GAPPP: Gamified Audiovisual Performance
and Performance Practice

TO KILL TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE
by Martina Menegon and Stefano D’Alessio

To Kill Two Birds with One Stone is an interactive audiovisual performance that combines two popular games: the computer game Pong and the hand game Rock, Paper, Scissors. The title is a famous English idiom, referring to achieving two tasks in a single action.

Two players compete, each one controlling a virtual hand via two Leap Motion devices. These devices track the position of the players’ hands and analyze their gestures, connecting the real hands to their digital replicas. The goal is to gain enough points to win the most of three matches by bouncing the ‘balls’ back to the opponent. The ‘balls’ are in fact hands displaying randomized gestures (i.e. rock, scissors or paper) and the players need to respond with the correct gesture when hitting the ‘balls’ in order to gain points: scissors beat paper, paper beats rock, rock beats scissors. As in Pong, failing to hit a ‘ball’ back and thus allowing one’s opponent to score a goal gives a point to the opponent. The number of hands in the field and the speed at which they bounce depends on the match number, meaning that the game gets faster and faster and thus more difficult towards the end.

The audio composition is created interactively by all the events happening in the game and changes its characteristics in relation to the game dynamics. Events such as the position of each player’s hand, the type of gesture, the score, the match number and many others all influence the composition. The result is an open composition that explores the extension of the body as an instrument in a preset gamified virtual context by erasing the boundaries between the two through an invisible interface and interactivity.

Credits

Martina Menegon and Stefano D’Alessio To Kill Two Birds With One Stone
performed by Martina Menegon and Stefano D’Alessio
audio production: Stefano D’Alessio
video production: Francesca Centonze
recorded on January 30, 2020 in University of Applied Arts Vienna, Department of Transmedia Art, Vienna, Austria.
Duration of video: 3 minutes 09 seconds