Incantations for a Competitive Spirit

Creator: Kristin McWharter

Collection: Blanket Forts and Other Asseblages - Special issue of Hyperrhiz

Published in: Hyperrhiz - Blanket Forts and Other Assemblages

Play scene here

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.

Artist Statement

Incantations for Competitive Spirits invites audiences to ponder the interconnectedness of competition and aspiration in a digital age, offering a thought-provoking exploration of the evolving dynamics between individuals and the competitive experiences they were raised within.

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.