GMU:Board Games for Humans and Nonhumans

Maike Effenberg: Bacteria after one week

Lecturer: Mindaugas Gapševičius
Credits: 6 ECTS, 4 SWS
Date: Thursday 13:30-16:45
Venue: Marienstraße 7b, Biolab (Room 202)
First meeting: Thursday, 13 April 2017; 13:30-16:45

Board games are usually designed for people, but could we think of a board game designed to be played between humans and flies or between bacteria and yeast? What about a more complex game involving humans, microorganisms and objects?

The aim of the course is to grasp the environment and interactions of chosen organism(s). While trying to understand biological sensors of living organisms (light, motion, temperature, magnetic fields, nutrients) we will envision and implement strategies for interaction between humans and nonhumans. The course will include analysis of sensorimotor activity of the selected organisms, discourses around similar artworks and discussions on interactivity in a physical environment.

The course will be held in the DIY Biolab of the Media Environments chair. The developed games will be presented during the planned show in the Fall of 2017.

Syllabus

• 13th April / Short introduction to organisms
• 20th April / Short introduction to board games
• 27th April / Slime molds; Jonas
• 4th May / Photosynthetic Organisms (Algae, Cyanobacteria, Euglena); Annika, Mira
• 11th May / Microbial communication; Maike
• 18th May / Gudrun Rauwolf presenting concept of the exhibition in Jena
• 25th May / holiday; wiki update
• 1st June /
• 8th June /
• 15th June /
• 22nd June /
• 29th June / no class;
• 6th July /
• 12th July / preparation for Summaery
• 13th-16th July / Summaery

Students

• Annika Wappelhorst
• Sarah Hermanutz
• Nastaran Sahraei (Nassi)
• Mira Burchardt
• Maike Effenberg
• Valentine Rouillard

Related projects

Gordan Savičić

BioPong (2006), http://www.yugo.at/processing/archive/index.php?what=biopong, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6HY4-0vZsE

The AI is performed by a cockroach which carries a neon-green pixel on its shoulder. Players can control their sticks but are not able to foresee the movement of the CI (cockroach intelligence)

Wim van Eck

Bug-man, http://www.wimeck.com/portfolio-items/bug-man/

A Pac-Man computer game in which the virtual ghost characters are controlled by real crickets that run around in a real maze.

Ken Rinaldo

Augmented Fish Reality (2003), http://www.kenrinaldo.com/portfolio/augmented-fish-reality/

The Augmented Fish is comprised of 5 rolling robotic fish-bowls, designed to explore interspecies and transpecies communication. In these interactive robotic sculptures, Siamese fighting fish use intelligent hardware and software to move their fish bowls anywhere that they desire.

Ingmar Riedel-Kruse lab at stanford university

Trap it!, http://web.stanford.edu/group/riedel-kruse/publications/CHI517-lee.pdf

Museum visitors could use blue, green or red light to draw patterns on the screen and observe how the Euglena reacted. The microorganisms avoided blue light, so drawing a circle around one of the microbes would trap it, which became the name for one of the scientific mini-games

Euglena soccer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lwU9deF8rw start at 27:05, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdx7BkYSCq4

Players earn points by guiding the Euglena through the goal posts.

adam bartley

Protozoan Pacman, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVxNvWCTbYo\
Collaboration with scientist Professor Erik Andrew Johannessen, https://www.usn.no/news/news-archive/microscopic-pac-man-article194708-26881.html

An experiment using micro scenography and film lighting to film the behaviour of single celled organisms. Feel free to play your own music over the images. And remember, the maze is just 1mm wide!

Stephen Wilson

Protozoa Games (2003-2008), http://userwww.sfsu.edu/swilson/art/protozoagames/protogames10.html

Protozoa Games interactive installations allow humans and live protozoa to compete in pinball-like environments mediated by digital microscope and motion tracking technologies. A digital microscope tracks the activities of a variety of live single celled animals such as stentor, paramecia, amoebae, vorticella, volvox, and rotifers and projects the images on a large screen. At the same time humans are invited to engage in various movement 'games' in the space in front of the screen.

Mixed Reality Lab (Roger Thomas K C Tan, James K S Teh, Adrian David Cheok)

Metazoa Ludens (2006-), http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.85.3012&rep=rep1&type=pdf, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o7UIpOy5LA

Inter-species media interaction which allows human users to interact and play with their small pet friends (in this case hamsters) remotely via the Internet through a mixed reality based game system "Metazoa Ludens".

Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht

Pig Chase (2012), http://www.playingwithpigs.nl/

Designing new forms of human-pig interaction can create the opportunity for consumers and pigs to forge new relations as well as to experience the cognitive capabilities of each other.

GMU

Blocksworld repopulated! (2016), http://biogames.eu/

“The BioGame ‘Blocksworld repopulated!’ gives you the opportunity to plunge into a labyrinth populated by microorganisms that you can interact with. Instead of encountering programmed entities in ‘Blocksworld repopulated!’ you are playing with living Euglenas, uni-cellular organisms that are part plants and part animals.”

Maike Effenberg, BIO.MATCH, https://www.uni-weimar.de/kunst-und-gestaltung/wiki/GMU:Intro_to_BioArt/Maike_Effenberg#Eigene_Arbeiten

Bactria are an important part of our life. We know that they in uence our health physically as well as mentally. All of us are in a constant exchange of information via bacteria. We are just starting to understand how they in uence us and how we can use them to make the world a better place. This project goes one step further and helps you to answer a sought-after asked question „How do I nd my partner for life?“. bio.match uses your bacteria to nd a partner that really matches to you. Also visit: https:// www.instagram.com/bio.match/

Dimitri Engelhardt, DAMOCLES, https://www.uni-weimar.de/kunst-und-gestaltung/wiki/GMU:Intro_to_BioArt/Dimitri_Engelhardt#Projekt_-_DAMOCLES

This little habitat addresses the degeneration as essential part of the evolution and development, for filling niches.

Smin Kim, Dancing with Daphnia, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eRdbNO74Rw , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps3unZodRz8

Installation Dancing with Daphnia invites visitor to interact with little creatures also known as water fleas. While visitor moves the hands, the aquarium is lit up with different color letting water fleas to swim back and forth. As the interaction happens between unequal creatures, the human and the water flea, the work raises up ethical issues and the visitor is suggested to think of human in regard to water flea.

Roland van Dierendonck et al

Instructions for Biotic Gaming Device assembly for Euglena, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pQG9h8-nvQ

Verena Vuori, Toys for and by Pigs, https://www.verenavuori.com/blank-5

Grading

20 % Theory
50 % Practical implementation of the project
30 % Documentation including 10% of updates in Wiki

Eligible Participants

Undergraduates and graduates enrolled in the faculties of Media and Design.