Art Hive

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My character sprite from the video game. 

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Video Game

Go to this link to access the google drive folder containing my part of the video game project as well as the full game itself. 

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Reading Response 14

Technology surrounds us. One could even argue that our bodies are a technology interacting with and processing data about our surroundings to build a perception about the world around us. What happens when technology fails? What happens when it is both not enough in terms of providing equity among students of different backgrounds/experiences as well as not working as expected (even turning it on/off doesn’t work)?

This was most definitely one of the more difficult responses I’ve had to tackle, mostly because I feel like I don’t really have anything close to a good answer. Throughout this class we’ve talked about how much technology can provide to students and how it can give them tools and resources to excel when they might otherwise flounder and fall through the cracks. Whilst this isn’t necessarily wrong, it’s simply not as easy as it sounds. The truth is, students of different backgrounds and experiences will not excel in the same fashion even if they are given the exact same resources, because by the time you introduce those resources, the world will have already started to stack itself in or against their favor. Thus raises the question, what can you do to get every kid to stay on equal footing? We figure it would be ideal if every child was raised and treated equal, but this simply has not ever and will not ever happen, and there’s no surefire way that as a teacher you can assure that each student will come out of your class equally prepared and equipped to handle and excel at technology in the same capacity. So does that mean teaching technology is pointless because it was not the great equalizer we thought it was? Of course not, but it suddenly feels a lot more difficult to teach knowing that each student will come away from the experience with very different takeaways. But perhaps that is okay. 

Part of what I feel is essential to be as an art instructor is flexible. This applies to every facet of teaching, I believe, not just when dealing with injustices and learning gaps for technology. An instructor that tries to stick to their curriculum to a perfect T is destined to snap under the pressure of the world coming around and knocking that lesson plan to the ground, be it computers crashing, data being lost, internet not connecting, what have you. One of the biggest things I have taken away from this class is the necessity of rolling with the punches. I would like to think I was fairly decent at this to begin with, and hopefully even more so coming out of this class. To be flexible and adaptable in a classroom setting is essential to maintaining the class’ focus and making sure that students can still be able to leave the class with something learned. When everything goes wrong, it is our responsibility as educators to take that deep breath, improvise, and know, that when all technology fails, paper and pencil is almost always there for back up. 

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Reading Response 12

How do you plan to incorporate “play” into your own teaching practice, be it technology-based or otherwise? What can we learn from play? What can we teach through play?

In my future classroom, I would like to incorporate play as much as possible. Play is an essential part of education, especially in early development. Obviously, it promotes engagement between the student and the subject being taught, and it should go without saying that students are more likely to be engaged and invested in material when they are having fun. If I have the ability to introduce video games to my classroom as both an art medium and a learning tool, I would love to incorporate it into my curriculum, although I’m not too sure whether that’s something I will be able to do, depending on what I’ll be provided in my classroom setting. If I were to be able to implement video games into my curriculum, I feel that it would be a great opportunity to expand my students’ definition of what art is and make connections between their outside lives and the media they enjoy to the art classroom. Video games have the potential to provide an educational experience just as much as an entertaining one. Implementing play as a whole into a curriculum could yield a lot of benefits. It opens up the classroom environment to be one where kids being kids is very much allowed and even encouraged. It encourages students to try new things of their own accord and express themselves accordingly. 

In the assigned watching for this response, a playthrough of the game Gone Home, I found myself utterly entranced in the story. The discoveries throughout and the piecing together of information was suspenseful and rewarding and had me on edge throughout, and as I had likely mentioned in class before, I was quite pleasantly shocked by the ending. Throughout the story, there was a consistent sense of impending doom, and what felt like foreshadowing towards an untimely demise for the playable character’s missing sister. And yet, at the end of the game, right when the player is lead to believe they are about to encounter the horror that is Sam’s fate (for a moment I personally believed Katie was going to find Sam’s body in the attic, or discover that Sam was sent to conversion therapy) the story takes a surprising and satisfying twist. Instead of Sam’s story ending tragically, it turns out to have not ended at all. Sam has run off with the girl she loves, away from the toxicity of her parents to live her life for herself. It’s a bit sad how much this sappy little non-ending gave me so much relief and ultimately joy. It’s so refreshing to have seen a story about a queer person getting a happily-ever-after, especially after such a suspenseful and treacherous buildup. Being queer myself, it’s not difficult to find myself in Sam’s shoes though out, but even more than that, as an older sister, I found myself easily inserted in Katie’s shoes as well. The idea of losing one of my younger brothers or friends without explanation, knowing parental relations were toxic and turmoil at best, is a fear I pray never becomes reality. It brought out a very protective side of myself, an instinct often reserved for my family and close friends that I have no doubt I will have for my future students as well. All in all, this game really hit home for me in many ways. 

Definitely the best lesbian scavenger hunt I’ve ever been on. 10/10. 

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Reading Response 13

What is your opinion of “failure” and how does that shape the way you view a process-over-product orientated teaching practice? What are your critiques of failure? Has your opinion changed about failure?

