Final Essay

Austerity and Mass Consumption

Justification of Curated Experience

Asheigh Blakemore

Presently humans are living in a world of instant, accessible luxury. It is easy and quick for people to get what they want so we live in excess. But what is most valuable to us? 

A survey was conducted asking 13 different people a series of questions to find out 15 things they, as a generalization, felt they couldn’t live without. These things are caffeine, chocolate, showers/hot water, music, beauty, meat, religion, friends, alcohol, beauty, traveling, fruit, cats, relationship/sex, driving and bread and were considered the most valuable to them. Using this knowledge I created a curated experience aiming to make the observer feel a sense of austerity. This feeling was created using the environment, the psychology of consumption and re-creating British post-war rationing by rationing modern luxuries.

The curated experience uses print and photographic mediums. Each important object was allocated one photographic representation. Each photograph was then printed and the most valuable piece of the commodity was blanked out. The blanked out section was then put into a ration book along with the other blanked out pieces. The photos were then arranged in an austere environment designed to make the user feel small and severe. The environment also encouraged the use of queuing which was what participants needed to do during the experiment. 

In post WWII Britain, a period of austerity, a large portion of the populace was working in industrial factories. These factories were large, undecorated, brick, open spaced environments full of work lines (fig.1). According to workers who worked in these environments they felt that the factories were “soul killing”, “unfettered” and “cheap” (Anonymous, 1923). To evoke similar austere feelings the curated experience was based in a stair well and corridor. This was so the user would feel small, cold and powerless in the neutral toned, metal and brick rich environment. 

Figure 1. 

Austerity is also heavily influenced by the protestant movement. Anglican church architecture in the 1800s was deemed modernist compared to its catholic counterparts who preferred to build in the lavish Gothic or Norman styles. Protestants used larger spaces with sparse detail, such as avoiding ceiling columns, to ensure that the emphasis was on the congregation rather than on the decoration. Having the curated experience set in an airy, bright stair well with high ceilings, recreates these protestant ideologies to create feelings of austerity without directly connecting them to the religion.  

Being set in an environment where there is limited space also forces the user to queue in order to view the experience. In the following decade after WWII, Britain underwent mass rationing. While the increased rationing was met with unhappiness many people were wary of the new restrictions because of the queues it would cause. (Trentmann, 2004) Limited commodities available for consumption meant that queues outside shops and stores which sold products with the highest demand were often a necessity (fig.2). One woman of the time called it “a disgusting waste of time” (Anonymous, 1941) however for much of the population there was no way around these queues. In the experience queuing makes the participant feel as impatient as the men and women who did it during the rationing times and reinforces the feelings that the item being queued for is in high demand, but in limited quantity. 

Figure 2.

During the rationing in post WWII Britain, the government would supply their populace with food stamps for ration books. These documents meant that the populace would only get limited access to certain items such as “Butter, bacon and sugar.” (Stebbing, 1939) The books were introduced because prior to them people would buy more than their fair share of the sought after commodities as recorded by the citizen E. A Stebbing who wrote that people had been sending different members of their families into shops to buy more than what they were allowed. The items that the individual chose to use their stamps on were the ones that they deemed to be the most important or necessary for day to day living. 

Participants of the experience were given a poster and a ration booklet before participating to make them feel that the event was an important one. The poster asked “What is most valuable to you?”  While the ration books had the important pieces of the photographs but no explanation. The participant would feel the order and structure of rationing but also that their power in this experience was limited. 

When the participant arrived in the environment they would be forced to join a queue which would lead them to the experience. They were faced with the question what is most valuable to you and were made to chose just one of the 15 commodities which were chosen based off the survey. When they chose they would be given the page with their chosen commodity from their ration book, then be made to return their ration book and move on. The user can view the photograph and the missing piece - they can consume both, however not at the same time and not for long as the queue meant they would be moved along. The idea is to make the user think about what they feel is the most valuable and to draw attention to excessive luxury and consumption. 

Technological advances since the Second World War have meant that consumers are now more involved in the products they choose to consume as they have more choice and more means to access what it is they want. They have progressed from the passive consumer of the post war era into a participating user (Trentmann, 2004). Causes for mass consumption of items, particularly luxury items stem from the drive to emulate others and to differentiate oneself from the masses (Trentmann, 2004). Having luxury items that are harder to get and not as mass produced gives people the point of difference they long for. These causes are the reason that Big name brands who make specialized designs have created “product clutter” giving consumers too much choice (Trentmann, 2004). The experience restricts the amount of choice the participant has and limits how much they can consume to create a feeling of austerity. 

In conclusion, austerity was evoked in a participant by removing their power by placing them in an austere environment. Limiting their choice and the quantity of a researched selection of the most valuable, luxurious things also created a feeling of austerity. Ration books and a selection of displayed photographs force the participant to think, given their limited options, about what luxury really means to them and what they feel is the most valuable commodity in their life. All of these things combined evoke a feeling of austerity in a participant of the curated experience.

