Blue Akita
Position: Concept Artist, Director, Videographer, Photographer
Format: Digital Media Interactive Video, 2’51”
In this project, I use the form of the Tamagotchi, a handheld digital pet, to express the pervasive control in East Asian family education and the alienation caused by this control. In this work, players will have an electronic pet named Blue-Haired Akita. Through mini-games, the audience is invited to personally experience the limitations of growing up in East Asian society. This includes being forced to conform to collectivism during childhood, being marginalized due to sexual orientation during youth, and eventually being eliminated by the system in middle age, characterized by unemployment and a pervasive atmosphere of internal competition.
In Game One, Blue Fur Akita is a child in a collectivist school environment, standing out with blue fur and a red soccer jersey. Players help it perform morning exercises, and failure leads to its death, revealing both the Akita and players are controlled by collectivism. In Game Two, players use a dating app to help Blue Fur Akita discover its true sexuality as a gay woman, representing self-awareness and alienation. In Game Three, the middle-aged Akita, unemployed due to age, becomes an Uber driver with a drinking problem. Players struggle to control it, leading to a fatal car accident.
The main character is a blue fur Akita. Because the Akita is a breed unique to East Asia, it is also one of my favorite dogs. It's blue because the character is a blend of my personal experiences and can be seen as an incarnation of me, and the blue hair is one of my signature looks.
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