Missing the point

Intention

The big idea that I wanted the notion seemingly simple and one-sided arrangements are multi-layered and complex. This is due in part to the fact that many great literary works give their characters multiple layers of depth, something which I think that art should also strive to achieve. Its also partly in response to the video we watched on Thursday, where we were treated to an in depth look at Mr. Brainwash, who publically seems like your standard artistic madman, but whose actual motivations and methods belie what is spun to the public.

Context

In order to address this theme, I immediately thought of the one-sided conflicts presented in early video games. Since there was barely any memory on the cartridges to store text, the games made do with the bare essentials of a framing story. You're the good guy, beat the bad guys, get a high score.

Because of this, I decided that the work I created would take the form of a video game. Specifically, since we were supposed to appropriate another work for this assignment, I decided to take a game and re-purpose it to communicate the my ideas. I decided that the core, recognizable parts of the game would be intact so that it appears to just be the original work. However, much like how other artists like Warhol tweaked their art slightly to make it their own, I did the same, using the game's mechanics as the medium to communicate the ideas.  As for the piece of art I decided to appropriate, I decided on Space Invaders, due its simplistic graphics and premise.

Process

The first thing I needed to figure out what game mechanics I was going to use in order to make something interesting and subversive. At first, I had wanted to include a dialog system and create a Space Invaders game where you could see what the Invaders and thinking/saying as you fight them. This is inspired a bit by how other games give their enemy characters some personality and depth through dialogue.

However, this proved difficult for many reasons. For one, implementing the dialogue was very difficult in of itself. In addition to that, it would be difficult to actually get to read the dialogue in a action game like space invaders.

With that idea scrapped, I then thought about leveraging 3D graphics to give "depth" (har har) to a originally 2D game. I started creating 3D models since just to generate assets to use, and I then noticed that the sprites I made looked like a space invader from the front and an apple from the side.

With this new found perspective (wow I'm on fire), I decided to make changing perspectives the game mechanic that would make my appropriation of Space Invaders an original work. Specifically, I wanted each different perspective to reveal different things about the actual game you are playing, giving different "perspectives" on the very standard conflict in Space Invaders

Product

I ultimately created a version of Space Invaders where you can change the perspective of the game. The games were created in Unity, and can be played below. To create the models, I looked at the space invader sprites and made my own 3d versions of them based on pixel by pixel approximations. These models were given depth in a way so that from different perspectives, they looked like vastly different sprites.

Play the games before reading further about what the mechanics were trying to communicate

You've been warned (I guess)

The first perspective given was to present the illusion of a generic space invaders game. The second, which is a side view, was meant to expose what appeared to be an initial flaw in the game, that is, the fact that no bullets seemed to actually collide. It is revealed that you're space ship is actually firing at empty air far away from the actual invasion force. In addition, the invasion force curiously seems to spell PEACE when looked at this angle. The idea was to give some sort of personality to the alien forces while making you question what you're player character is actually going.

The 3rd overhead view is meant to show that the whole thing is really just another electronic system, while the 4th is meant to break all immersion and show the whole thing is set up inside an elaborate game space.

Critique

I feel like the work I created ultimately achieved what I had set out to do. Though I had wanted to use dialogue to more directly be able to project the intent and personalities of the Invaders, the alternative solution I think was more conceptually interesting, even if it is difficult to understand.Using many perspectives I think took good advantage of the fact that it was a 3d game, and the choices for the other artistic components (like the backgrounds and explosion effects) I think adequately helped indicate purposeful intent.

Reflection

I learned during this project that though you might at first have an idea of what is the best course of action your art should take, new observations made during the process can lead your work down entirely new and unexpected directions. Since the dialogue idea didn't work at first, the insight I gained while making the 3d models really helped to shape the final product. If I were to go back with more time and resources, I would have liked to make the enemy behave more like they do in the original space invaders. In addition, I would have liked to try to see how a successful dialogue implementation would have looked, since its difficulty prevented me from doing it in this specific project.