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Discussion about entry: IntroSpection - Play games with your own cells and those of others
This is discussion about IntroSpection - Play games with your own cells and those of others.
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Thank you for your entry, Stephen; it seems very interesting. Among the things that I wonder about are: what kinds of cells does your "game" isolate? While I understand that individuals' responses will vary, I'm trying to understand how "private"/personal the revelation your game provides -- or how "private"/personal people's experience of your game is. Also, I wonder what kind of framework or context you place the cells in (for the section on "concept maps") to help people judge or think about the (breakdown of) categories between self and other. I remember being astonished to read (in a NYT Magazine piece last summer "Fat Factors" by Robin Marantz Henig- 13 Aug 2006) that responsible for much of each human's digestion are microorganisms that live inside a person which aren't part of the person him/herself. (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/magazine/13obesity.html?ex=1187150400&...) While you suggest that your piece problematizes the distinction between self and other -- or partner/invader -- I'd like to understand better the process by which it does so.
I look forward to hearing your responses.
Best,
Diane
The Changemakers Team
Stephen Wilson
Conceptual Information Arts Program (CIA)
Art Dept - SFSU
san francisco, ca 94132
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~swilson
Thanks for your interest iand questions about the Introspection art/game installation. Here are a few responses:
Since the installation is in public settings and ideally uses self service, it cannot be too ambitious in what cells and other microorganisms it isolates. A visitor walks up to the sample station. There is a short instructional graphic about t taking a throat swab and then they rub the swab onto a microscope slide and put it in. In the time I observed it, most of what can be seen is some dead skin cells and other stuff we have in our mouths. Seeing bacteria and other smaller entities would take finer adjustments on the microscope (illumination, focus) although I might attempt it in future versions. Also, if one were willing to get samples from other body locations, there might be other samples to look at but museums would likely be unwilling to deal with that.
The game is both private and public. While they are entering and playing with their sample, other people can see what they see via large projection in the game area. Other parts of the game let them see other people's samples and challenge them to match a target sample with a snapshot of various people who proceeded them. The installation encourages people to think about privacy of biometric material. Ironically at the microscopic level (at least with throat swabs) the images are so alien it doesn't feel like much of a violation of privacy.
On the issue of self/other: The microscopic images are so alien that most people have trouble identifying what they see as their self. Yet I wanted them to think about that and ultimately our reliance on all these other organisms inside of us that make life possible. Mostly I rely on the physicality of taking a sample inside your own mouth and then seeing it projected. It is a very direct conneciton that most people have never thought about. There is also a part of the event that poses a whole array of words people could use to think about these things inside their body. Hopefully that stimulates consideration of the self/other dichotomy. Here is that set of words.
friend, visitor, self, homie, helper, child, brother, sister, cousin, innards, gut, partner, ally, playmate, teammate, companion, sidekick, worker, crony, interior, pith, nitty-gritty, comrade, attendant, slave, guts, symbiant
invader, leech, alien, tresspasser, adversary, hanger-on, intruder, outsider, squatter, germ, infiltrator, cootie, crud, parasite, pathogen, free-loader, leech, enemy, the other