Not just fun and games: Federal Hall exhibition explores the Bill of Rights

Visitors to the Federal Hall National Memorial in New York City will encounter an interactive art project comprising games designed to bring elements of the Bill of Rights to life in an exhibition of immersive digital games. The project, "Shall Make, Shall Be: The Bill of Rights at Play," which opened July 4, 2022 and runs through August 31 at the Federal Hall's Grand Rotunda.

The exhibition, commemorating the 230th anniversary of the Bill of Rights through an interactive collection of works, comprises ten commissioned games, each addressing one of the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. It was designed to involve visitors in ways to consider the underpinnings of what it means to be an American by re-framing the documents that serve as the foundation of U.S. political experience with familiar games—puzzles, arcade games, and popular video game genres, among others.

R. Luke DuBois, Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Integrated Design & Media program at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, who conceived the project, said the works draw on the document's effects, interpretations, and legal meanings in U.S. culture.

"The exhibition consists of critical games, using the mechanisms of play to interrogate, critique, and inform our understanding of civil liberties in the 21st Century," he said.

The ten artists, game designers, and collectives selected through an open call to produce the games include: arts.codes (Melissa F. Clarke and Margaret Schedel); Peter Bradley; Danielle Isadora Butler; Arnab Chakravarty, Moaw!, and Ian McNeely; Cherisse Datu and Latoya Peterson; Ryan Kuo; Andy Malone; Shawn Pierre, Vi Trinh; and Lexa Walsh.

The exhibition was organized by DuBois with Laine Nooney, Assistant Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at the NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, & Human Development; and John Sharp, Professor of Games and Learning at Parsons School of Design, with support from the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and Professor of Electronic Art at Carnegie Mellon University.

"Shall Make, Shall Be: The Bill of Rights at Play" is co-presented at Federal Hall with the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy.

Provided by NYU Tandon School of Engineering