References:

Anonymous, (1923 , September 17), Fatigue in the Factory - The ‘Fordising’ of industry, The Times, pp. 19

Anonymous, Mass Observation Archive, (Topic collection 67 - food), 3/C Rationing 1941, University of Sussex. 

Attfield. J, (2000), Wild Things, London, Berg, pp. 55-57

Figure 1 and Figure 2, Bolton Museum, (2011), Collections - Local History, retrieved from http://www.boltonmuseums.org.uk/collections/local-history/archivesimages/

Gurney. P, The Battle of the Consumer in Postwar Britain, The Journal of Modern History, vol. 77, No. 4, (December 2005), pp. 956-987

Stebbing, E. A, Mass Observation Archive, (Diarist number 5205), Entry December 4th 1939, University of Sussex.

Trentmann, F. Beyond Consumerism: New Historical Perspectives on Consumption, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 39, No. 3, (2004), pp. 371-401

Tutorial Screen

One of the things we noticed was that there was no tutorial or help screen. I decided I would build these. We wanted them to convey that the arrow keys controlled the character, the poacher was bad, which things to avoid and which things to collect. We also wanted to show the player where to access on the screen the necessary information.

Originally I made the tutorial screen on a plank of wood with the idea that I would then put it onto a blank tree screen and it would look nice with a wood frame. However I realised after making it that it would not fit.

To change this I bought in a frame of blank tree screen into photoshop and then moved the parts of the tutorial screen around so that it would fit in. I exported it as a .png with a transparent background with the idea that it could be easily put over the top of the blank tree screen animation as a screen.

User/Market Testing

While Jenny and I were in Seatoun we did market testing since we had a copy of the game at its current version and all the assets finished.

We got the kids to sit around Jennys computer and look at the start screen, images of all the characters, the game version and the some of the animal fact screens.

 We asked them what they thought of the game and they said that they liked the fabric texture. They also said that the poacher looked scary. We asked them if they thought Jamie was a girl or a boy. They said that they weren't sure if Jamie was a boy or a girl.

 However as there were two girls and one boy, the girls decided that Jamie was a girl. In response to this affirmation the boy replied "boys can have long hair sometimes". It was very satisfying to know that Jamies sex was unclear to children.

 We also asked them about their favourite animal. They all had a different favourite but they all found them cute and adorable.

 They were also intrigued that the animals we presented were endangered. They said that they hadn't known that they were endangered and they said they also enjoyed the animal facts as they said the game was fun so they didn't mind learning.

 One of the big points of feedback was that the counter and timer were too small and that the controlling keys, WASD were too hard to use. They were the biggest negative points we got so we made sure that we passed that on to Lucas so he could fix it.

Sounds and Music

Our game still needed music so I found two tracks by Kevin MacaCleod. Both of these tracks were Jungle themed and had bongo drums in them. They were both very appropriate so I put them on drop box for Lucas to choose from since Jenny liked them both. I also found a bongo drums soundtrack of 34 seconds on freesound which we decided to loop and use in the screens, so that there was a point of difference from the game and the screens but they were still related.

As part of the interim feedback we were told that it would be rally good to have ridiculous sound effects. We had talked about getting children to voice our effects and this feedback really enforced the idea.

To get these sound effects Jenny and I made a list of all the effects we would need for the game by going through a flow diagram of screens I had made. We got out a microphone and camera and recorded ourselves making sound effects. I then cut these into soundbite and exported them into .wavs to use in the game until we got proper children to make the effects.

This came when Jenny and I caught the bus to Seatoun to do both sound recording and user/market testing. The children were Jenny's cousins who are 7, 7 and 9.

We sat in a circle and I operated the microphone. Jenny would say what we wanted the kids to say then each kid would say the word or phrase and then they would all say it together. We went through the list three times to get lots of choice for the game. We also realized we were missing sounds while we were there so we got the kids to do sounds for that too.

Making the Poacher Evil

Jenny had redesigned the poacher based on the interim feedback and our chosen precedents. It was now more evil. It also had a bigger gun. 

I spoke with Lucas and we decided to change the way the poacher acts in the game. We decided he wouldn't run around but there would be trees throughout the level and he would pop up from these. He would still have a shooting and idle state.

The appearing animation would be the poacher popping up from the bush. I wanted to make him look as creepy as possible when he did this to create the feeling that he was a villain, he was sneaking about and that he was dangerous. I had him slowly pop up from the bush and then when he was fully up his gun would rise up and complete the image. Having his gun pop up after he did further re-enforced that the poacher was doing bad.

As his gun was bigger in the new iteration, I felt that the impact of shooting the gun needed to be more pronounced than in the prior animation. I had the barrel of the gun draw back quickly, then the poacher and the rest of the gun would slide backwards as if pushed by the force. The effect was that the gun was really powerful which is what I wanted to get across. I also animated his hat, eyebrows and mustache to tip slightly with the force, it made him look slightly silly which I think the children would enjoy, however as it is a looped animation, the silly-ness is not overpowering.

