I initially drew some ideas for board game designs...
...and then tried to develop this idea on to illustrator. Having not really used illustrator before, I have found this particularly difficult, getting to grips with the software and trying to get my ideas onto screen! This has certainly helped to develop my skills.
Even though I liked the idea of being a 'clone' of my family members, I found this difficult to document and expand. It felt like I was playing a game - which lead me on to the idea of creating a board game incorporating the typical life of a Hunter family member. A board game would give anybody the chance to experience a moment of time within our household.
I started by brainstorming my family members everyday ups and downs, and then researched different board games to help me expand on my idea.
Different style games include ones which use a game board, use cards, roll a dice, collect money, race around a board, draw pictures, collect points, chose characters, 2 player, multiplayer etc.
The Game of Life
A popular board game which simulates a person's travels through his or her life, from college to retirement, with jobs, marriage and children possible along the way, collecting both points and money along the way.
7 Wonders
A card-based civilisation board game, created in 2010 and considered the current number 1 board game. The game is played through 3 different ages in history, and aim is to build your city and win the most victory points by encountering different achievements/delays in science, military or economy opportunity.
Monopoly
The best selling, most popular board game in the world. A game of chance, luck, wheeling and dealing - buy, sell, mortgage houses and hotels whilst avoiding time in jail! The person with the most assets and money at the end wins. Now adapted to fit any country/city/cartoon/band/fantasy possible!
Pay Day
The classic games which makes family finance fun as you move along the game board designed as a 31-day calendar. Make a profit, win the lottery, or lose on a bad investment. Play as many months as you like and after you've paid off all your bills, the richest is the winner.
My time as family members, and trying to be their clone, reminded me of Dolly the Sheep and the controversial breakthrough in science back in 1996 when Dolly was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell. Dolly was important not only because of the breakthrough in science, but because she captured the public imagination. The idea that there might be an exact copy of oneself somewhere in the world is a theme that has been pursued in science fiction many times, and the prospect that it might be possible to clone a human being excited a lot of speculation and interest.
Dolly the Sheep
From this idea of cloning I looked into artists who used this theme within their work.
Mauro Perucchetti
"12 years ago I created a body of work inspired by the dilemma between cloning and religion, and cloning and medical ethics. I decided to use the jelly baby as an impersonation of cloned making. I was trying to capture the ambiguity that could be present in a cloned being. On first glance, they seem very sweet, but from certain angles they can look slightly sinister, especially on a large scale."
One idea I tried was to simulate someone else's reality, by becoming that person. I picked members of my family & tried to become them - their mannerisms, clothing, facial expressions, phrases, handwriting etc.
Dorothy:
This is a short video of my time as my mother.
Claire:
This is a short video showing part of my life as my sister. (Claire is on the left of the movie clips). I wore her clothes, tried to copy her mannerisms, facial expressions and became her 'clone' for a few days.
Initially I had much difficultly in thinking of an idea which creates a simulating experience. Ideas were either too large scale and inappropriate for the time scale, or they did not seem to fit the brief. As well as looking at the recommended artists, I tried to expand my research and find other artists who's designs I thought linked to this theme.
Noam Toran 'Desire Management' is a film comprising of 5 sequences in which objects are used as vehicles for dissident behaviour. It includes an air hostess with a unique relationship to turbulence, an elderly man who enjoys being vacuumed, a couple who engage with baseball driven fantasies, the owner of a box which men ritually visit to look inside, and a man who is forced to cry into a strange device.
Fernando Casasempere
The latest work currently at Somerset house by artist Fernando Casasempere, is an installation of 10,000 ceramic flowers. The artist is trying to re-create the joy we feel at the sight of blossoming daffodils signalling the end of winter and the beginning of spring.
I like how this artist has emphasised on trying to re-create a specific feeling.
Leandro Erlich:
Erlich has created a full sized swimming pool, complete with a ladder, which when first viewed creates a surreal scene: people standing, walking, fully clothed and breathing under water! It is intact a layer of water only 10 centimetres deep suspended over transparent glass.
I found this artist really interesting, how he brings impossible and exaggerating scenes to reality. I then looked into some of his other works including:
The Boat
Rain
Jeff Koons
Jeff Koon's flower puppy is a permeant display outside the Bilbao Guggenheim gallery, Spain. "I wanted to make a piece of work that people could really feel a sense of warmth which has to do with the relationship of God".
