Design + Code: Gabriel Drozdov.
Colophon: Karrik by Jean-Baptiste Morizot and Lucas Le Bihan, published by Velvetyne.
What is this? An arcade? Sort of. Maybe it’s a question: what is a game? Does it have to be joyful? Does it stop being a game if it’s not? Where do we draw that line?
This project started at the Providence Public Library during the Fall 2022 semester of RISD’s Graphic Design MFA program. At the library, I examined a vintage Whist game board dating back at least 100 years. I tried to understand the game’s rules from the board, but I couldn’t — there was insufficient data. Cards were missing, no branding was visible, and a “patent pending” label lacked any real identification. What I was looking at no longer had info or history. Instead, it had degraded into a graphic artifact.
This arcade was inspired by that Whist board. Through these three games, I ask you to draw a line between play and meaning, or at least to question where this connection gets made in your head.
What does this mean? This project originated as the “Archive Arcade”, which I created during the Graduate Studio I course at RISD taught by Bethany Johns and Ramon Tejada. I think of the “archive” as our collective human memory. What are the things of the past that affect our lives today? How do our actions create the archive of memory and legacy for future generations?
The three games were then called “Wreck”, “Witness”, and ”Write” to reflect the role of our passive participation. The eyes that appear throughout the arcade reinforce this passive participation — we witness the terrors around us and smile through it. I’ve changed the name of each individual game to hopefully make this message clearer outside of the context of that course.
I leave any remaining questions for you to answer (or just think about). You are a witness, and you are a participant, I suppose.
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