GameBody 1 (2022)

I didn't know if a ceramic pot could become a video game controller, but I wanted to combine my interests in ceramics with my research into haptic aesthetics in queer and trans video game design. 

I made a really goofy pot that collapsed on the wheel around summer 2022, and carved a bunch of circuits and hand holds on it with the idea of putting copper wire or tape in the grooves to make it conductive. 

The pot had been bisque fired but not glaze fired, so I experimented with putting some other copper tape gilded pottery through the kiln. 

Unfortunately for those test buttons, the tape came out as ash and was no longer conductive. 

The final pot controller, which I use as a demo object in my Haptic Media class, is therefore a bisque fired stoneware pot with copper tape just taped onto it.

I used Makey Makey to make the copper tape bits into buttons and the pot itself into a kind of keyboard to play a Bitsy game.

Please consider GameBody 1 a proof of concept that one can use a pot as a video game controller, paired with a little puzzle game explaining the process.

Making your way through these screens using the arrow keys may seem easy, but it really is mysterious how to do so when using a pot.

My partner Jett Allen is the play tester in the video, and Katherine Tholl, my hand building teacher in Troy, NY, is the person giving glaze advice in the background.

Music is "rhythmic ruins" from the Bitsy music tool. Sound effects generated using the Bitsy blip-o-matic tool.