I made a silly game that no one played. Here's why.

Calling it a game may be generous, but you can have a go at www.yellowscream.com. It's inspired by Kim Beom's performance art called Yellow Scream from 2012. The future of art is engagement, and we should be exploring different ways in which this can be achieved.

I was working on a video about Kim Beom's performance art called Yellow Scream from 2012.  My video is here and the complete 30 minute performance is here (it's incredible).  To me, Kim's video is about the internal and external manifestations of painting – to the artist, in the act of painting as a form of catharsis, much like screaming; and to the viewer – in the feeling of schadenfreude in expecting, or even wanting, a painting to be made from an artist's suffering.

Image still from Kim Beom's Yellow Scream (2012)

At the same time as I was looking at this work, a friend was telling me about Replit (not sponsored) – an online AI platform which you can use to build apps and websites.  He was building some boring backend app for his business, whereas I instantly started thinking about how it could be used for art.

The focus of Kim's video is the act of the scream.  I thought this could be translated into a game while maintaining the true intention of Kim's art.  A game where the player has to scream into their microphone until the 'canvas' is covered in lemon yellow.  Given I have no programming experience, I could never had made this myself.  But, testing out Replit, I came up with the game (oh and bought the domain name www.yellowscream.com).  You can try it there.

Screenshot of the game I made based on Kim Beom's work at www.yellowscream.com

It's not perfect.  I didn't optimise how long it takes players to finish the canvas, because all microphones are slightly different.  It tends to take me about 40-50 seconds.  But, it actually turns out that screaming (or more like gentle droning) for this length of time is also quite cathartic.

But why is this relevant?  Art can no longer sit in that ivory tower.  Being able to engage an audience will become an increasingly important part of art marketing.  You want to release a print?  Make a game to go along with it.  You want to promote a show?  Make an interactive website, game or video.  It won't work for everything, but I think it can be done in ways that are not distracting and, more importantly, create a dialogue, with the artist or their art.

Also, it was fun to make.  So it doesn't really matter to me if no one played it.  Although the person who is currently on top of the leader board at 10 seconds is a beast.

George