#1 Video
DESIGNER POKER
Interactive installation
Hardware: PC + tastiera
Software: Unreal Engine, Blender
Hardware: PC + tastiera
Software: Unreal Engine, Blender
#2 The pool of chairs
#3 Installation layout
#4 Judgement guidelines
Designer Poker is an interactive installation whose subject is the world of furniture design, making it become the focus of a very peculiar Poker game where the medium of the game itself is not a playing-card deck but an array of a most ubiquitous item of that very world: chairs.
The installation would be mounted in a room [illustration #3], where a large projection [video #1] takes place on one of its walls. Each visitor can interact with what happens in the projection through a keyboard.
Video #1 shows what a session of the game is like. At the beginning of it a hand of five chairs, randomly picked by a pool of them [illustration #2], is dealt the installation visitor and the chairs begin their dance around an unconventional Poker table.
As though they were different card suits the chairs are fashioned in different shapes and colours. They also move in different ways. The purpose of the game is the same as a real Poker game's: to end up with a winning combination. Here, a valuable combination has a two-layered value, as it implies both numbers and taste. For example: around a table it makes for a choice of taste to have four chairs of the same kind and colour, let alone five of them. Or would it not be fashionable to have a table with five chairs of five different styles and colours? It is of paramount importance to avoid poor combinations, for instance just a pair of like chairs out of five and the rest all different chairs. And this is why, at the end, as it shall be seen, the final score yields a playful assessment of the player's personal aesthetic sense [illustration #4].
How does the player-visitor achieve combinations starting from a randomly dealt hand? Again, just like a Poker player may change up to three cards from their initial hand in the hope of forming a scoring combination, so does the player-visitor with the chairs, changing up to three of them. Then, upon revealing the changed (if there are any) new chairs, the score will be calculated, and the judgment on the player-visitor’s design-aspirations shall be cast.
The installation would be mounted in a room [illustration #3], where a large projection [video #1] takes place on one of its walls. Each visitor can interact with what happens in the projection through a keyboard.
Video #1 shows what a session of the game is like. At the beginning of it a hand of five chairs, randomly picked by a pool of them [illustration #2], is dealt the installation visitor and the chairs begin their dance around an unconventional Poker table.
As though they were different card suits the chairs are fashioned in different shapes and colours. They also move in different ways. The purpose of the game is the same as a real Poker game's: to end up with a winning combination. Here, a valuable combination has a two-layered value, as it implies both numbers and taste. For example: around a table it makes for a choice of taste to have four chairs of the same kind and colour, let alone five of them. Or would it not be fashionable to have a table with five chairs of five different styles and colours? It is of paramount importance to avoid poor combinations, for instance just a pair of like chairs out of five and the rest all different chairs. And this is why, at the end, as it shall be seen, the final score yields a playful assessment of the player's personal aesthetic sense [illustration #4].
How does the player-visitor achieve combinations starting from a randomly dealt hand? Again, just like a Poker player may change up to three cards from their initial hand in the hope of forming a scoring combination, so does the player-visitor with the chairs, changing up to three of them. Then, upon revealing the changed (if there are any) new chairs, the score will be calculated, and the judgment on the player-visitor’s design-aspirations shall be cast.