Project Details
The Bafflement Fires is an interactive game-based artwork that attempts to create a new genre of digital poetry by using a quiz game engine as the method for writing and reading the work. It is supposedly a digital recreation of a Freemason board game from the 1950s. Based on found documents, the game, built by a psychologist and Mason, was an attempt to alter player’s perception through quiz and play. While it appears some of the game was lost/destroyed, enough was there for me to create a largely accurate videogame version. Overall, it explores methods for transforming quizzes, tests and other forms we continually encounter, this work builds a world through bizarre, seemingly surreal questions and answers through the lens of found ficto-history and digital poetry in question-and-answer form.
Published & exhibited
Review of the game: Games of the week, by macgasm.net
Select impact
Finalist, New Media Writing Prize: https://newmediawritingprize.co.uk/archive/?prize-year=2015
Finalist, Turn-On Literature Prize: https://turnonliterature.eu/works/2017/08/07/the-bafflement-fires/
Select documentation
Playable version: https://boingboing.net/2015/08/24/play-a-digital-version-of-a-lo.html