IS1_Intro to Research, final project “Entrance to My World”

Project Introduction 

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For this project, I’m exploring the stereotype that video games are bad. What I want to  show my audience through my artwork is that video games have been part of the culture and the stereotype has led to a negative impact on teens. The psychological ramification of video games on teens are denial of reality and loss of identity and lack of social skills. In some extreme situations, the denial of the reality has led teens to kill their parents by confusing reality with violence from video games. Nevertheless, video games are about commercials and benefits to companies that made the game. Companies, certainly, have tactics to get people addicted to the video games, mostly using people’s temptation in “leveling up”, gaining “wealth” in virtual worlds, and engaging people to spend money in “buying equipments”. Teens, getting negative views and being neglecting their true needs in reality, entered the stage of “addiction”. As teens got addicted deeply into the video games, the above psychological ramification would happen in some cases.

However, it could be hardly denied that video games have entered the market for a long time and now become one of the popular cultures not only for teens but also for adults. The project was connected to the Genius Grant proposal because it could be expanded on a larger and wider scale not only for being displayed as an indication of culture but also as a fresh and attractive use for education. Therefore, the audience to whom I’m planning to display my artwork is teens who could seen themselves reflecting behind the two-sided mirrors while approaching and parents who are puzzled about dealing with their kids’ addiction. While people got close to the mirror, they could see themselves in a “virtual world” behind the mirror as if they are in the video games. Besides, as more people entered the space, they would find themselves constitute a community and connection. What’s interesting about the materiality is that before the lights are on, people would just stop and see a mirror in front of them. They would only see more as the lights are on. The locations could be in commercial places like Time Square and in Gaming Rooms to educate the audience.

By browsing through more news resources, journals on statistics and books, I came up with ideas of motif that is related to culture on a big scale and internal state of teens who play video games and are not understood. I designed to make a box as a container for my project to indicate the autism and puzzled feeling of teens who got fascinated by virtual world, and the video game as a culture with familiar dictions like “Bonus”, “Level Up” and “Game Over”. I was originally planning on working with neon lights to create typography of the dictions from video game cultures; however, the fact that it would take months to be skilled in making  typography out of neon lights conflicts with the time given for this project. Accordingly, I decided to change a light media, LED lights to convey my idea. I plan to use acrylic sheet as the top and front of the box container and the rest of the sides would be put in mirrors to create an effect of infinity mirror.

I would do more research on LED lights and how lights could interact with mirrors in different ways to explore more possibilities of constructing and placing the lights in the box. I would complete the lighting part of the installation by next class, which would take me around a week to research and finish.

 

Artist to research:

Yayoi Kusama

 

Inspiration Photos:

 

Process of Prototype 

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In the past week, I worked on iterations on prototypes by experimenting with RGB+warm white LED strips for the typography of “Game: and a separate RGB strips for typography of “Over”.

 

The critiques I received are really helpful. In the group critique, I received the feedback that I could create a container out of foam board with front and top open and add small-scaled human models to give a sense of huge scales of the installation. The critique I received from professor is to employ photoshop of showing more possibilities of the installation with different words other than “Game Over”. In the following week, I would doing researches on collecting more datas on the topic of addictions and commercial companies and create visual graphics for final presentation. Besides, I would make sketches for showing more possibilities out of this project. For the final, I would work with the same materials.

 

Process of Final

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For the final iteration, I redid the typography for the words to make it look more natural with the feeling of vintage and electronic video games to provide the audience empathy of tracing back to to when video games first prevailed and in which forms they originally appeared.

Final Video:

 

Photos of Presentation 

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PDF of Genius Grant

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Final PDF-s8oesj GENIUS GRANT-1nle7nv

 

Reflection Questions

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What I learned from combining research with my project is that research enhanced the project by providing a persuasive base and more dimensions while the audience looked into my work. To be more specific, while I designed the typography of  “Game Over”, based on my research, I would connect the design to the corruption of the entrepreneurship in video game industry. What I learned about my content through the  LED lights and mirrors as my mediums is the power of mediums offering to expression of my ideas. I explored different kinds of lights, from neon lights, flexible light tubes to LED light strips. I ultimately made decisions on LED light strips which brought me to better implication of the vintage video games. Writing the Genius Grant was helpful for Studio Project because I would be decisive and clear on setting a plan and vision on what I want to present to a professional group as Grant Selection Committee. What I learned from this project as a designer is that if I took some issues I have truly cherished and care and made it into art, I could have the strong motivation to make the project work and speak for my voice to the public and I would appreciate the feeling of achievement after I saw the finished project.