California Bails
Game-based art experience designed by Helena Abdelnasser, Hazem Shaltoot and Ayah Abdeen and displayed at Medrar’s exhibition “SHISH BISH”.
Concept Statement
The Power of surveillance lays in its ability to collect, store, and allow access to data. Especially during crisis, the collection of large amounts of data is justified by the idea of protection. Additionally, architecture can be used to facilitate surveillance. A structure like the Panopticon would naturally allow an excessive amount of data to be collected. In thins interactive game, some players are put in an invented crisis, where their only way out is by sharing their information with the opponent player who can provide the service they need.
Story
On a quiet night, the guard of a building in Downtown suddenly feels a thief sneaking into an apartment while he is asleep. The guard is worried so he closes the entrance and asks all residents to remain in their apartments for their own safety. He carefully goes through the entrance, the apartments, the corridors to ensure that he actually saw a thief and it wasn’t his imagination. On the other side, the residents are worried about the guard attempts to interfere in their lives. Since they are not allowed to move out of their apartments, they are forced to trade their food ingredients through the guard only. Is the guard really on a search for a thief, or did he create a situation in order to collect information on the residents’ daily life?
Game Components
– 4 sets of cards, 3 sets of resident cards and one set of guard cards.
– Residents cards consist of: Character profile and 4 encrypted plate ingredients, and the menu of plates cooked by the residents of this building.
– The Character profile contains: The character name, the encrypted components they have at the beginning of the game, the plate they are trying to cook and its ingredients.
– Guard card contains a set of probable plates and their encrypted ingredients.
Game Start
– Each player takes a set of cards randomly.
– Each player enters their apartment and the guard stays in the corridor and calls the numbers of apartments occupied by the players.
– the Guard turns on the radio and the game starts.
– Each player chooses a component that they don’t need to pass it to another player and waits for an ingredient that they need to arrive to them.
– The player who is ready to pass a component calls the guard, passes the card and tells the number of the apartment that they want to pass it to. The guard takes the card, write down the important notes then give it to the assigned apartment.
– The players continue decrypting cards and passing the ones they don’t need and the guard tries to take the necessary notes to guess what they are trying to cook.
Game End
– If one of the players finished their plate, they say the name of their plate out loud.
– The residents team wins if one of them finished their plate.
– The guard says out loud the number of the apartment and the name of the plate for example (apartment 2 is cooking Kofta). And the player in that apartment replies if it’s true or false.
– The guard wins when the guess is correct.
– if the guard made a wrong guess, the player in that apartment wins alone.
Ayah Abdeen 