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SWEAT is a videogame collaborative dedicated to making socially conscious
videogames.
It was first convened on the US-Mexico border in 2000 to work on the game
Crosser™. The participants were invited from a diversity of
intellectual and practical backgrounds; graphic design, architecture,
anthropology, printmaking and psychology. They were all living the
experience that we wanted to comment on. It was, in essence, a “design
maquila.” (International treaties created twin assembly plants, one on each side
of the border.) In this project, collaborators came from both sides of the
border. The collaborators provided the back story and taught elements of
it to me and to each other. This first iteration was adjourned upon the completion
of Crosser™.
SWEAT continues to exist, now in Denver, with different collaborators, and a new
game in the making. What’s different about the second iteration of SWEAT
is that the participants come from similar intellectual and practical backgrounds.
One knows how to program, but can’t draw (he thinks); two know how
to draw but can’t program (they think). All three are extremely eloquent
and accustomed to handling difficult ideas, and all three are studying digital
media and culture. But they don’t know the history of the region being
modeled. The elaboration of the back story, of the cultural narrative, becomes
part of the research and development phase of the project.
We are culturally engaged. We seek moments of empathy and of creative imagination
in the mind of the player. Blurring the line between the fun and the social conscience.
We attempt to create a tension, a dissonance between “game” and
“critique”,
between fun and serious, between glee (which I think is unself-conscious)
and guilt (which is totally self-conscious). We try to put players on
uncertain footing, without preaching,
without piety, and open a space, an opportunity for the player to question
the situation being presented. That moment of questioning, of sparking the
use of intellect and of creative imagination in someone else is –
we think – a radical act given contemporary political climates.
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