I personally see failure as a natural and necessary byproduct of success that often yields more opportunities for learning than success itself. Failure is a necessary part of life that we experience every day, and yet at the same time, has become a number one fear to many people. As a society we have a tendency to punish failure and see it as shameful, particularly when those failures are our own, thus discouraging us from risk-taking or any behaviors that deviate from the expected, tried and true. Failure is essential in the process of learning seeing as it provides us with a means of discovering what exactly we can’t do, on top of providing us with realizations of what we can do if only we try again and adjust. Human beings are incredibly resilient and adaptable, physically and mentally. We are capable of consistent trial and error, we can afford to fail and thus learn from it. Yet we avoid attempting things we think we have a possibility of failing at mostly out of fear of embarrassment. By reintroducing students to failure as means of improvement and self-discovery, we can begin to dismantle the stigma against failure itself and allow students to be more fearless in their personal learning, art, and self-expression. Once students realize that failure is often unavoidable, but necessary and acceptable, the fear of failure can start to dissipate. 

In my personal experience with failure, I look back and find myself facing many a missed opportunity all because I was too afraid of failing and embarrassing myself. Failure is a strong fear of mine that, although my understanding of it has changed, still affects and inhibits many of my decisions and pursuits. Slowly but surely I feel that I have started to overcome it and have made great attempts at being unapologetically who I am and doing what I want regardless of public scrutiny. It is not always consistent, and I am often still overcome with the fear of failure as opposed to my attempted “Just Do It” philosophy. As much as I know failure is inevitable and often the rewards that stem from earnest attempts are well worth the risk, I still struggle to take advantage of opportunities or even just my own free time. As an art educator I hope to stomp this oft-times crippling fear of failure out of my students at as early an age I can so that they may not feel the unnecessary amount of shame I have felt and thus make the most of opportunities presented to them, as well as to encourage them to make opportunities for themselves. 

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*gasp* A GLITCH! I wasn't even trying 😃

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Hard to pick which one is best haha, so how about 4?

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So since the class selfies were took with burst I was able to upload these as a gif lolol! Will upload separate images as well haha.

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Evolution of Peridot WIP

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Game Sprite

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Reading Response 10

What happens when games “break” rules/expectations? How can we use this to teach art? 

As stated in my last response, a lot of the mass produced, big name games of our day appear to have hit this standstill where companies are stuck in this rut on same/similar genre games with the same mechanics, same objective, etc. etc. These are definitely not the mass majority of games created, but they have proven successful in the past and become the most marketed types of games, therefore making them the most expected. But then we get a few gems that slip through the walls and barriers big names and money puts up and receive major acclaim despite being independently produced and being fundamentally and mechanically completely separate from what is expected of its genre. Portal is one of these examples. It is a game that requires deep thought and creativity on the player’s part to utilize the unique yet simple mechanics of “portals” to solve puzzles and reach objectives. Their is a minimal use of violence in the game yet stakes still seem high for the safety of the protagonist, Chel, and the snarky and progressively more sinister antagonism from the spectating program, GLaDOS, provides the player with motivation and some sense of purpose. Overall, the game defies a lot of conventions of popular video games of its time, yet it has become a vastly popular and well-received game. 

By introducing games like this to education spaces, you can provide students with an insight and understanding that you do not have to conform to rules and expectations in order to be successful. In fact, doing the exact opposite can often yield much better results. This can apply to many fields outside of just video games, it can easily apply to all artistic mediums. By offering students an opportunity to “break” rules and defy expectations, you are supplying them with the means to truly provide the world with something new, something they care about, something they had never thought of or discovered up until the point of their artworks conception/creation. 

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Collaborative media performance exploring projection as a medium and the sounds and visuals of water. 

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Reading Response 9

What are assumptions does Anthropy challenge about the relationship between video games and education? video games and art? video games and technology? Does this change how you might view the relationship between video games and youth?

This was a reading that touched base on several things that hit very close to home for me. Video games have evolved into the medium it is today that has the potential to reach a limitless amount of people of all ages, genders, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations and more, and in some capacity has. And yet we still see the vast majority of video games catering to the young white male. Why is that? The young white male is not the vast majority of the the world’s population, in fact they aren’t even the majority of the US population, and yet we still perceive them as the default/average human. They are still the target audience that big name video game companies cater to because they have been tried and true. As explained in this reading, they have found a formula with which they stick to solely to ensure that they will profit. This means of running a business and by extent controlling and policing almost an entire artistic medium has run an effective course for now, but in my opinion, is soon doomed to fail with the way video games are running its course in the independent gaming/gamemaking community. Population minorities have been speaking out against the lack on their inclusion and overall misrepresentation of themselves and their narratives in video games and with the development of programs such as Game Maker, these underrepresented groups now have a means to represent themselves. Of course, this is a small step considering the large majority of games consumed will still be from businesses that can afford to market their work and produce it on a graphically much more impressive scale, yet it is making it’s impact regardless. Excluded groups are no longer submitting to the games that under or misrepresent them. This means that eventually big names will have to listen. Although it may cause a stink within their niche market of young/middle aged white males (many for some reason protest and detest the inclusion of groups outside of their own in the medium they thought they had claimed) it is actually a much smarter executive decision to include diverse characters and narratives in their games because it will be able to interest and engage such a wider array of audiences. Morally, game makers should have always been doing this, but we all know big business has the morality of a dried up sponge and the originality of a stale end piece of white bread. However, once they realize and understand where the money is, it won’t be long until their business model will be completely rethought. 

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Glitch Selfie test 

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Peri Glitch video test 

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Evolution of Peridot WIP