Liliana Apodaca

Alphagro (whose namesake reference “Alpha-go“, was the first AI to master the board game Go) is a three level board game. As the players work up the levels battling it out for territory, they build cities which act as bases on the level where more pieces can grow and more land on the board can be claimed as theirs.

The concept behind the work was based on the media theory of “the stack”: an abstract structure representing utilities and information flows. These levels are the foundations of the cities in which we reside.

As you move your way up, the infrastructure is less material. Electricity becomes internet because new media immersive environments. We explore these realms through our borders which is the land we live in in these different levels.

This is what was designed as game in my work. It was a project which challenges my understanding of systems; both literally in the rules which had to be created, and in the world which I represented. I approached this challenge by detailed maps and flows which later materialized in rule books and bits.

From flow map to plastic bits, I was forced to properly cohere, and thoughtfully chart my ideas. In this way I translated my conceptual understanding of real world objects to an interactive and abstract graphic representation, which simplifies and makes interactive this most interesting of theoretical topics.

– a card came I created with accompanying character and map bits.

This game began as an exploration into a fascination of mine: the slime mold. This kind of creature defies the boundaries of fungus or animal, taking a hybrid taxonomical form which crawls along the forest floor.

I developed a sprawling and evolving card game which would branch out from central nodes which the player would place early on in the game. This architecture was designed to mimic the growth and spread of slime molds and act as the twofold army and fortress of the player.

The game itself is a war style card game in which two players battle it out. Each player is in command of a slime mold collective intelligence. You move across the field and attempt to overtake and defeat your opponent.

May the best slime win!

“That Only a Mother” is a short story by Judith Merrill which I took as inspiration for this typography process book. During my time making this work I became interested in traditional book binding techniques, visiting local handmade paper stores (Hiromi Paper) and collecting bookcloth which I eventually stretched and silk screened with my cover design.

The type in the book echos the narrative elements of the story: nuclear war and genetic mutation. My designs were meant to evoke feelings of mutation and distortion which I echoed in the formal layout and alteration of the type.

Every single page is done in nothing but Bodoni, a classic font which when, repurposed to illustrate a science fiction short story elicits the proper mood of an alternate history unfolding. The story is set in 1953 during World War III, it follows a mother who has to navigate the road of pregnancy and birth in a period where radiation is ever present. It first appeared in “Astounding Science Fiction” in 1948.