Response By
Kary Black
Ouija Board Set, early 1900s
wood Gift of George and Vera Tomlinson, 1978
Created in the mid-1800s, during a period of interest in spiritualism, the Ouija Board–a game or device for communicating with the spirit world–is today second only to Monopoly in sales.
Response
Odd to respond to an early 20th-century Ouija board via a cloud-based word processor, with a grammar and spell-checking assistant.
Ghosts in the machine indeed.
Ouija boards are still well known and a testament that we want shared mystical moments. Or at least a good laugh and shared experience.
Digital entertainment pulls the same threads. Our best moments make the audiences laugh, scream, and occasionally cry.
Different media, different times, but their goals have a shared state of success.
Kary Black is the Associate Art Director at Digital Extremes, a video game developer based in London. Studying a mix of film, video, holography, and drawing at the Ontario College of Art and Design , Kary now works in video game design, with a focus on layout, modeling, and texturing.