Description
Developed with Adam Simon, Rumpelstiltskin is an installation in which players of a gesture-based video game find themselves inadvertently performing a narrative pantomime.
To the players, there are five levels of gameplay, but to the audience, these levels are the five acts of a pantomime of the fairy tale Rumpelstilskin. The motivations of the actions in the video game are unrelated to the meanings of the actions in the performance.
The installation draws attention to how interacting with technology shapes our movements in ways that are often unnoticed or unacknowledged. It is also an exploration of performative cognition. How aware can the players be of their accidental performance whilst still adequately playing the game? Conversely, how well will they perform if they focus solely on the game? Rumpelstiltskin allows the players and audience to dynamically explore the boundaries between intended and choreographed movements and between performance and play.
Rumpelstiltskin was performed at the 2007 ITP winter show.
Implementation
The game takes place on a 4' by 8' stage. Players stand on the stage and watch a screen at the front of the stage. The game itself consists of guessing simple gestures to perform simple tasks; successfully performing a gesture moves the player on to the next task.
The front of the stage looks like the front of a proscenium stage. A screen facing the players displays the game and provides feedback to the players. A screen facing the audience provides some additional information (chapter titles, indications of the beginning and end of an act) so that audience members are better able to locate the performers' position in the story.
The stage contains a grid of 18 switches to track players' positions on the stage. The players hold lighted wands, which are used for video tracking of the players' hand positions.