Oliver Voss
A 13ft, woman statue "Die Badende" was installed on Hamburg's Alster lake. It was created to encourage people to enjoy exploring the city via water, however I thought the design fitted this brief of simulating reality - either for the reason of sexual pleasure, or simply simulating the pleasure enjoyed when taking a bath.
David Cerny
Climb the ladder, stick your head into the bottom, and you'll find yourself watching a short film of 2 politicians feeding each other, and a musical loop of Queen's 'We are the Champions'. Simulating all sorts of reality?!!
Bird Nest Bed
If you ever felt the desire to sleep like a bird - here's the answer!
Pop-Up book phobias
I liked this idea of trying to simulate a feeling through a book, rather than a series of photographs or films.
To help with initial inspiration, I look at several artists from the list provided on the brief.
Louise Bourgeois
"The spiders were an ode to my mother. She was a tapestry woman, and like a spider, was a weaver. She protected me and was my best friend. The spiders, which are portraits of my mother, are large because she was a monument to me. I want to walk around and be underneath her and feel her protection."
Tate Modern, London, 2007
Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2008
Michael Landy
For his piece Semi-Detached the artist Michael Landy re-created a copy of the house where his father lives. He copied it in every detail, right down to the bits of flaking paint. This work of art acts like a portrait: a portrait of his father as a house.
Tate Britain, 2004
Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson created a giant sun using mirrors, light and mist for The Weather Project, which he said was the basis for exploring ideas about experience and mediation.
Tate Modern, London, 2003
Lucinda Devlin
A series of thirty chilling photographs of execution chambers and associated spaces, such as holding cells and viewing rooms. The Omega Suites brings focus to one of the great ethical questions facing contemporary Americans, about which public opinion continues to be passionate.
Lethal injection chamber, Huntsville, 1992
"Yellow Mama" electric chair, Atmore, Alabama, 1991
Lethal injection chamber, Nevada State Prison, 1991
www.sharkdiver.com
"The year you will finally meet the sharks of your dreams...so, if you're ready, let’s go shark diving!"
Casualties Union
Casualties Union is a charity that through casualty simulation provides casualties and patients for those who teach first aid, nursing and rescue - The treatment of illness, nursing, rescue, accident prevention, care in the community and similar activities.
Simulated wounds appear very realistic.
www.secondlife.com
Second Life is an online virtual world with a simulated environment where users inhabit and interact via avatars, or graphical representations the virtual world may depict a real world or a fantasy world. With infinite possibilities, live a life without boundaries, guided only by your imagination.
In 2006, Anshe Chung became the first person who made $1million, by buying and selling virtual land in second life.
You can be whoever you want to be...
www.changethatsrightnow.com
Change Thats Right Now (CTRN) helps individuals, organizations and communities make fast, profound change by removing the fears, anxieties and phobias that keep them from reaching their true potential. Most session are conducted over the telephone, or through a home study CD. There are hundred of phobias they can help you combat including the common phobias such as Flying or Public Speaking.
Design and build a simulation which triggers a specific experience or emotion in the user/viewer.
Initial Research:
Below is a list of films I have watched to kick start my inspiration and ideas.
Altered States
A 1980 fiction-horror film based on a scientist who conducts experiments on himself with a hallucinatory drug and an isolation chamber and begins to experience disturbing physical changes
Dark City
A man struggles with memories of his past including a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun. The world is run by 'The Strangers' who possess the ability to put people to sleep and alter the city and its inhabitants.
Oldboy
A man is kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years without explanation. He is released equipped with money, clothes and a mobile phone. He is given 5 days to seek explanations and revenge, whilst his kidnapper has a greater plan to bring more pain and upset by tricking his (unknown) daughter to fall in love with him.
eXistenZ
The world's leading game designer is testing her latest game with a focus group, and as they begin, she is attacked by an assassin. She flees with a Ted, who is suddenly assigned as her bodyguard. Unfortunately, her pod, an organic gaming device that contains the only copy of the eXistenZ game program, is damaged. To inspect it, she talks Ted into accepting a gameport in his own body so he can play the game with her. The resulting game leads the pair on a strange adventure leaving the audience wondering is reality and what is the game.
Goodbye Lenin
To protect his fragile mother from a fatal shock after a long coma, her young son Alex must keep her from learning that her beloved nation of East Germany as she knew it has disappeared. Alex and his sister revert the gaudy western decor of his mothers bedroom back to the dull & drab decor before her accident, dress in their old clothes, and feed her from old-labeled jars and even film fake TV reports in a bit to protect her from any shock.
