Marissa Cote
3D
2D
Projects
Texts
Info
rissacote@gmail.com
Art
Smart
Art Smart
2018 - 2024
Art Smart is a fill in the blank word and storytelling game. Art Smart Generation I (2018) used art criticism templates as a platform to investigate critical discourse of contemporary art, with a particular focus on the dialogue happening in the Greater Boston area. Art Smart invited viewers to write nonsensical narratives about art, the culture of gallery exhibitions, receptions, and programs. The game offered templates for discussing specific shows around the Boston area through an pseudo-art critical lens. Art Smart I sought to challenge the current state of critical art dialogue through a new form, while also scrutinizing the lack of substantive discourse within a highly commercialized, sanitized Boston art economy. Additionally, Art Smart I endeavored to evaluate and think about art, inviting any participant to become an art critic through game play, however absurd the final product may be.
Generation II of Art Smart (2023) repurposed calls for campaign fundraising across the political spectrum. Art Smart Gen II aimed to illustrate the congruence of talking points across the political spectrum, flattening the experience of being a political constituent to that of being a donor. Party and issue specific language was omitted from each game and replaced by fill in the blank prompts. By investing themselves in the story generation of each game, viewers are able to engage with the outlandish templates political campaigns put to work in their fundraising schemes. By removing flashpoint language about political and social issues, Art Smart II highlighted the predatory relationship between voter and political candidate. Art Smart II served as a first pass for how viewer engaged art work can illustrate class divisions, particularly between political, millionaire, and billionaire class and everyone else.