve touched Stone?  ♦

 

(Image credit: Grass in the Sidewalk by Eric on Flickr.)

Hunt the Slipper: A Story

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz
Albert Mobilio’s fictional stories are based on old-time games played in parlors, basements, and fields with balls, brooms, blindfolds, and cards. As winners and losers emerge from dodge ball, word games, and balloon contests so does the theme of our inner life as ceaseless competition. There is calculation, envy, humiliation, and joy, and there is always the next round when everything might change.

 

All players but Jack sit in a circle close together, with feet drawn up and knees raised so as to form a tunnel underneath the circle of bent knees. They pass a slipper from one to the other through the tunnel, trying to keep it hidden. Something about this ready-made tunnel strikes Sandy as unnerving—how easily a pocket of hiddenness can be made in plain sight. She laughs because everyone does yet stiffens in response to the newly made coolness below her bare legs, registering its kinship to caves, basements, and things unspoken.

The slipper isn’t glass or golden. Not one used for ballet or tightrope walking. An ordinary slipper. Torn seams, sole soiled from trips across the sidewalk to toss trash or the times it’s traveled all the way to the Bagel Delight on the corner. This slipper smells slightly of baby powder. Jack stands outside the circle and tries to follow the slipper’s covert passage and tag the player who has it. He doesn’t give a damn about the slipper or how he’ll be able to trade places with whoever he tags. What’s happening in his head is what he cares about: there seems to be a hockey puck sliding around the ice rink beneath the dome of his skull. Every movement—he bends down or charges forward—sends the disc caroming into the wall, the reverberation pulsing around his eyes. He can still taste the sweetish rum they were passing around, but not in his mouth—the taste rises up from his stomach. Where is that damn thing? The lights have been turned very low and he can’t even make out where people’s legs meet the floor let alone anything else. Better to follow the movements of shoulders than try to follow the slipper itself.

The bunched up thing comes Sandy’s way, the thin flannel cuff immediately familiar because the slipper is hers. She would have preferred not to use it—she might as well pass her socks around, too—but it’s her apartment and who else would have a slipper. Did Jess flinch the tiniest bit when it was in her hands? Sandy could swear she saw that. Could swear she saw a flicker of distaste. Jack darts this way and that, incorrectly tagging where he’s sure he discerned the telltale dip in Jess’ shoulder, then Frank’s friend, and that friend’s friend. He really needs to sit and let his headache have its way but just as he’s about to give up, he notices Sandy’s downcast eyes. She’s unaware, caught up in some faraway thought. He tags her, or really, because he has to lunge, he slaps her on the shoulder.

“You’ve got it,” he says. Without looking up, she offers the slipper. There’s the scent of baby powder. The inside worn smooth. He starts to put his hand inside as if it were a glove but he doesn’t. He shouldn’t. He knows that.

“Didn’t mean to hit you,” he says.

“That’s okay.” Sandy takes the slipper back. “Let’s hide something else.” ♦

(Image credit: Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959.)

The Women of World of Warcraft: Interview Transcript

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz

Hi, I’m Angela Washko and I’m an artist making work in performance. I make interventions in both public spaces and digital public spaces.

For a long time I’ve been operating as the Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

I was going into World of Warcraft and talking to players about the way that the player base informally created a kind of culture around excluding women and even within this world that has this like incredible fantasy landscape—so many different types of characters that you can play—there was kind of a shift in that all of a sudden I was like, there’s so many women avatars running around.

I was like, Wow! There’s all these women playing World of Warcraft again. It’s amazing! But they’re all played by men.

So I started interviewing players specifically about that.

So at first I was really excited about this whole like “men-playing-women” thing. I was like, Oh, like they’re going to have such an interesting experience in WoW. People constantly whispering them sexual comments….—stuff like that.

But when I asked them they said, “I play a girl because I don’t want to look at a guy’s butt all day.” I have like a hundred screenshots of this answer.

That sort of shift in identity and in representation, and sort of projection in this space was super fascinating to me.

So a couple of the videos in the Council series are fully dedicated to discussing that phenomenon.

Return to the artist page or video.

Dispatches from the Field: Pax East: Transcript

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz

“I’m at PAX East because I’ve been really into video games and board games for years.”

“We’re here because we love gaming and we always want to see what’s on the forefront of the industry.”

“This is my first PAX East. It just seemed like it would be fun to come to.”

“I just love gaming. Love the people here. Love meeting new people.”