I used his original idle animation, but replaced the pieces with the new poacher parts, this saved time since the original idle animation was still suitable for the evil poacher.

Changes to Jamie

 The biggest change to Jamie is that we needed to have a front facing Jamie. Previously Jenny had just used the side head on a front body which looked very weird. I showed her how to use the ruler function  so that everything would be the same size when she made it.

The end result was that Jamie looked and was the same size as her side version. I used the same process as the other characters to bring her into Flash and create a new idle animation. In this state I decided that her torso would just move up and down and her arms would move slightly in and out of her sides. This is to create the impression that she is breathing heavily, since she would probably have just stopped running. It also makes her look like she is ready to jump back into action at any time.

One of the things we also decided to do was introduce blinking into Jamie's states. I decided I would first add it to her jumping animation, as when she jumps it would make sense that she would close her eyes, similarly to how little kids do when they jump big distances. Its an instinctive act that people have when they feel like they might get hurt. It also makes her look like she is trying her hardest to move from platform to platform and save the animals.

When I started to make Jamies blink I made a top and bottom eyelid. I put them into flash and then animated them to start from nothing, jump up and create a whole circle then recede to where they were prior. When creating fluid animations I would use Classic Motion Tweens which fills in the gaps between keyframes with smoother animations. The result when applying this to Jamie was that you could see the eyelids rising up to touch. The effect was that it looked like she had been punched in the face, even when the eye was fully closed. It was very scary and removed the child playfulness that we had worked hard to accomplish with Jamie. 

In my second attempt at getting Jamie to blink I used the same texture as whats in her eye but in photoshop I made it a slightly darker shade and added a purple tint. This made it more consistent from open to close and the effect was less scary. 

 I played around with how to make the blink appear, including having the whole blink state tween in from the bottom of the eye, but I found that this was too slow. I solved the issue by removing the tween, I played the animation to test it and the blink had one frame which appeared then dissapeared. It appeared so quickly that it looked like a real blink.

The next problem I had to solve was making her states the same size. The three states were all different sizes which meant the transitions from one to the other within the game were very obvious and glitchy. To solve this problem I opened three frames from the different states and put them next to each other in photoshop. From there I decided on which ones needed to be resized. Some also needed to be cropped down to size. Since there were multiple frames it was going to take a while so I used the actions function and created a recording of the correct sizes and cropping for the frame. When I played this on the other frame it would apply the same settings. It made the resizing process much faster.

From there I decided on which ones needed to be resized. Some also needed to be cropped down to size. Since there were multiple frames it was going to take a while so I used the actions function and created a recording of the correct sizes and cropping for the frame. When I played this on the other frame it would apply the same settings. It made the resizing process much faster. All the frames were between 100 and 200 pixels and were in the center of the images. This meant that the transition in game went smoother and unnoticeable. 

Assets

While Jenny was making a new poacher and making a front view of Jamie I decided to work on some of the game assets. This was so that there was not so much strain on Jenny as she had WOW and also I had nothing to do.

Prior to this I had made and designed the platform. I made my original platform based off my original concept for platforms. However we decided to use something simpler since the game would be quite busy otherwise. 

We decided that we wanted wood platforms so I created a wood outline in illustrator and textured it using a wood texture. 

I spoke with Lucas who said that the platforms needed to be 40px by 40px so I cut them into the correct sized pieces.

 After having these platforms in the game for a while we decided that they were too bland and didn't pop, which was needed for our game. Jenny and I discussed new Platform designs and thought about having branches, using the texture from the tree trunks in the screens on them to tie them to the game. Jenny designed the branches and I textured them and cut them into pieces.

I also knew we needed to have a first aid kit. I spoke with Lucas and he said it would be very easy to put in the game, so I decided to make it so that he would have it for when it was required. I constructed the icon made in illustrator based off images from google of what first aid kits look like. I textured them using a red woolen texture as red is often associated with health. 

It also meant that it would tie in well with the Health icons. We decided they should be hearts since they would be easily identifiable as to their purpose by children. 

I also designed and made the mud trap which would slow Jamie down. Originally I had the idea of a bear trap, since that would be what a poacher would use. I looked up some precedents to get an idea of what a 2d bear trap looked like.

I used Limbo since I recently played that game and it had a bear trap. The bear trap is in 2D and is very clearly dangerous. I also looked at a different shape of bear trap. I started making a bear trap for the game but it looked too violent for our age bracket. I then looked at making a wooden box which would trap Jamie. However this was too big. I consulted with Jenny and it was decided that it would be more consistent and age appropriate if we had a mud trap.

The mudtrap is just a pile of mud which the poacher sets on a platform. The idea is that Jamie will fall into it, and get stuck for 5seconds. I used a coarser brown texture to give the impression that it was layered and gloopy.