For my final project I decided to build a board game based on the popular video game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

To download the keynote presentation click here.

To download the paper click here.
(paper is emailed as well incase the parsons server acts weird)

I have linked all the videos I used below for easier access.

The Video comparing the game to chess:

Michael’s reaction to the game:

The Teaser Advertisement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3LXQB6djRY

Juan before playing the game:

The playtest video:

Yong’s reaction after playing the game:

Juan’s reaction after playing the game:

The Rules:

My final book prototype went through many stages in the design process.  This project began with an interest in communities.  I thought about what being a part of a community meant to me.  Then I began to think of the different communities I am a member of.

What I kept coming back to was the idea that I am currently being put into a new community in New York City.  Everyday I am dealing with people in new situations and often getting questioned about where I am from.  People seemed to be surprised to here I am from Hawaii, then often have questions about Hawaii.  I realized that more often than not, there is a misunderstand about what can be found there.

I took a step back to look at where I came from and began a project that has not only brought me to better understand and explain history, but recognize my identity.

Final Project Presentation & Final Project Paper

For this project, the class had to work on a public intervention. Through many prototypes and many failures, our group decided to focus on making a crowd-sourced movie made by the people, for the people.

The Smiley Prototype

The Camera Crew Prototype

We had made other prototypes prior to the final crowd-sourced movie such as the Smiley Prototype where we tried to grab the public’s attention by displaying numerous smiley faces using blob detection and the Camera Crew Prototype where we tried to act as a camera crew and deliberately shoved cameras into people’s faces to document people’s reaction. But soon we realized these interventions were either too passive or too aggressive.

Union Square Park

By making a crowd-sourced movie, we wanted to grasp people’s notions of Union Square Park. Why we chose Union Square Park is because we thought it was a place that showed a lot of diversity and history of New York City. We also wanted to make full use of its liberal space. By holding interviews with people who frequently came to Union Square Park, we could better grasp the inner needs of change for the park. We wanted to use the public as communal knowledge.  We had no given author, director, or scripter. What we learned from intense interviews directly translated to our scripts. How people acted out each line was of their own choosing. We believed that if we worked together, we could create something fascinating.

Nickelback – Rockstar MV

Red hat and bowtie

We were greatly inspired by Dr. Seuss’ “If I Ran the Park.” The book is full of imaginations and provides great inspiration and motivation. Other precedents we looked at were the “Johnny Cash Project (www.johnnycashproject.com) and the Crowdsourced Fan Film of Star Wars Uncut. In the end, we wanted to go the direction of Nickelback’s Rockstar music video where numerous clips of people of all age and sex starred in the video each singing a phrase of the song. We grabbed a spot in the middle of Union Square and made people from all around the world say a line of our crowd-sourced movie. A red hat and a red bowtie were used to resemble the magician that summoned all the wishes of Union Square Park.

The whole public intervention project was very fun and intriguing. It was fun working with people I’ve never met with before. And most of the people of Union Square were very nice and some were even eager to be starred in the video. Regulars started greeting us as we were in the park very often throughout the project. The public started to find people who could participate in our video. We saw a lot of patterns people had in Union Square Park. Because the project was very intriguing, perhaps I would like to further work on this project in the future. Problems we could fix are the ambient noise created by street performers and random people. We could also incorporate more involvement of the public as a group rather than as individuals. Overall, though, it was a very fun experiment in working with the pubic and trying to intervene into people’s lives.

final video and our project blog can be found here

final presentation (pdf) of the project can be found here

Carolina: I immediately thought it would be perfect for a museum. I have a background in museums. It would be interesting to have the individual stories of struggles. It might be interesting to have video interactive component so the pulling of the book is tied into a video piece you’ve created. One of the things I think is important when bringing tech into museums is whether or not it is a learning tool. Museum of the American Indian in DC might be a good partner.

Angelo: I think your goal is super interesting. You are not just talking about something, but are in the middle of this. Somehow this still seems clumsy, but not sure how to make it more fluid. I can see people struggling with this. Not sure how to make it more fluid. May want to explore radically different formats just to see how people react to it. Hypermediality – when you draw attention to the medium. Transparency is when you are sucked into the story, like watching a movie. Going to want to keep the transparency high. Not seeing the need for computation in the book. How do you think this will increase the storytelling? Theoretical level, you’re in a tricky zone. Statements are problematic from a cultural studies point of view. The only thing you say is that you’re not native hawaiian. We have the situation of immigrants from north africa – and after one generation they are belgian. Read cultural studies of identity.

Carolina: Congratulations. liked how you made a piece from a cultural standpoint. Refining that into a performance piece would be very interesting. Are you interested in a designed performance or do you want to take it to the street? Thinking of Nam Jun Paik, worked with television screens, worked with technology and performance art.

Angelo: There is potential in turning this into a performance, but right now it’s not there yet. Scenarios that tap into cultural hybrid state that is more interesting. It involves research that is not focused on technology. In-depth study of how you address immigration, dual backgrounds, etc. The video downplays the potential of the project – the love story is not helpful. Please us a good quality audio track. Apart from doing research on performance and issues – maybe you should look into cyberpunk. In which this dream is explored of using the body with electronics and the body becomes a vehicle for hybrid expression.

Carolina: Beautiful, congratulations. I wanted to see it larger in scale. …

Angelo: It’s very pretty and cute, but also the problem, that it is pretty and cute. If you want to make art that is deeply impacting people then you have a long way to go. One of the things you should research more – I would like you to research the architecture of NYC and form an opinion of that – shape, form, space – you need to grasp it much better. H ere I here don’t think you grasp it. It might be interesting to bring the real city into this. Little clips, abstracted video, real video – then things become more political – you are a foreigner, who projects the city into your own little world – it becomes interesting. You can work with people or your own experience of the city. Research mapping. Project and the computer knows what is in the space. Online videos of projecting on building and it looks like the building is collapsing. Had a student doing similar, and it raised the level of the work.