IGFEST

Designer: Greg Trefry

There are games to play all around us. Sometimes you just have to look around.

Aesop of course came down in favour of those industrious ants collecting food for winter over the idle grasshopper who eventually starves to death. Bernard Suits wasn’t so sure. In his book Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, the English philosopher gives the grasshopper’s side of the story. On his deathbed the grasshopper reveals his dream, everyone everywhere is playing all the time. Grasshoppers is an ongoing series of games that take elements of the world and turn them into games.

We look around the world and wonder all the time, “Could I jump over that?” or “Could I throw my cup into that?” These games are chalked out on the street, accompanied by their rules. Finding a Grasshopper is like stumbling on the scrawled hopscotch grid you can’t help but skip through as you carry your groceries home. People find them. They look at them. Maybe they play them. They leave them for others to find. Grasshoppers exists as game boards until the rain washes them away. They exist as games as long as you remember them.

A series of Grasshopper games will be spread around igfest for people to find and play. Players will also be given chalk to create their own games. This is an ambient game throughout igfest 09 pick up a map at the iglounge or just keep your eyes open...