Game for Change

play the game

In December of 2013 Ethan Couch, a 16 year old from Texas, was sentenced to rehab and 10 years probation. Not a big deal, until you realize that this is his punishment for driving drunk, from alcohol he stole, and then smashing his car into four people, killing all of them.  How did he get such an extremely, almost unbelievable, light sentence? His severe case of Affluenza.  The book “Affluenza : The All-Consuming Epidemic” describes the affluenza diagnosis as “a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.” This was applied to Ethan in the sense that he had been coddled his whole life, never getting disciplined, always given what he wanted, and as a result his judgment was impaired.  His defense claimed that he couldn’t be held responsible for his actions because of it, and somehow, someway, the judge bought it.  If his parents are so incapable of raising a decent human being by not punishing him, wouldn’t it make more sense for society to step in and do so. I believe it would be a more reasonable response to give him the harshest punishment, so that the consequences of his actions could sink in a little bit for once, instead of the opposite. 

            Blogger Jessica Ann Mitchel responded to Ethan’s case, with the Diagnosis of Povertenza.  Her explanation of Povertenza is that it’s an illness that those from poor socioeconomic backgrounds suffer from.  They weren’t able to get a quality education or employment.  The result being that they’re development is stunted, their judgment impaired, and can’t be held responsible for their actions either.  To me, this seems like a more practical defense then affluenza.  In an underprivileged area, peoples options and futures are restricted, whereas Ethan had a huge amount of paths he could have taken.  His parents wealth could pretty much take him anywhere he wanted. But of course, no court would buy povertenza as excuse for breaking a law.  In fact, youth from poor areas usually get handed the toughest sentences possible.  Mitchel says,” Essentially, the poor are expected to be more accountable for their actions while the wealthy are viewed as inherently respectable (especially if they're white).” 

            Am I taking away some depth of understanding to Ethan Couch by telling this one single story? Possibly.  But what about another story of his that his defense lawyer shared in court to help, surprisingly enough, his case.  When Ethan was 15 he was found alone in a car, with an unconscious, naked, 14-year-old girl. I feel like it would be a favor if no more stories were shared about Ethan’s past.

            My game is meant to represent the two sides of povertenza and affluenza.  In the first level, you are one of the affluent, given everything you need to succeed.  In the end, when you kill the monster, you win the game.  The second level is the opposite. You’re faced with a bunch of challenges, given little, and when you kill the monster, you’re punished, and there’s no way to win (hopefully.) You get trapped in the jail cell, unable to get out. Is that justice? No, I don’t think so.  All I’m saying is if our justice system is going to rehabilitate the rich white kid, they need to do the same for the poor black kid as well. 

Glitch Art!

P&P I love, I love, I love you 1:55

Kiss Me :16

Sweet Home Alabama 1:00

That Sunday, That Summer :07

I care :13

Gabriel's oboe

If I ain't got you 2:33

I want you!

Brittany and I battled Together Vs. Apart.  The thought behind it was to compare sounds from the beginning of relationships, to the ending of relationships.  I was in charge of the “Together.” Looking for the sounds to represent my theme was fairly easy since I really really like romance in films. Performing what I had created in front of everyone was nerve racking. I was lucky enough to keep my hands from shaking so much that I couldn’t press the buttons. During my 2012 Christmas piano recital I was not so lucky.  I don’t have an exactly clean and shiny track record when it comes to being up in front of people.  Overall it was a good experience to be in front of the class sharing what Brittany and I had created.  As a result of my own experience performing in front of the class, I tried really hard to be a good audience member. 

Ever since I was little, I have made collages.  The binders I used to carry around in high school were covered with collages I’d made from pictures in magazines.  A whole wall in my bedroom back home is covered with a similar magazine collage, only much larger. Lethem talks about collages in his work A Plagarism. He talks about how a man’s song was influenced by multiple different things from history and his life.  The ending result, being a unique song, was still made up of the things that had come before it.  With this understanding of collages, parts of the bible can be described as collages.  The books Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the synoptic gospels because of how similar they are.  It is believed that the books of Mark and Luke drew from the Book of Matthew and another source.  However, the books of Mark and Luke have a different purpose then that of Matthew.  The intent of Matthew is to show Jesus as the new Moses to the Jews.  The purpose of Luke is to let gentile christians, who have been marginalized by Jewish Christians, know that the Jesus’s message is for everyone.  Seeing as how these are chapters in the best-selling book in the world, it’s clear that plagiarizing or, creating collages from other peoples work, can return some pretty amazing results.   The collage of sounds Brittany and I gathered from the internet, is admittedly nothing compared to the Bible.  But the same concepts were used with similar results.  Using elements already established, we were able to utilize them a different way, to tell a broader story.  

World Building

Pathos;  a city that has discovered the solution to the question of renewable energy. They harvest human emotion, controlling the incontrollable. Scientist discovered the 4 most potent emotions to power the city. They are exhilaration, depression, anger, and calm.  These emotions are harvested in different sections of the city.  Through architecture, lay out, services, sounds, and responsibilities the different sections are built to produce their certain emotion.  The emotion is stored and transferred from the bracelet on the subjects arm.  When one emotion is filled up they move to the next section of the city in order to feel another emotion.

                One aspect of these different sections is the clothing the people who are living in it wear. For my group I designed these clothes. When approaching these designs I tried to think of how I and others would feel when wearing these clothes.  Evoking a certain feeling from the characters in the story, and from the audience, was the most integral part of designing these clothes.  The one design I think I really got correct, was coincidentally also the easiest.  The people who live in the depression section of the city wear baggy, drab, uniform, grey jump suits.  I feel like this is the most correct one because I know that I and many others would be miserable wearing this getup.  Depression would be much easier to achieve if you have no control over whether you feel good about yourself or not.

                In Design Fiction by Bleeker, he references books in his studio that are there for inspiration.  When I am put into a situation where I have to create something, I often try my very hardest no to be influenced by anything else.  I fear that if I do, it’ll just end up being a copy of their work.  When designing the uniforms, I attempted to block out any knowledge I had of the futuristic  films Divergent, Tron,The Island, and other similar films.  It wasn’t easy, and maybe not entirely necessary.  It’s hard for me to draw that line between copying something and being inspired by something.  Bleeker allows himself to be inspired by what he sees and experiences around him.  Instead of trying to copy these films, I tried to be inspired by them and the genre they came from.  In the end I settled on styles that were also similar to the genre, but hopefully unique.