Creative direction, writing, motion and illustration, web design and development, installation design.

Premiered at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art on January 14, 2021 as a part of a showcase in recognition of the winners of the 2020 Arlene Schnitzer Prize Competition (First Prize). 

playlastnight.com

Guiding Question

How can we provide teens with safe places to experiment with interpersonal boundaries and ethical sexual behaviour?

Approach

For my BFA thesis I created Last Night, a chooseable-path work of young adult fiction. Readers navigate an archetypical college party scene and make decisions about consuming alcohol, pursuing hookups, and testing friendships. Sex is explored in scenes that reflect real-world scenarios in which consent is often assumed due to body language, shared histories, or physical proximity. There are 14 possible endings, some of which involve your character getting hurt or hurting others. This framework allows young people to explore the ways power can be experienced and wielded— a person might assume a great deal of power in one sexual encounter, but be made to feel powerless in another.

This story is based on primary research I have conducted with men about their views on consent. While I personally never had the traditional college experience, works by researchers Erica Boas, Jason Laker, Peggy Orenstein, Lisa Wade, Jennifer S. Hrisch, and Shamus Khan expanded my understanding of the pressures young people face from the media, their peers, and institutions to do college right— which includes hooking up a lot. This leads many students to believe that whatever amount of sex they are having is not enough and drives them toward risky sexual behavior. This pressure in conjunction with low literacy in regards to sexual health, consent, and pornography has created a public health crisis on campuses— a burden which is commonly carried by female students in their first six months of their college careers.

Team

Simon Boas. A Midgray project.

For

Thesis I & Thesis II

︎︎︎ Home page and title animation.

︎︎︎ Audience: Strong emphasis was placed on mobile first design. 

︎︎︎ I wrote the 15,000 word story in a free cloud-based platform for writing interactive fiction called Inkle Writer. As I wrote I always kept in mind that the story should be playable by anyone of any gender identity. 





︎︎︎I exported the file to their open source engine called Inky for development. Meanwhile, I created wireframes and comps to inform the development and styling. I used a mobile-first approach, anticipating this project would be accessed by the target audience primarly on their smartphones. I chose a slate gray background with a cream-colored text to facilitate easier long-form reading on back-lit screens.




︎︎︎ Motion illustrations can be found throughout the story. I developed and applied the collage-style throughout to maintain the the gender-netural ethos of the project through the obfuscation and abstraction of the human form.



︎︎︎ Motion stills
︎︎︎ Last Night is both an entertaining work of fiction and educational resource. On the About page I’ve compiled a reading list based on my research for this project. A PDF discussion guide can be downloaded for use either at home or in the classroom.









︎︎︎ Installation at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art January 2020 - June 2020.