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Visit People's Park Plinth

Ripon

02/07/2007
Natasha Chuk

It’s difficult to imagine a world where people work harmoniously toward utopian socialism, an almost laughable concept in the face of our present state of dystopian capitalism. Yet communities were once formed in America, no less, to create such a flawless way of life based on cooperation. Sharing and working together, two very “Sesame Street” sounding concepts are explored in Ripon, a video game art installation presented by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, currently on view in New York City.

Through hand-drawn depictions of a dystopic society set within an original video game, artists Troy Richards and Knut Hybinette of Cleveland Institute of Art in Ohio, have created an imaginary life in one of said utopian socialist communities. Viewers/players of Ripon are surrounded by oversized digital prints of icons from the game for heightened, experiential play and observation.

The game’s cleverness is in a player’s inability to win, that is, to survive, creating a situation of equality in which game novices like me and seasoned gamers like Knut all “die” within minutes of gameplay. The capability of outsmarting the game through repetition is omitted, eliminating the notion of player immortality, one of the video game’s core and most celebrated features. Unlike most video games, Ripon is designed to de-centre its player or players, making them slower and less powerful than their counterparts in the game and better suited for background activity. But it goes further than this: the game provides commentary on the general breakdown of a utopian society.

Ripon, pronounced RIP-in, is also the name of a small town in Wisconsin modelled after the influence and writings of French philosopher and advocate of utopian life Charles Fourier. In 1844, a group of followers started this small town observing Fourier’s fundamental guideline of having a complete set of personalities among its members to provide a balanced community and fulfill their mission of cooperating effectively. Theirs was an experiment in Socialism gone awry, quickly replaced with a new political vision. Ripon now ironically boasts the claim “Birthplace of the Republican Party!”

However, this video game installation does not critique Fourier’s philosophies or the failure of the Ripon community’s initial efforts to realize them. It is an experiment developed to promote critical thinking among players and illustrate the quick dissolution of communal interactions with fellow players. Even the group at the exhibition who took this game for a spin, declaring it a cynical outlook on life, fell trap to humans’ tendency to hold up the old adage “every man for himself”. These players abandoned the idea of sharing, working together, and surviving based on a team effort for the more individual, Darwinian approach that resulted in leaving another player dead if necessary.

Yet, Ripon does more than lead players down a predetermined path of demise. It combines technology and art, coming to life in a game with an embedded history lesson. Troy’s drawings give Knut’s games – available in 2-D and 3-D versions – an organic feel, setting Ripon apart from the cookie-cutter hyper-reality of most contemporary video games. The oversized drawings surrounding players in the installation magnify the decaying society depicted in the game and allow viewers to understand and appreciate the level of detail that went into composing them.

The game’s feel and the environment in which it is presented also indicate a newly emerging type of video game art world practice that isn’t charged by a win/lose dichotomy and seeks to provide a more thought-provoking experience. Ripon is in line with the inventive social issues games that are cropping up with more and more aplomb these days and the art installations that host them.

Ripon has taken various forms since it was conceived two years ago, constantly being tweaked by both artists as their ideas shift slightly in one direction. Troy and Knut will continue to make changes, even throughout a single exhibition, allowing Ripon to evolve based on feedback from viewers and players or simply at their whim.

https://www.gamescenes.org/2010/09/game-art-knut-lsg-hybinette-and-troy-richards-ripon-2008-.html