A Wicked Game is an installation comprised of a video game in an arcade cabinet, photographs, sound, and a sculpture that explores the complexity of play and personal memory. Working from the concept of “wicked” (Epstein) learning environments – domains with hidden rules, unstable structures, and inconsistent feedback – the project constructs a playable space, where players must navigate an inhospitable environment, echoing the experience of living in a world that resists accommodation.
The installation centers around an all-black arcade cabinet placed in a darkened gallery space, inviting visitors to play A Wicked Game. The game demands the player know things which are never taught, demands that they contort themselves to a constantly changing control scheme, and success requires mastery combined with luck. The narrator is deliberately inhospitable. The game’s mechanics disorient and confuse, both repelling and delighting the player.
Other works in the exhibition reinforce themes of loss, memory, and uncertainty. Personal storytelling is interwoven with scholarly discourse and design research, positioning the work as both autobiographical and theoretical.
A Wicked Game traverses an artistic practice informed by game logic, resisting clarity and embracing complexity. It invites players to reflect on what it means to inhabit systems that are unstable, arbitrary, and often unjust to imagine new forms of cooperative play and shared empathy.
The writing will be available soon.
You can play the game here: A Wicked Game