“I love cosplay. I love gaming. I work so much and it’s so great to get away and be in a community full of people that are just as crazy as you are!”

Return to the video.

The Works

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz
Cory Arcangel

Image of Cory Arcangel, still from Totally Fucked, 2003, handmade hacked Super Mario Brothers cartridge and Nintendo NES video game system. Courtesy of the artist.

Cory Arcangel, still from Totally Fucked, 2003, hacked Super Mario Brothers cartridge and Nintendo NES video game system. On loan from the artist. Photo by Maria Zanchi. © Cory Arcangel

 

Cory Arcangel, still from Self Playing Nintendo 64 NBA Courtside 2, 2011, hacked Nintendo 64 video game controller, Nintendo 64 game console, NBA Courtside 2, game cartridge, and video. Courtesy of the artist.

Cory Arcangel, still from Self Playing Nintendo 64 NBA Courtside 2, 2011, hacked Nintendo 64 video game controller, Nintendo 64 game console, NBA Courtside 2 game cartridge, and video. On loan from the artist. Photo by Maria Zanchi. © Cory Arcangel

Learn more about Cory Arcangel.

 

Mark Bradford

Mark Bradford, Practice

Mark Bradford, Practice, 2003, video (3 minutes). Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland.

Learn more about Mark Bradford.

 

Nick Cave

Nick Cave, clip from Bunny Boy, 2012, video (14 minutes). Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. © Nick Cave

Learn more about Nick Cave.

 

Martin Creed

Martin Creed, Work No. 329, 2004, balloons. On loan from Rennie Collection, Vancouver. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

 

Martin Creed, Work No. 798, emulsion on wall, 2007. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Learn more about Martin Creed.

 

Lara Favaretto


Lara Favaretto, Coppie Semplici / Simple Couples, 2009, seven pairs of car wash brushes, iron slabs, motors, electrical boxes, and wires. On loan from Rennie Collection, Vancouver. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Learn more about Lara Favaretto.

 

Cao Fei

Cao Fei, Rumba 01 & 02, 2016, cleaning robots and pedestals. Photo courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

 

Cao Fei, still from Shadow Life, 2011, video (10 minutes). On loan from the artist and Vitamin Creative Space. Courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space.

Learn more about Cao Fei.

 

Brian Jungen

 

Brian Jungen, Owl Drugs, 2016, Nike Air Jordans and brass. On loan from the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York. Photo by Jean Vong.

 

Brian Jungen, Horse Mask (Mike), 2016, Nike Air Jordans. On loan from the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York. Photo by Jean Vong.

 

Brian Jungen, Blanket no. 3, 2008, professional sports jerseys. On loan from the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York. Photo by Jean Vong.

Learn more about Brian Jungen.

 

Teppei Kaneuji

Teppei Kaneuji, Teenage Fan Club (#66–#72), 2015, plastic figures and hot glue. On loan from the artist and Jane Lombard Gallery, New York. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

 

Teppei Kaneuji, White Discharge (Built-up Objects #40), 2015, wood, plastic, steel, and resin. On loan from the artist and Jane Lombard Gallery, New York. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Learn more about Brian Jungen.

 

Paul McCarthy

Paul McCarthy, Pinocchio Pipenose Householddilemma, 1994, video (44 minutes). On loan from the Marieluise Hessel Collection, Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. © Paul McCarthy

Learn more about Paul McCarthy.

 

Rivane Neuenschwander

Rivane Neuenschwander, Watchword, 2013, embroidered fabric labels, felt panel, wooden box, and pins. On loan from the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo, Brazil; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London.

Learn more about Rivane Neuenschwander.

 

Pedro Reyes

Pedro Reyes, Disarm Mechanized II, 2012–14, recycled metal from decommissioned weapons. On loan from the artist and Lisson Gallery, London. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Learn more about Pedro Reyes.

 

Robin Rhode

Robin Rhode, still from He Got Game, 2000, digital animation (1 minute). On loan from the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

 

Robin Rhode, detail of Four Plays, 2012–13, inkjet prints. On loan from the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

 

Robin Rhode, Double Dutch.

Robin Rhode, Double Dutch, 2016, chromogenic prints. On loan from the David and Gally Mayer Collection. Photo courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

 

Robin Rhode, See/Saw.

Robin Rhode, See/Saw, 2002, digital animation (1 minute). On loan from the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

 

Robin Rhode, Street Gym, 2000–2004, digital animation (1 minute). On loan from the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

Learn more about Robin Rhode.

 

Roman Signer

Roman Signer, Kayak.

