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Ping Pong/
Rent A Family/
modular/
2001
instructor: Christopher Pullman
actors: Glen Cummings, Margarita Barrios Ponce
When playing The Sims, I started to think about these questions:
How far are we from living our real lives through the screen? Will life be better through a screen?
Some interactions don't seem to be very promising through a screen, such as eating, drinking, sleeping, working out, using the bathroom. But other interactions are quite possible, such as smelling the flowers, appreciating a piece of art, and interacting with other people.
We can talk, joke, tease, quarrel, make friends, fall in love and protect ourselves. The only disadvantage is we can't touch each other.
But who knows.
The text above is based on the script for The Sims: Life Through the Screen.
This video project started full of cynicism--I was very much frustrated by my experience of interacting with people a year after I came to America. For the first few sketches of the video project, I was mostly focusing on our inability to make physical contact through a screen.
Then I decided to reduce the cynicism a little and shifted to the idea that the computer screen can be a shield to protect and disguise the user.
During the shooting of the video, because I was being filmed, I could not control the cinematography. I asked friends and even strangers to do it for me. The methodology gave an amateur look to this piece, which I later found refreshing.
