Syrian refuge crisis, Kashmir conflict and Kalyug: An art residency on gaming treads a new path

Using ganjifa cards to initiate a conversation on morality in Kalyug, and water as the interactive social currency is to string a new trope to the narrative prowess that come with games. But, for artists Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra, who have been toying with games in their projects for over seven years now, their game-project, Walk of Life II, brought with it the realisation that games could bring more to the table than just recreation. 

“Walk of Life, which we had worked on for Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum’s exhibition Games People Play. In the exhibition, we were asked to draw from the Museum’s collection of ancient and traditional games. We saw a set of ganjifa cards laying in a corner and were intrigued,” says Sumir. “The text was in Marathi and we did not know how to play it. So, we set out to recalibrate it, and built our own set of 120 cards.”

Walk of Life II is the duo’s project for Of Games III, Khoj Studios’ annual residency where they employ games as a medium of art. “Walk of Life II is a game based on morals, where the canvas stretches 72,000 years -- from Satyug to Kalyug. Man’s manifestation in the game starts as a fish, moves on to a tortoise, wild boar and so on. The game has ten milestones, and the player has the power to choose between bad karma, good karma and being neutral once he or she completes a milestone,” says Sumir. Water is the currency that keeps the game going. Bad karma will make you lose the water, while good karma gets you water. And if all the water is gone, the game is over before the player attains enlightenment.

This year, the residency which ran into six weeks, culminating in a two-day-long exhibition had Chinmayee Samant, Juliusz Zenkner (Poland), Krishnarjun Bhattacharya, Leonardo Castaneda (USA), Mario D'Souza and Sanket Jadia apart from and Thukral & Tagra.

Krishnarjun Bhattacharya, who does not have any design background seems like an unlikely participant. His two games Amor Fati and An Old Lady Dies are veer towards storytelling, because he thrives on narratives.

Krishnarjun Bhattacharya

Games that hinge on a narrative can be tricky because stories are currencies that move the game forward. If you impose too many rules, the game might end up scripty and performative. While a free rein may be tricky to control. I strived to find a middle path where I drew soft boundaries and let the players veer the game,”

Amor Fati (Latin for love of one’s own faith) is a world-building game with four gods and one mortal. The gods create the world and it could exist anywhere, in the World War II or on the Everest. In the game, hope and despair fight to pull the player towards themselves. “The game is as good as the players; they imagine and they set the rules,” says Krishnarjun. 

An Old Lady Dies, however, is a game where after the death of a rich, old woman her money-grabbing relatives who did not bother to know her in her lifetime gather to gain her money. In the daytime, the game is divided in six rooms, each with its visual clues, and the relative has to convince a lawyer that he or she was closest to the woman. In the night time, the players enter a maze, which is the woman’s house. The lawyer now is possessed by the lady’s ghost, and has to identify the relative to whom the money will go.   

Curator Promona Sengupta says that this year’s edition of Of Games has taken the conversation deeper.

Promona Sengupta

Khoj’s interest in new media practices led us to experiment with games as a medium. This year, we are looking at what makes a game work. We were looking at creating a playful system to communicate profound issues,"

This year's theme, she informs, was community.  

Mario D'Souza & Sanket Jadia's Game

Sanket Jadi and Mario D’Souza’s Motherland/Homeland, a single player virtual board game, was based on the Kashmir conflict, and its every stories. The players, which can take on the role of the grandchildren of Saleem and Shiva from Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children, and toy with ideas of freedom. Juliusz Zenkner’s game has players playing as different breeds of dogs that explore a complex narrative of the anti-immigrant and anti-refugee rhetoric in Europe.

Part of game by Mario D'Souza & Sanket Jadia

Promona says that the “unpacking of philosophical ideas from games” and letting games emulate complex crises may, perhaps, lead to important answers. Sumir, says that games are a “fantastic medium”. “The do not limit, are extremely performative and can be scaled up any time,” he says. 

Keep playing, is all we say.

Another game that is based on the life of a stray dog.