Each student will create a video game using Twine that raises awareness
about a particular social issue that he/she feels has been inadequately
addressed in public discourse (and mainstream media). Artist statements
must refer to at least 3 research sources that address this issue (including
news stories, scholarly works, documentaries, etc.), and situate their game
(the perspectives it represents and the experience it provides) in relation
to these sources. Artist statement should also include a dicussion of the
aesthetic presentation of their ideas, the information provided, the political
perspective represented, and the way in which the game encourages
engagement (in the game and the issue itself).
Click here to try my game.engagement (in the game and the issue itself).
Artist statement:
J. A. Etzler believed there is a "paradise within the reach of all men." He was not talking about a supernatural paradise, or any comfort that is to be found in the world to come. J. A. Etzler was a man who held to the humanist belief that humankind could save itself. Etzler's idea was a technological paradise wherein food and shelter was automatically provided to everyone. This paradise was to be achieved, "without labor, by powers of nature and machinery." Imagine that. The forces of nature, harnessed, to do man's bidding. Great machines that provided the basics of survival, automatically, to all mankind.
Does this dream seem necessary? Too large? Too preposterous? Are we not doing fine, without such vast machinations to take our labor from us?
I do not think that we are doing so great. There are countless souls in our society that can barely provide for themselves.
According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”
How can we sit around, discussing the latest episode of a television show, while children are dying?
I created a game, using twine, that allows the user to explore a taste of the life of an american in poverty. Not abject, starving poverty. But something that a middle class individual could relate to. Something that, were we to stumble, to lose our jobs, to become sick---we could imagine ourselves being subjected to.
Within this game, I pulled references from other accounts of poverty. One reference is to a blog post which is, on its own, particularly striking. It is written to generate empathy for a group of people who often receive too little empathy. One passage finds the second-person narrator reading an article about poverty (which is very metaphysical event, considering).
"You’re reminded of this every time you read an article about boot straps and the iphone you supposedly have and how people like you are trading food stamps for drugs, and a thousand other things that are true for maybe the drunks at the front of the line, but not the 50 people standing behind them. You think someone wealthy somewhere is cackling about how easy it is to convince poor people to hate other poor people, to hate the things and people who try to help them, just so they can feel aligned with unanointed kings, false prophets in political clothes and the black-hearted gods of talk radio. You think about all these things, and remember that you don’t get paid to think."
Within this game, I pulled references from other accounts of poverty. One reference is to a blog post which is, on its own, particularly striking. It is written to generate empathy for a group of people who often receive too little empathy. One passage finds the second-person narrator reading an article about poverty (which is very metaphysical event, considering).
"You’re reminded of this every time you read an article about boot straps and the iphone you supposedly have and how people like you are trading food stamps for drugs, and a thousand other things that are true for maybe the drunks at the front of the line, but not the 50 people standing behind them. You think someone wealthy somewhere is cackling about how easy it is to convince poor people to hate other poor people, to hate the things and people who try to help them, just so they can feel aligned with unanointed kings, false prophets in political clothes and the black-hearted gods of talk radio. You think about all these things, and remember that you don’t get paid to think."
The intent is to cause the user to remember: poverty is real, and it happens to real people. People who don't deserve it. We can't hide from it. We can't cross to the other side of the street and not look at it.
We spend more than enough on defense and war, more than enough funding which could be rerouted to eliminate and prevent poverty. I'm not suggesting that a worldwide effort toward the Etzler Utopia is likely; I'm just saying I believe it is possible.
Sources
Blog, based on true story, with names altered
http://amandasledz.com/2013/09/a-day-in-the-life-of-poverty/
News outlet
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/7745868/Scientist-Craig-Venter-creates-life-for-first-time-in-laboratory-sparking-debate-about-playing-god.html
A .org website
http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats
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