Hyperrhiz 27
Incantations for a Competitive Spirit
Kristin McWharter
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Art & Technology / Sound Practices
Citation: McWharter, Kristin. “Incantations for a Competitive Spirit.” Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures, no. 27, 2024. doi:10.20415/hyp/027.a10
Abstract: Incantations for a Competitive Spirit is an artwork by artist Kristin McWharter that uses the Community Game Development Toolkit (CGDT) and the text-to-image AI models DALLE2 and Adobe Firefly to craft an interactive digital environment of speculative sports arenas. As an extension of the artist’s series sport work, the work poses investigations into interactive gestures that explore and speculate upon competitive spectacle. Within the interactive 3D website, rituals of competitive drive navigate audiences through visually captivating and otherworldly athletic venues, each born from the digital alchemy of competitive spirits and athletic memory. The AI-generated arenas dream through the mythologies and histories of how sport ritual weaves itself into culture.
Keywords: speculative, sport, arena, interactive, AI, spectacle.
View Project: Incantations for a Competitive Spirit
Instructions for navigation: best viewed on desktop, using Chrome browser. Use the WASD keys to navigate, and the mouse to point direction/look around. Follow along with animating components. Most scenes have a hidden target that will advance you to the next level, while a few will advance after a set period of time giving you the opportunity to relax and experience your own shifting competitive spirit.
Artist Statement
These narratives reveal a pulsing relationship between the complex rhetoric of civics and play while asking What if, What if, What if... The work reflects on strategies that shape the formation of a “good sport” while questioning the authenticity of an algorithmic 360 worldview.
Screenshots
