projects

ACM: youConnect

Are Flagan: Over the RGB Rainbow

Joy Garnett: War Projects

Ryan Griffis: Gift(Wrap)ing New Media

Stacy Hardy/Dror Eyal: FrictionFree

Ricardo Miranda Zuñiga: Games

MSDM: Outsourcing

Ricardo Miranda Zuñiga::Games

Vagamundo :: Space Invaders

Contextin' Vagamundo: A Migrant's Tale

In the United States, there are currently over eight million illegal immigrants, including more than three million from Mexico. The majority of these immigrants compose a near slave labor population contributing to the U.S. economy. Meanwhile the U.S. Government has spent over twelve billion dollars to deter immigration along the southern border by implementing operations Gatekeeper in California, Safeguard in Arizona and Rio Grande in Texas.
Since 9/11, the Bush administration has added 100 million dollars to border patrol, increasing the annual tab to 2.5 billion dollars. However the number of people crossing the border has not decreased, though the number of mortalities along the trek across the border has increased, perhaps this is the point.
People desperately seeking to escape poverty will not be deterred by border patrol, they will merely be forced to risk much more dangerous and isolated paths through canals, deserts and mountains. Last June alone 70 people died crossing the border according to Mexican records and 62 according to U.S. records.
The fortunate people that successfully make it through the border and into a community, face the daunting task of entering into the U.S. economy while struggling against such factors as being undocumented, not speaking English, and racism and discrimination. Many who can not find a means into the mainstream economy, must create an alternate means of sustenance.
On a summer's day walk in East Williamsburg and other parts of Brooklyn, you will encounter street food vendors who have constructed their own carts and sell home cooked foods such as tamales. These people represent an alternate economy. In all major cities today you are likely to find paleteros, vendors of ice cream bars, a relatively new immigrant based business in many cities. A business far more common in Latin American developing countries, but now increasing in the United States, as the Third World tactics of survival grow within the U.S.
Vagamundo is a mobile public art project designed for on the street interaction to create temporary public commons. Through a mobile cart resembling an ice cream cart pedestrians are invited to play a video game that reflects the plight of illegal immigrants in New York.
The game is composed of three levels each level represents a move up in the social scale and assimilation to the United States. The player controls the main character of the game, Cantinflas, the famous Mexican comedian of the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema; an iconic figure not unlike Charlie Chaplin. In each level, Cantinflas must overcome an obstacle to continue ahead.

[Ricardo Miranda Zuñiga]