You Are Being Watched

The weekend before last I rushed over to the Arcade to catch the tail end of the openings on Saturday night. Just I was leaving Ali Bellos stopped me and in addition to catching up a little, she gave me a sheet for ARTGO. Ali is always coming up with ideas for game art/art games, most of which never quite seem to crystallize into a full-fledged game with rules, which is part of the charm of it, watching the pieces start to form but maybe never get there. When she was in the book show in the Library she had everyone write down questions on a piece of paper which she collected. I think that was it. Something was going to happen to them, she never said quite what, I think she explicitly said she didn’t know for sure and then I never heard about it. But that was fine.

Anyway, back to ARTGO. A combination of Bingo and a scavenger hunt. Each square contains a drawing of something you might see at an opening. You get five across, up and down or diagonal, you win. I don’t know what. Doesn’t matter. And pretty much everyone wins. The squares are great: plexiglass, “that 70s haircut,” tetanus risk (a nail) cheese tray, special glasses, DIY clothing, art show friend (with a broken heart locket saying “Best Friend”), inappropriate touching (hand with circle and diagonal crossing line), The Man, country club pinky drink (drawing of beer bottle, pinky extended). It had a trenchant quality you have to love. And it made me self-conscious. How many of the items applied to me? At any rate, it left me with the thought that people are watching – either self-awareness, paranoia, or self-importance. Not sure how you figure out which.