iDAT Top Trumps

The Brief

'Experience is a system and consequently the objective world is constructed through the imposition of cultural categories on reality. Perception thus takes place through a mediating value-framework which differentiates the facticity of the environment in which one lives', (Shields, 1991:32).

This is a site based project with that will be involve students working together in small groups, participants will design collaborative projects that share mixed reality platforms combining both physical (non-digital) and virtual (digital) materials.

It is anticipated that through an analysis of the site that the teams are given you will be expected to develop work in response to its environmental, technical, architectural and social properties. Students will be encouraged to use mobile and locative media where relevant to extend the potential dialogue with the geographical context.

The work represents the DAT 2nd Year Show for 2006, and teams will have to work together to ensure that a show team is able to put together appropriate organising and marketing to support such an event.

Solution

I am interested in identity. Who are we and who decides? The body is a product; we are only identified by a label or effectively a barcode which informs people the content of that person. What happens when our labels become mixed up or fall off? Who are we? We no longer have to communicate with one another to find out who we are. Online social networking has allowed people to hide behind identities and use multiple identities. We can access people’s information online easily without ever speaking to one another.

I created a top trumps game using shotcode technology. I created 30 different cards/identities of people in my year with four factors which were: huggability, drunkeness, reliability and craziness. Each person was given a VIP badge with a shotcode on it which was randomly assigned to a trump card. Participants used their mobile phones to play the game by taking a photo of the shotcode which loads up a webpage containing a trump card. The java application needed to use shotcode was installed before hand.

The game took place in the evening at the E!=E event and went well. The theme given to me was social networking. I needed to influence and change the way people move around within a space. Effectively each person was a top trump card and you could collect one another like you would in a pack. Its interesting to see how groups form as people win one another. It kept the participants entertained for half hour and they seemed to really enjoy the experience. To read more about my project and others from the i-DAT end of year show visit www.everythingisnoteverything.co.uk

Above is an example of one of the trump cards and VIP badge. If you have the shotcode application on your phone capture the code to find out who the VIP badge is assigned to.

Here are some photos from the game in action at Ride Cafe.