Spatial design: Playware
Created by Leeser Architecture
For the “Expansion Pack” in this exhibition highlighting the conflation of boundaries between video gaming and game based artwork with the world around us, the exhibition environment, which in itself obfuscates these boundaries, is transformed. Like the video game industry analogue the Expansion Pack, this gamescape receives an add-on to its pre-existing storyline. Navigation within the virtually edgeless and depthless space of Gameworld is still the primary objective. This navigation is utterly altered from the initially fuzzy blue world. The environment is designed ready to morph as it progresses through a series of temporal levels. Orange now claims portions of the vast blue expanse and signifies the Expansion Pack.
Many of the 3 dimensional modules of Gameworld have been replaced by discreet game objects, requiring a full range of body motions, physical exertions, and tactile experiences. These objects require largely 2 dimensional exhibition space of the wall or floor. The remaining modules have been reprogrammed with new games. The modules and play zones have been adjusted to the color orange. Islands of the Expansion Pack emerge within the blue. The optical oscillation between the two vibrant colors animates the space, and like its oscillation between virtual reality and real virtuality, heightens that very peculiar quality of Gameworld, its failure to come into focus.