Title/Date: response (2020).

Author(s): Sophie Reid-Singer (clunkk)

Place of Publication: “Climate of Change: ACM Hypertext Conference” at University of Central Florida.

Format: Single-player videogame.

Downloadable Via: https://clunkk.itch.io/response

Statement:

response (2020) is a single player videogame for Windows, published for the ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media at the University of Southern California. This conference was hosted online due to Covid-19 restrictions on international travel and is archived at this webpage. A journal article was written by the curators Jason Nelson and Anastasia Salter. The focal point of the conference was climate-change. One impact climate-change has is directly linked to decreases of quality of life and public health, which will continue to accelerate the rate of disability. My artwork considered consumer-culture and social-media, taking aim at the contradictory stances that many Australians, now tasked with navigating welfare due to the economic impacts of the pandemic, expressed about social obligation.

My didactic reads:

_{response (2020) is a single-player videogame that describes a dissatisfaction to the current social climate of Covid-19. While we self congratulate on topics of care and community, we remain ambivalent to those who fall through the cracks of our system. Instead of envisioning and fighting for a future were everyone is cared for, posts circulate of pre-pandemic times that glorify the opulence that led to our state of divide. Scenes of the privileged whose right to congregate has largely excluded the disabled. Now the Internet homes and archives the opinions of those who decry their separation from the public sphere, forced to accept a broken welfare system and the risks of venturing out. In the three game modes solo, contact, and arena: cursors collide with one another, warping the progress of the screen to construct and weave a tangible image of personhood. Through a glitch, the screen-space draws lines that interlace a musculature that beats blood-red upon touch or centering oneself. Gameplay is formulated by the player, who imposes meaning onto their screen in an attempt to reconcile a growing sense of segregation – a need to be linked and felt.}

Findings:

TLDR; In this artwork, the cyborg is described as the operator of a computer cursor (Pointer Finger).

Imagery of cyborgs in this videogame did not emancipate disabled peoples from the strict legal conditions imposed by the Australian Government.

However, in this artwork I focused on my TAA glitch which became the feature gameplay. In addition to the statement I am trying to make (described in Muliebrity[i]), I find the TAA glitch to be visually gratifying.

Side Note:

Like most everyone else in the world at this time I was feeling isolated. While the political message in this artwork I stand by, I lament that I allowed myself to fall into old nihilistic trappings. Separate to my project, but no doubt crucial to my motivations in later artworks: in my personal life at this time I took advantage of the reduced foot-traffic and lack thereof perceived public scrutiny (due to social distancing mandates in Brisbane) by beginning my transition from the crutches I had been using since I was twelve to a single point stick (which I currently use). My understanding of cyborgs as vague pop-culture descriptors for machine-human hybridity shifted dramatically to one of becoming due to these personal and formal factors. Taking from my own experience, for many disabled peoples a relationship with assistive technology is a life-long journey. While this cane serves as an extension of myself, that is not exempt from future change.