Climate change is a slow and painful process for many in the present: a sense of powerlessness, sadness, and loss could already easily be described as commonplace. Plasticity is a game aimed at promoting a feeling of individual environmental stewardship, and, despite its grim and apocalyptic presentation of the future, a feeling of hope. Students Michelle Olson and Aimee Zhan at the University of Southern California created the game in early 2020 as a platform to highlight not only the reality facing humanity with climate change but also the power that comes with becoming personally invested in the planet’s health and betterment. Follow a young girl and her dog as she travels up and down what appears to be the once lush and densely populated coast of California. Dead whales surrounded by ocean plastic, the sky an eerie hue of red from fire, with the remains of life literally littered everywhere. As the main character works to restore her world by picking up waste, planting seeds, and farming, the world positively responds in kind and begins to repair. It is a stark and gutting feeling to imagine the world completely destroyed in 2140, but the game does highlight the perseverance of nature and the human spirit. It isn’t entirely clear what projection scenarios were used to create the game or how accurate the portrayal is, but it does highlight a lot of the easily identifiable consequences of unchecked climate change and pollution; massive forest fires, a loss of biodiversity, an ocean choked with plastic and toxic waste. While there are many educational tools that reinforce the danger humanity faces, this game goes further by highlighting perseverance as an everlasting resource. This game does not yet appear to be commercially available but has been tested with kids in elementary schools, which the creators see as the target audience for their game.
Categories
Aesthetic/Leisure, Citizen Science, Psychology, Regulation
Air Pollution Robot
The dangers of air pollution to human health are well documented, though the traditional methodology of collecting and reporting on sample lags behind the need to keep abreast and regulate air pollution in a meaningful amount of time. The use of drones and robots have been identified by researchers as resources that can be tweaked […]
Artificial Life, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Industry/Natural Commodities, Lifestyle, Monitoring
Telematic Rivers
Erica Kermani’s artwork seeks to answer a central question: if rivers were seeing an equal, living entity, would humans take issues like climate change threatening them more seriously? In his year-long art exhibition in 2017, Kermani, in collaboration with Diana Salcedo & Jeana Chesnik, created a new forum of interaction between humans and rivers to […]
Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Lifestyle, Monitoring, Pollution, Visual Technologies
Co-occupied Boundaries
Art is easily found in nature but rarely is what considered art today inherently natural. The concept of co-occupied mediums that serve to be both functional for nature and aesthetically pleasing to people is being actively explored by Asya Ilgun and Phil Ayres, from the CITAstudio at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In […]
Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Lifestyle, Monitoring, Pollution, Visual Technologies