ON KLUGE: A Meditation in Four Parts from Four Students

1) The computer is often seen as giving the artist more freedom in both the visual and conceptual sense.  Likewise, this is supposed to give the viewer more room for freedom of exploration.  In what way do you feel a sense of exploration may be gained/lost if looking at your piece on the computer as opposed to in an art gallery or at a multi-media installation?  Also, your piece ties in with elements of video games.  How might encountering it a video game convention change the reader’s exploration experience or sense of what the piece emphasises?

~Chris

2) In going through the scratch-and-win-like story of KLUGE, I was lost searching for my millions buried beneath the gray lettering. I however found myself in a sorrowful loop, neither winning nor loosing, until after several minutes I realised I had actually lost myself. I now not only had not only a sense of a new way of reading but a new way of gaming. Had you anticipated creating this new way of gaming on top of you new way of reading?  Do you feel this speaks to a greater evolving cyclical form of gaming?

~Brendan

3) As I was playing around trying to find all the possible ways to access the piece, I was especially intrigued and excited to see how the function of using the number keys to direct the piece the number of lines to scrape away as instructed.  However, on my computer it was disappointing to find that this function did not have any effect on the piece.  Should this function work on a wide variety of viewing platforms? Or is this something you are still working on?

~Ady

4) In your post you stated that Kluge was first intended to be a video game, but the back-story suggests your conception of it changed into a cross between a poem and visual art with some gaming features. However, this back-story does not come across in the work itself as the introduction introduces Kluge as a game intended to be played by the reader. This confused me and left me wondering what I was intended to be doing or accomplishing. There seems to be a contradiction as to what Kluge represents itself to be and what you yourself expect Kluge to be.  Are you alright with this tension or would you consider re-evaluating your perception of Kluge or how Kluge presents itself?

~Jamie