Randomly Selected

Randomly Selected is an audio based immersive exhibition originated from the language communication game S.S.S.S. The exhibition targets the common struggle of language barrier that many immigrants and international students experience in the United States. The original game S.S.S.S., which stands for Secondary Security Screening Selection, is a common airport security measure targeting passengers from foreign countries. To raise awareness to issues extended from language barrier such as bias, discrimination, and racism, the S.S.S.S. game reverses the roles of the interrogator and selectee in the screening process, by structuring the scenario to be an American international student traveling to a foreign country. The two players of the game are respectively a native speaker of the chosen foreign language and an English speaker who speaks a little to none of the same language. Both players have designated sets of materials to assist them in the communication process. For the interrogator player, they have institutional documents instructing them the procedure of the interrogation and the set of questions to ask; for the selectee player, they have flashcards which include keywords, phrases, and sentences both in the foreign language presented as phonetics and English translations. 

Randomly Selected pushes the core concept further by inviting the audience to observe the interrogation process, presented in the form of recorded audio clips from actual playthroughs of the S.S.S.S. game. The transformed installation is set in a claustrophobic room to both reproduce and enhance the pressure present in an interrogation scenario. The only props in the installation are a table with two chairs at each end of it and the same paper materials used in the S.S.S.S. game. The audio clips for respectively the interrogator and traveler play from each end of the table to further simulate the sense of space. The audience is invited to engage with the installation by either observing from the side or sitting in the position of either the interrogator or the traveler. By placing the same paper materials from the S.S.S.S. game on the table, Randomly Selected not only keeps its core as an analog game, but also invites the audience to participate in the interrogation by using the materials to decipher the phrases from the audio clips. 

Here you will find the bundle of paper materials used for playing the S.S.S.S. game along with the audio clips used during the installation.