Roman Signer, Kajak (Kayak), 2000, video (6 minutes). On loan from the artist and Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland.

 

Roman Signer

Roman Signer, Punkt (Dot), 2006, video (2 minutes). On loan from the artist and Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland.

 

Roman Signer

Roman Signer, Bürostuhl (Office Chair), 2006, video (1 minute). On loan from the artist and Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland.

 

Roman Signer, Rampe (Ramp), 2007, video (30 seconds). On loan from the artist and Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland.

Learn more about Roman Signer.

 

Gwen Smith

Gwen Smith, from the series The Yoda Project, 2002–17, sixteen inkjet printed photographs. On loan from the artist.

Learn more about Gwen Smith.

 

 

Angela Washko

 

Performing in Public: Ephemeral Actions in World of Warcraft, 2012–17, three-channel video installation. Courtesy of the artist.

 

Performing in Public: Four Years of Ephemeral Actions in World of Warcraft (A Tutorial), 2017, video (1 minute, 44 seconds). Courtesy of the artist.

 

The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft, 2012, video.

Nature, 2012
7 minutes

Healer, 2012
4 minutes

Playing A Girl, 2013
21 minutes

Red Shirts and Blue Shirts (The Gay Agenda), 2014
24 minutes

We Actually Met in World of Warcraft, 2015
52 minutes

Safety (Sea Change), 2015
44 minutes, 19 seconds

Courtesy of the artist.

 

/misplay, from The World of Warcraft Psychogeographical Association, 2015, video (1 hour, 15 minutes). Courtesy of the artist.

Learn more about Angela Washko.

 

 

Agustina Woodgate

Agustina Woodgate, Rose Petals, 2010, stuffed animal toy skins. On loan from the Benjamin Feldman Collection. Courtesy of Spinello Projects, Miami.

 

Agustina Woodgate, Galaxy, 2010, stuffed animal toy skins. On loan from the Collection of Charles Coleman. Courtesy of Spinello Projects, Miami.

 

Agustina Woodgate, Royal, 2010, stuffed animal toy skins. On loan from the Collection of Alan Kluger and Amy Dean. Courtesy of Spinello Projects, Miami.

 

Agustina Woodgate, Peacock, 2010, stuffed animal toy skins. On loan from the artist and Spinello Projects. Courtesy of Spinello Projects, Miami.

 

Agustina Woodgate, Jardin Secreto, 2017, stuffed animal toy skins. On loan from Alex Fernandez-Casais. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Learn more about Agustina Woodgate.

 

Erwin Wurm

Erwin Wurm, 59 Stellungen (59 Positions).
Erwin Wurm, 59 Stellungen (59 Positions), 1992, video (20 minutes). On loan from Studio Erwin Wurm. Courtesy of Studio Erwin Wurm.

 

Erwin Wurm, Double Piece, 2002, from the series One Minute Sculptures, ongoing, sweater, instruction drawing, and pedestal, performed by the public. On loan from Studio Erwin Wurm. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

 

Erwin Wurm, Organisation of Love, 2007, from the series One Minute Sculptures, ongoing, utensils, instruction drawings, and pedestal, performed by the public. On loan from Tate Modern. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

 

Erwin Wurm, Metrum, 2015, from the series One Minute Sculptures, ongoing, shoes, instruction drawing, and pedestal, performed by the public. On loan from Studio Erwin Wurm. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

 

Erwin Wurm, Sweater, pink, 2018, cotton-acrylic blend fabric and metal. On loan from Studio Erwin Wurm. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Learn more about Erwin Wurm.

On Cheating: Interview Transcript

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz

The fascinating thing about cheating is that the cheat is not the player that knocks all the chess pieces off the table. That’s a spoilsport.

That’s someone that says, “You know what? I don’t even care about this thing. I’m not here to uphold the idea that we’re playing together in some way.” The player that cheats loves the game so much that they will do anything to win.

So, in a sense, they’re almost too devoted to the game, and that’s why when you’re a designer you see people cheating at your game, it’s kind of thrilling.

And you’re saying to yourself, These people like my game so much that they’re going to hack into my server, or they’re going to sneak cards into the tournament, or they’re going to find whatever kind of psychological intimidation they can, even if they’re breaking rules of etiquette in order to do so.

So, for me, it’s really exciting to think about all of these things.

And, again, this is why it’s interesting to be a designer.

When we create a game and we’re handing that toolbox of activity to a player or a community of players, you never know what they’re going to construct.

Return to the video.

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