Contextual statement

Contextual statement

There is a parasite fungus called the Cordyceps Unilaterus that can take over an insect into moving and acting the way the fungus wants. The insect on the other hand thinks it is moving and acting the way it wants to and is not aware that this fungus is having control over it. My work lies within the 'digital' having the same impact as the fungus and us being the insect. My work allows the participant to get sucked into this digital media only to be shocked with feeling that they have been manipulated into doing something that they are not aware of and outside of the digital space they are used to, much like the way the fungus takes over an insect.

The way the person is to feel manipulated is from a virus hacking into their email account and contact real people from another digital source. This is all granted from the person's continuous use of a specific digital media source.

The purpose of allowing this feeling of manipulation from using a type of digital media is to give an understanding on how we already allow the digital in our lives to impact us from large amounts of  consumption. If you have a Facebook account with a few friends you could easily have one of those friends request for you to try an online game or look at an online article. What this can do is have the digital invest in your 'real' life, for what would be an absurd amount of time to which has now become normal. This is all done from the persons desire to complete a personal specific goal. Whether it is first the courtesy of filling out the request of the friend or the curiosity of what it is the friend has been interested in enough to ask the person to be a part of.

My work uses an email request from a known contact to draw the person into the game. This could easily be from a different digital media such as Facebook or Twitter. The contents of the email will be both stating that by the person playing the game it will have beneficial outcomes for both the contact and the person. This will not be effective for all receiving the email (just as the Cordyceps fungus will not infect all insects) and is aimed for people with a larger use of an unproductive digital media.

My work uses a game as its digital media source. After the person accepts the contact's request they will be brought to a game of unsolved puzzles. For the person to be further intrigued and to have a larger desire to continue playing, it has been stated by M Osman there is a higher chance of with a specific goal for the person to achieve. The game uses 3 well known face card images and mixes their body shapes. These card faces are well known especially within the gaming context. This unnatural use of the card faces will be what the person desires to fix, similar to most card games involving a sorting of colours or numbers.

The way to which the person will solve these puzzles will be from using a hand tool to control a non player character. The purpose of not having a player character is to distance the person from being in the game and to see the person as separate from the character rather than them being transported into another world that is separate from the 'real' . On each ring there is a puzzle that represents each stage of hacking the email account, the character responds to these puzzles by morphing into only what is required to help solve each one. This character is taken from the many traits of the crow from Native American mythology. The crow can transform into any being it sees as necessary to get what it wants.