Through the forest of Spoons lies a monster that many have faced but few have slain. A large looming beast that provides you with the accommodations you need to survive. Pill bottle crystals shimmer along its body as it stares you down with glowing eyes. It knows you need it. It knows it can’t let you go. Can you see through its facade to the truth?
Facades of Ingress
Gameplay of Facades of Ingress at Embodiment, the UCSC Digital Arts and New Media MFA Showcase, in late April 2024.Credits:
Sculptural help: Elliot Rex White
Technical Coordinator: Colleen Jennings
Game Masters: Tristian Cruz, Leon Linke
Software Engineer: Q Van Gessel
Facades of Ingress is an interactive puzzle-based experience revealing the monster that lies at the center of the institution. It holds the power to grant accommodations and provide an avenue to accessibility for all. Instead, it is greedy. It creates complex systems of paperwork, deeply intrusive medical exams, and copious layers of bureaucracy to hold hostage the resources it hordes.
Why make Facades of Ingress?
This project stems from the anger and frustration I have dealt with trying to gain the accommodations necessary for me to exist in the academic world. Over the summer of 2023, between my first and second years of graduate school, a monster began to form in my head. A greedy, gargoyle-esque creature that hoarded all my medication that my doctors and insurance were making so hard to receive. This monster grew as I leaped through hurdle after hurdle, trying to gain my right to accessible education. I dealt with harassment from fellow students and faculty. I dealt with a lack of belief in my ability to pursue my degree. I dealt with doctor appointments, meetings, emails, and invasive discussions about my health from all sides while also growing sicker and continuing toward my degree. This piece is the accumulation of everything I have faced.
Creating Facades of Ingress
Made mostly of foam, cardboard, and pill bottles, this piece features a series of microelectronic puzzles hidden inside of the monster, each representing challenges one must deal with in order to gain accommodations. Players will have to work through a series of purposely obtuse puzzles only to find that this game has no end. Like the institutional systems meant to help disabled folks through society, it instead holds them in place. A facade of helpfulness and community, a metaphor for the neverending hoops disabled folks have to jump through in order to survive in society. It provides illusions of ingress and gives the player hopes of power, freedom, and access, but instead blocks their progress forward.
Heart Puzzle Prototype WIP
Heart Puzzle Prototype
3D printed anatomical heart puzzle inside the monster's chest
wood and cardboard monster skeleton
early stages monster WIP before arms and lower jaw were added
Arduino Uno R4 Wifi connected to breadboard prototype of the Crystal Pill Bottle Puzzle
playtest of Crystal Pill Bottle Puzzle
Breadboarded test of the jaw mechanism included an Arduino Uno R3 and two servo motors
the monster's back was removable to access electronics. the wiring for the Crystal Pill Bottle Puzzle was hidden inside the removable back
WIP of the monster's right arm. It had a cardboard skeleton covered in foam and clay
Kris and friend work to untangle one of the hanging strings of spoons
Arduino Uno R3 motorized jaw wiring
