Critical Player 2020 <Meta-playbook: Hacking Characters>

Beyond Me, Us, and Society, Meta Play: Collision within Me, Art Collider

Art Collider Lab at the Center for Art Convergence is an affiliated institution of Korea National University of Arts, an art school under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. It is an institution that researches methods of convergence between art, technology and society beyond the interaction between art genres, and it also plans programs on creative methods of creation. Its name, “Art Collider,” was inspired by the Collider (a type of particle accelerator), a research and experiment device that conducts a head-on collision, observes the reaction, and discovers new substances. Here, “collision” serves as a driving force for discovering new things by breaking away from the conventional education method, and the name contains the philosophy of this lab as a place where these collision-like actions take place.

Play, Creation within Us

Historian and philosopher Johan Huijinga explains “play” in his book Homo Ludens (1938): it is a human activity that emerges from the process of “understanding-interpretation-acceptance-criticism-creation” of a world made up of rules. He also adds that human civilization has developed through these attributes of play, and the cultivation of “playful behavior” is the most important activity for learning and creation. Art Collider Lab pays attention to “play” to develop a convergent creative education method based on a comprehensive understanding of how the collision within me can lead to communication with other fields to comprehensively understand external environments. Art Collider Lab conducted various educational programs based on the theme of “play.”

In Pangyo, a symbolic space where the IT technology industry is concentrated, Art Collider Lab held <Talent Cultivation Project for Art Convergence: Integrated Creative Research through Art Game Production> that is on multi-faceted approaches to “game” – a representative play medium – in 2017 and 2018. The outcomes were recorded in the first issue of the publication series, <Critical Player>. In 2019, through <Every Day is Playful Media> that is Kkumdarak Saturday School 4.0, an educational program was conducted for teenagers based on “playful creation in the surrounding environment.” Its research process and outcomes were published in <Critical Player: Every Day is Playful Media 2019>. In addition to this, Art Collider lab continues to conduct research and training programs to experiment with playful media such as games and interactive art internally, and it supports challenges in new fields beyond the existing creative methodologies.

Communication with Society, Critical Player

As many of the contemporary – an era defined by the “4th Industrial Revolution” or “metaverse” – experiences are formed by media technology-related environments, people pay more and more attention to play-oriented elements that produce various interactive values. Accordingly, a new perspective on “game,” the most representative play medium, is emerging in particular. In <Critical Play (2009)>, educator and game theorist Mary Flanagan argued that games are not only a means of entertainment, but also a means of creative expression for conceptual thinking and social change. We can make a difference by integrating our interests into game design methods and getting inspiration for new works. Art Collider Lab takes on this stance and aims to create new values through an artistic methodology of “Play” in the contemporary world where art and various fields of society, culture, science and technology intersect and connect and emphasizes the attitudes and practices of “critical players.” When the player explores the world made up of rules, it is not a one-way experience of the constructed design, but rather an interactive activity that accepts and spreads the message of the work and presents a new perspective again. In these activities, the game becomes an artistic means of expressing the individual, and furthermore, a socio-cultural practice within the community. Many contemporary players are expanding the variety and scope of fun by accessing a single “game” or “playful media” from various angles, and they create a new play culture by forming various platforms and communities. Art Collider Lab pays attention to “critical players” who can actively and critically answer questions posed by playful media and present their play from a multi-layered perspective. To this end, Art Collider Lab conducts various programs focused on play, such as research, education, and creation support, and the Lab tries to nurture “critical players” on a steady basis.

Beyond Me, Us, and Society, “Meta Play: From Game to Not Game”

If the previous Critical Player series were on educational methods for the target, in <Critical Player 2020: Meta Play Book>, the game medium and components are meta-accessed through the medium of books, and activities that can be experienced through the play method called “hacking” are introduced. Through this, we can experience the behavioral style of an “independent player” who can go inside and outside the game and interact with various elements such as media and players. In addition, it is possible to check the potential of applying it to one’s own field and to cultivate the thinking skills of a “critical player” as an independent creator.

: From Game to not Game 

“Interactivity,” which is one of the distinguishing characteristics of new media, changes the shape, process, and result of the medium depending on the player, and the various transformations made by the player maximize “the individuality of the experience.” Through this interactive play, the Meta Playbook (MPB) tries to hack the existing game characters familiar to us, create new storytelling through the reconstructed characters, and meta-access the grammar of the existing game.

The MPB consists of four parts.

Part 1 “Hacking as an act of making by breaking,” participants will explore the culture and perspective of “hacking” that reconstructs the existing ones that are free from “illegal actions.”

Part 2 “Metaplay and Characters,” participants will learn about “meta,” “play,” and “character” and look at character hacking that has been experimented within the art world.

Part 3 “Hacking a character” is a part where a participant can become a real player and try to hack a character.

Depending on the guidelines, a participant can create his or her own character or with two or more team members. A reconstructed character is a single result, but it can be the beginning and process of a new work. The articles of researchers of the “MPB Research and Development Team” – Evan Song (board game developer), Gayoung An (media artist), and Myeongjin Yang (game planner) – are included in the epilogue. Here, it is possible to find out how MPB can be used in their respective fields and in a more interesting way. Through this, we intend to reconsider the significance and further potential of MPB.

This MPB borrows the character creation format of TRPG (Tabletop Role Playing Game or Table-talk Role Playing Game). TRPG is a type of board game, and it is a role-playing game in which people sit down at a table and follow the scenario by performing the roles of a given character in turn. In general, “luck” is important for players to perform their own role-playing characters. This is because the character’s features and values are determined by the number on a dice thrown. However, beyond the simple sum of the dice numbers, MPB presents a play that can create new characters and stories by hacking the appearance of existing game characters.

Characters transformed through a hacking approach that analyzes and reassembles existing characters start with a “game,” but they do not end up only with a “game.” It can be presented as a non-player character (NPC) that can be hacked by another player, and furthermore, new characters and narratives can be combined with other genres or media to form new creative plays. In this MPB, let’s think about the elements of play that make up the game through character hacking and create our own “metaplay” that can cross the inside and outside of the games.

Myungyeon Lim (Art Collider Lab at the Center for Art Convergence)