Chanciness is an interactive installation that includes two stations for play: the 3D digital landscape of “Drop all the Stuff”, and the Jukebox-like work called “The Catmull-Rom Players.” In the former, players are presented with a landscape of discarded models: A chalkboard, a rack of basketballs, a giant chess set, it’s like a storage shed’s worth of 3d junk, emptied onto the landscape. The game is simple: collect as much stuff as you want and put it in the hole. Press the launch button, and everything in the hole shoots out in a chaotic, cathartic mess. In the latter, a console invites visitors to press one of three buttons, each of which launches a game in which shapes generatively emerge from the viewer’s manipulation of wheels, gears and levers. Each button-press simultaneously launches a random pairing of spoken text and music contributed by a disciplinarily diverse group of co-conspirators.
Drop All the Stuff
At some point, as you age, you stop wanting stuff and start wanting to get rid of stuff. Even stuff you cherish. But life is complicated, and just “getting rid of stuff” is not easy. “I may need that one day. That thing is useless, but it goes with that other thing that I can’t find. A relative gave me that, and even though there’s no way they will know I’ve gotten rid of it, I can’t take the chance. That was my long-dead cat’s favorite chair.” Life is messy.
What if you could collect all your stuff, put it in a hole, and fling it into the air? It doesn’t solve all your problems, or any of your problems, but it could be fun, at least for a moment.
The project started with collecting abandoned 3D models from tutorials and old art projects and scattering them around a landscape built in Unity. (Blender users will recognize the donut from the now-famous donut tutorial). The game loop is this: put the stuff in a hole, shoot it into the air, collect it all, and put it in a hole again. As the project grew, new models were made specifically for this project, but the junk still feels like it came from an emptied virtual storage space. There are easter eggs, of course, and things to find, but the core of the game is the same. There is no high score or win state, just a hole that can fling stuff, and a bunch of stuff that needs flinging.
Through the process, the idea of adding sound was introduced, which evolved into the idea of live music. Like an old silent film, our musician will respond live as people play the game. There’s no wrong way to play the music. The serendipity of whatever happens perfectly fits the randomness of the experience.
The Catmull-Rom Players
The console beckons with glowing buttons. “Push me.” And once you feel that satisfying plasticky “tock” under your finger, one of three games appears onscreen. Lines spool, wheels turn, blobs undulate, and balls shuttle down spiraling paths.
What to make of this? What does it mean? On the one hand it is a production line, and the other, a kind of animated jungle gym. It’s like Buster Keaton’s face – a formless frying pan, that reflects (or maybe absorbs) the absurdity that surrounds it. Because these soundless and instructionless ciphers are not going to cough up their secrets, we asked a group of writers, and sound-makers to DE-cipher them for us. Our interdisciplinary group of wordsmiths, that includes novelists, scientists, urban designers, economic sociologists, poets, etc., studied the games and wrote texts in response. Our sound designers, musicians, and sound artists created audio to accompany the games. We call this group of interpreters the Catmull-Rom Players.
‘Catmull-Rom” is a great pairing of words that is simultaneously ambiguous and evocative. On the one hand it names a fairly dry (though still miraculous) process of creating evolving curves in a computer game, and on the other it sounds like a colorful character from an edgy trading port in an episodic sci-fi saga.
Once you make a selection on the console, a game will load and the words of one of our authors will be randomly paired with the audio from one of our sound-makers.
Chanciness Performance
The opening of Chanciness at Grizzly Grizzly included a performance by the musician and writer Anne Ishii who accompanied the game Drop All the Stuff. The goal of the live score, is to create yet another element of sonic indeterminacy and serendipitous connection between the various parts of the installation. As the game-players explore the landscape, their movements are punctuated in real time by a living, breathing human, and a new collaboration begins to take place.
