Once Upon a Huh? 2 (2021)

 

Huh, like "Huh what the hell is going on here? Get off my lawn!"

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I was in my last year of University where I had a pretty cool professor (Prof. Dejan Grba) who entertained all my antics and embraced my yolo-centricity. Probably because he's from a badass country like Serbia. 

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Taking this Generative Art module where art builds upon itself was my last module in University, so I decided to go out with a BANG (aside from banging my head on the studio table while working on my final year project on the side). The COVID-19 pandemic also made my brain a little ga-ga.

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As a kid, I loved Fairy Tales, and stories even more. I loved the parodies the most. So I thought, what's stopping me from experimenting on a topic I love? The theme was also on "Surprise", which was the embodiment of all parodies ever.

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Hence, I decided to create a text web-based interactive storytelling piece revolving around a parody of Cinderella! 

 

Using a choose-your-own-adventure sequence, the story you get in full is different each time you replay it. This meant that with every decision made at one point of the story, the next part of the story which appears will differ based on the choice. This is sort of like Bandersnatch (Black Mirror).

 

Each time you play the story, you get a different whacky end to our lovely classic, Cinderella. The idea behind creating this work was about playing around with the feelings of my readers in a storytelling context to enhance the effect of Surprise. I'm just a player at this point, and am having fun taking a piss out of the horrifically confused looks on my classmates' faces.

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I did a first cut for the first couple of weeks of the semester, which is Book 1, as shown below.