Fishy

Dolo Piqueras (exchange student from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Laboratory de Luz)
Game in public spaces, 2008
Interface Cultures

*Fishy* aims to visualize some aspects like non-visible violence of our technological and mass media era. The purpose of this installation is to make visitors aware of the difference between the knowledge that we have about an object and the knowledge about the concept of this object. Maybe the problem of our time consists of the discrepancy between the enormous technological power that we deploy and the limited capacities that we have to understand and control the effects of this power. Our awareness has not kept pace with what we can provoke in the world. When visitors approach the *Fishy* installation they see a box full of balls and an old style video game machine, seemingly inoffensive. Visitors can start to play the video game and do what they already expect, to win. But as more users start to win, more and more balls fall into a pipe that is connected with an aquarium where a small fish swims around. The amount of water in the aquarium decreases and the fish finds itself in danger when too many people start to win the video game. *Fishy* tries to make people aware that their actions are often unrelated to the consequences of their actions and that mechanics depend on actions that are abstract concepts and often lack connection to the real physical world.