Event #3

Event #3

Staring in the Age of Destruction

S.A.D.

On this Thursday, June 3, 2016, a day after a tragic event on the UCLA campus, I went to an event in the event center called Staring in the Age of Destruction or S.A.D. This event meant a lot after yesterdays tragedy. Walking into the exhibit there was so much going on my friend and I felt pretty long. There was no flow of projects but they all had an aspect of darkness to them which were all kind of creepy. Some actually were not as creepy as others and because of that they stuck out and seemed to no fit. 

Me starting to play the game

One work that caught my attention the most was [Project Iron]. It is described as "An interactive exploration of the spaces and images evoked by sketches drawn by the artist over the course of several months. It got its name from the attempt to combine a passionate interest in gameplay-driven interactivity with a desire to create a richly detailed and expressive environment."

 

(Some gameplay screenshots)

This part of the exhibit caught my attention because it looked like a video game and I am a gamer. Since I was a kid, If I saw a controller sitting there, and the words "press start" then by all means i am going to press start and give the game a try. It started out kind of messed up because the artist said that there was supposed to be a tutorial that popped up and walked you through the game. Since it didn't work he tried to restart it and try a different version. This different version ended up being worse because it had major glitches that made you restart. So he put back on the better version with no tutorial. I started to figure out how the game works. You are this little robot thing and you can switch between these two worlds kind of and get through what seems like a maze to find these red dots.

After I gave up, I had a conversation with the artist. I asked him what was the real purpose of the game. He described the game as an industrial science fiction game. I asked him if the game was beatable like is there an end goal. He responded that the real objective of the game is to get to the other side of the bridge that you start on. He said that the red dots that you try to get give you power ups and allow you to run faster and jump higher. He believe this piece is fun and very approachable which it really is.

My teammate, Jacob, the artist, Tobias Heinemann, and Me