PlayCo Commission: LUDIC PROXY Workshop Day 6: Stepping into video games…

July 12th, 2012  |  Published in News

We started to play with a video game format today, basically transforming the very realistic scene about the two sisters in Fukushima into a video game.  That may seem like a very odd choice, and it felt pretty risky in many ways.  But I wanted to begin to tap at into the potential of placing a character  or the audience in a position of power and control of a very sensitive situation, and see whether the gaming mechanism would change the way the scene might play out.

We experimented with a few different modes:

Magin was the “player” of the game and Saori and Makiko were character within the game.  In one iteration, Saori, as Magin’s avatar, was both a character in the game but also had the ability to speak to Magin to communicate what she felt her options were in the scene.  Then Magin would give her directives like “be more aggressive,” etc.

In another version, the basic set-up was the same as the above, but Saori was a character in the game as well as the designer of the game, so she had the ability to change fundamental givens of the game design, should she be directed to do so by Magin, who was kind of the player but also someone who seemed to be evaluating the game.  So for example, in the middle of the scene, Magin told Saori to “go back to the other version of the sister,” changing the kind of character Makiko was playing to make the game less challenging for the player.

Our exploration today really uncovered some pitfalls in the way this all worked.  For one thing, the roles needed to be more clearly defined.  The Player could not also function as someone who is permitted or able to manipulate The System.  The Avatar could not doubly function as The Designer.  Also in the space that was created for the manipulation of character and choices, the scene immediately lost its emotional veracity — which is not necessarily a bad thing, but something we need to be conscious of.  Also it became clear that we would need to map out the entire storyboard of all possible actions in the game as opposed to letting the controls be so loose.  An important day that will determine how we work over the next few rehearsals.

PlayCo Commission: LUDIC PROXY Workshop Day 5: Shifting Gears… Fukushima

Ludic Proxy Workshop Day 5: Shifting Gears… Fukushima

After spending half of the workshop period on the storyline of Brighton Beach / Pripyat, today we embarked on a journey in another direction.  With the wonderful actresses Saori Tsukada (former collaborator of John Moran and more recently in hoi polloi’s All Hands) and Makiko Ikeda along with Magin Schantz, we created a scene that would be the foundation for the rest of the workshop period.  The setting is Fukushima city, in Fukushima prefecture.  Technically this location is outside of the exclusion zone, and evacuation is not mandatory — in fact the official government line has been for residents to stay put and continue their regular lives.  In the scene, Saori lives in Tokyo and plays Makiko’s sister, who is pregnant and is living in Fukushima.  Saori is visiting her sister with the intention to convince Makiko to come back to Tokyo with her, fearing the affect of the radiation on her sister’s unborn child.  Makiko, whose husband works for city hall and is committed to the recovery efforts, does not feel she can leave her home or husband.  The scene they improvised was very realistic — difficult, with many pauses, and also in some ways quite mundane.  There were no big dramatic moments, just two very rational people trying to exert their opinions on the other. The gravity with which the actors tackled the improvisation was remarkable, and a testament to just how laden the subject matter is — even though it has disappeared from the headlines in the U.S. media.  The video of the scene was too long to post – but we’ll keep touching on this scene this week.

Check back next week for a new LUDIC PROXY update from Aya!