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Monday, November 15, 2004
We Built This City
Last month I wrote about the Alien Autopsy art project I organized when I used to work with kids at Trinity-Bellwoods. The kids & I did all sorts of wacky projects together, but the biggest of them all was ...
PLASTONIA
part 1
Plastonia was the name the kids gave to a "live" game of SimCity we played 3 afternoons a week for six months (we ended the project on the 50th working day). By the end of the game, we had a model city that filled the art room, a working economy with our own currency, democratic government (even elections and an election scandal) and media. The city wound up in the newspaper and on tv and the following summer we even did a larger-scale sequel built outdoors that earned a visit from Toronto's mayor.
 The game started when we tried out an activity called "mining". The kids made "mines" by burying artifacts under layers of multi-coloured plaster. The kids then took tools and drilled their way into the mines and removed the artifacts. Some kids made little towns to excavate ( a village made out of popsicle sticks, when dug out, was completely flattened), some made fossils and dinosaur bones and some filled balloons with paint and drilled for oil. And lots of wood blocks painted gold.
There were a lot of kids and a lot of mines and as we drilled, we discovered that we were collecting loads of plaster tailings, so we stuck it in tubs to be reused. As time went on, we wound up with more and more tubs and we needed to find a way to use them ... and then it hit me: we could make a market and sell and trade the stuff! But, we needed something to buy and the logical step was to create real estate. So we took a board and a marker and drew some "lots" on it and put the properties up for sale. The kids then sold the stuff they mined on the market and bought properties and developed them by putting buildings on them. Of course, we needed currency as well, so I took a trip to the Kinkos in the Annex one night and printed out some cash.
 The kids decided to name the town Plastonia as a nod to the primary resource: plaster.
It wasn't long before some kids figured out that it was easier to pay another kid to do work for them, and the first companies started to be formed. We also found that certain jobs, such as paving the roads, needed to be tackled so we set up a government and system of taxation and paid kids to do public works projects. Some of those projects included a central park, city hall, hospital, university and elevated expressway.
The first set of properties filled up quickly and we added more boards with more properties and the city began to fill up most of the art room. Later, we added details such as toy cars and strings of lights so we could turn off the overhead lights and experience the ciy at night.
The expressway at night.
To keep track of the story of the city, we put up a big board on the wall where the kids posted artifacts, drawings, stories and anything else related to the city. We also kept a book of records where we tracked the daily activities, the market and the "citizens" who participated in the game each day.
Coming up: More Plastonia!
2:56 PM
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