User:ZUZU/Graduation...

Sep 17

New idea

After the summer break, just as my second year of graduate school was about to begin, Ind sent me a letter reminding me that it was time to renew my residence permit. This reminder heightened my sense of urgency about how to remain legally in Netherlands in the future. I began searching for job information on recruitment platforms and social media, but what I found only increased my sense of unease and pressure. I thought, why not base my graduation project on this very predicament?

After I presented this idea in the prototype class, Senka recommended two artists’ projects to me:

• It's IND's world and you're just living in it by Maja Simisic
  
• Looking for a Husband with EU Passport by Tanja Ostojić
  

Oct 3

What do you want to make?

A virtual identity simulation game set in a fictional country where each player's initial identity is randomly determined. The game explores the absurdities of survival in different roles, like a wealthy heir, a smuggled worker, or an arts student, with the goal of reflecting diverse existential experiences in a humorous and absurd way.

How do you plan to make it?

I plan to design the game with randomized identity assignments using a dice roll mechanic. The fictional country will have an incomprehensible language, creating challenges that vary based on the player’s identity. The wealthy heir avoids reading the incomprehensible language by hiring translators and lawyers, allowing them to select their preferred language. The The smuggled worker’s game could includeevading surveillance cameras, where you enter the game and need to quickly get out of the way of the camera within seconds or you'll be arrested, or it could include a number of other mini-games, but the content of the game would be based on the smuggled workers I'm able to interview, and if they're able to share more about their lives, the game content would be varied based on the experiences they've had to bring up some small interesting points. The arts student will experience games like using weekend train cards at specific time during off-peak hours, buying cheap second-hand furniture through chat groups, and using dating websites to find a marriage partner to escape job visa pressures.

What is your timetable?

Why do you want to make it?

This game reflects my personal anxiety about visa issues as a non-EU student in the Netherlands, particularly within the arts field. I aim to highlight diverse survival stories with humor and absurdity, showcasing the different ways people navigate societal structures.

Who can help you and how?

List the people that could help you realise your project and how they could help you, in other words, the support you hope to receive.

Relation to previous practice

This project connects to my previous exploration of wandering and psychogeography, where I examine how individuals navigate and survive in urban spaces. This game will explore how survival itself can be seen as a performance under different identity constraints.

Relation to a larger context

References

Techniques of the body by Marcel Mauss
Swiss passport office by Tom Sachs.
Glub by Mieke Bal and Shahram Entekhabi.
Passage by Robin van ’t Haar.
Squatting through Violence by Simon Leung.