Participate in Branch, a game created by Blast Theory, a British media artist group who participated in #Art #Commons #Nam_June_Paik, an exhibit that took place in 2018 celebrating the 10th anniversary of Nam June Paik Art Center’s establishment! Using the Sanggal-dong area surrounding Nam June Paik Art Center as the game board, Branch is a game in which you become a game character who runs around to meets strangers and acquires symbol cards through conversations. Collect various symbol cards! Unexpected, immense joy awaits you. Max. two people may participate for each team. For a detailed schedule and registration information, please refer to the Google form below.

. 17– Oct. 20, 2018 (Wed to Sat), Oct. 24 – Oct. 27, 2018 (Wed to Sat), starts at 15:00 (takes 1 hour)
* Applications for the 27th have been closed.

Anyone

Lobby of Nam June Paik Art Center and Sanggal-dong area

Introducing the work
Branch is a game that uses a city as its board. Before the game begins, players receive a map of the surroundings and a series of question cards. The players need to look for various stores around Nam June Paik Art Center and, through conversations with townspeople, must find designated people to ask the right questions. When they successfully do so, they receive special branch cards. The team that collects the most cards wins but the essence of this game is to have conversations with strangers. In creating this game, Blast Theory gathered people from various fields from game design, semiotics and advertising to journalism, regional and urban research and design in order to make a “system by and for those who do not normally voice their opinions.” This game shows that a city is a common land constituted of different constituents with various voices and, also, that these common lands may begin with an attempt to start a conversation with a stranger.

Artist profile
Blast Theory is an artists’ group formed in London in 1991 and currently led by Matt Adams, Ju Row Farr and Nick Tandavanitj. It has showcased works that explore the interactions of technology and sociopolitical contexts. Their initial works took on an experimental form centered on the club culture with a radical and powerful method that brought the audience into their performances. Since the late 90s, however, it has conducted a variety of collaborations with a number of Internet and other technology-related research institutes, which have subsequently expanded their ways of work. Utilizing diverse media such as plays, radio, games and the web, and going beyond boundaries of different art genres, Blast Theory continuously takes on challenges of works in innovative and new formats that integrate the audience into digital real-time broadcasts and performances.