Jooyoung Oh attempts to discover a behind story of cutting-Edge Technology by focusing on the things that are lost in the pursuit of convenience and efficiency.

 

LAB NOTE Summary: The Open Ending of the Game
The game sets its stage on a floating city in 2100, CLOUD, where people face the effect of global warming as climate refugees. The city’s common transportation is the flying cars known as UAM (Urban Air Mobility). In this city, the bird became a pest. Birds get in the way of UAM sky route and occur accidents by flying toward the propellers of UAM drones.

The format of the game is arcade. Characters acquire items according to the goal of the game, which is to increase their stats, gain energy and perform missions. The main characters are A city planner, a researcher, and a bird. The city planner established a floating city in the sky. It represents freedom of movement as well as ‘high-speed’, she can jump high and has enough energy for the play.
The researcher was once an ornithologist. He gains energy by killing the ‘harmful’ bird that no longer needs to be researched, representing ‘speed with limitation’. The bird, which does not fly in 2100, walks, representing “original speed”. It has evolved to adapt to the new environment. Bird in CLOUD takes a position at the bottom of the food chain. It is born on the hot surface of the earth and can only survive by ascending into the upper area. It is the only goal is to run away to a higher area which requires them to attack humans.

The basic story of the game is an open ending, and it is entirely up to the player whether to choose the ending. If the player does not agree with the rules of the game to kill the bird or attack humans, the game will show the player a different ending, so that player can proceed with the game at his/her own will.

 

Title

Scope of the Cloud:
A project to experience future mobility as a vivid experiential narrative through actual game production and play

 

Observe
“How will the mobility of the future change? As future transportation modes such as UAM (Urban Air Mobility) become more diverse beyond self-driving, they will combine speed and safety. The advent of these modes of transportation will require only minimal and reduced instructions from humans.”
Mobility has been changed from era to era, from transit travel. A bicycle travels at a relatively slow speed than a car using less energy. Within the speed of a bicycle, it is easy to control the drive path and enough to enjoy the scenery at the same time. However, when we talk about a jet aircraft, the story is different. A jet aircraft uses a huge amount of energy to gain speed. It requires huge capital and infrastructure to run a jet aircraft. On the other side, it also causes environmental and noise pollution more than bicycles.

There was a time when mobility was discussed along with resources, mostly on its future depletion. Now it is never mentioned without environmental issues. In the past, people who could use a lot of energy may have an advantage, but now, more energy use means they are more likely subjected to government regulation.

 

Question

“Where should our gaze be directed in the future when we do not have to hold the steering gear? At a time when the climate crisis becomes a big issue, what will be the impact of human mobility and how should we prepare for the future? How will human beings in the future relate to the Earth and coexist with other life forms?”

People gained speed from laid roads, but there were restrictions on the degree of freedom on their direction and movement in travel. In this era of self-driving cars, where the role of drivers is gradually diminishing, the game questions the things that are exchanged for automation.

 

Objective

“Experience future mobility through the game as a narrative! It allows the audience to play how human technology interacts with nature from multiple perspectives. It also asks what effort is needed to ensure that technology is not exclusively anthropocentric.”

 

Hypothesize

“Each game console lets you play the city planner, the researcher, and the flightless bird. The game explores the Cloud of the future city for climate crisis refugees and asks questions about the meaning and value of future mobility. It also allows players to experience how the issues of mobility can affect ecosystems and human lives by designing to change the ending of the game due to players’ choices and actions.”

Energy types and stats are set differently for each character in the game. The city planner starts with full energy. The goal of the planner is to maintain the current situation. The researcher tries to get to the top of the city. This can be done by killing birds and gaining energy. The bird wants to escape from the melting surface of the earth by attacking humans. The condition of the game makes players uncomfortable. It makes us think about how humans can coexist with nature. We have prepared various endings in case players do not follow the instructions and end up running the game as they want.

 

Methodologies

○ Research: Analyze the modes of transportation in the near future and the social phenomenon of mobility based on research of future mobility
○ Crafting: Build a fictional world and character by specifying the game’s scenario. Make game proposals with the city planner, researcher, and bird as protagonists
○ Archiving: Archive works, and materials influenced by the production process. It deals with the changes that mobility has had on human consciousness and way of life from a perspective of social humanities.

Three game consoles will be installed in the exhibition hall so that they face each other from a 120-degree angle. You can play different characters for each game console. It would be like an arcade in the 1990s. Even the game used pixel-highlighted graphics. Pixel games are technically from the past, but they are still heavily used because the aesthetics of their forms exist. It is simple but clear, and the form is not overly realistic, so it has its symbolism.

 

About the Artist
Jooyoung Oh is a researcher and artist who has been conducting research and artworks using artificial cognitive models. She majored in visual design at Hongik University College of Art and received a master’s degree from KAIST Graduate School of Culture and Technology and completed a Ph.D. program as well. The artist develops works under two interdisciplinary backgrounds of visual design and engineering. While studying simulations of artificial cognitive models with an interest in the human visual cognitive process from a scholar’s point of view, she has been constantly asking questions about the limits of science and technology from the artist’s point of view. Particularly, she is interested in dealing with individual identities and ways of thinking using scientific methodologies that are considered to deal with the most objective facts. In 2017, her work showing the interface of technology and art, <Aging Brain> received the Grand Prize at the ART+SCIENCE COLLIDE (organized by the British Council, hosted by Artience Daejeon) and in 2018, <BirthMark> was produced as the selected artist for the Gwangju ACC Residence. After that, she participated ISEA2019 International Exhibition and Da Vinci Creative Exhibition in 2018. She won the IEEE BRAIN WINNER award at Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria) in 2019 and has continued her work. Recently, she participated as an invited artist in exhibitions of prominent domestic institutions such as Nam June Paik Art Center, Art Center Nabi, Ilmin Museum of Art, Daejeon Museum of Art, and Lee Ungno Museum. She was sponsored as NC SOFT Creator. In 2020, three works were nominated simultaneously at SIGGRAPH ASIA Art Gallery, and her works were exhibited at NEURAL.IT in 2020 and 2021 consecutively. In 2021, she was selected as an invited artist for Beijing and Seoul exhibitions on the World on a Wire of Hyundai motor & New Museum Rhizome by Hyundai Motors and continues active roles as a creator of 2021 Zer01ne.