This escape game is in response to two essays, one by
Donna Haraway entitled “Symbiogenesis, Sympoiesis, and Art Science Activisms or Staying with the Trouble” and Margaret McFall-Ngai’s “Noticing Microbial Worlds: The Postmodern Synthesis in Biology”, both found in Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet.
These essays pull from Lynn Margulis’s work, speaking about the entanglements of organisms, and how symbiosis, symbiogenesis,
and sympoeisis are, in essence, the order of the world.
This game is a stylistic homage to the online point-and-click escape room, the Samsara Room.
Solution
To open the door, you need to find three organisms. There is no
particular order you need to find these in. Obtain all three items,
(they will automatically be placed into their slots in the key box), click on the key, then the keyhole, and the door will open.
ITEM 1: Hawaiian Bobtail Squid
Turn the lightswitch off.
Go to the wall with the window.Click on the window. The squid will appear in the moon.
Click on the squid and it will be added to the key slot on the door.
ITEM 2: Pea Aphid
On the wall with the large protozoan (the big blue guy),
click on the image of the Bee Orchid.
In the larger image of the orchid, click on the tip of the leaf.
Click on the Aphid and it will be added to the key slot on the door.
ITEM 3: Endolithic Algae
On wall 2, press on each of the protozoa’s tendrils.
From the top tendril to the bottom tendril,
those are the notes (in order) to play on the corals.
If you cannot copy by ear, the notes are C-A-C (A and C are both used for DNA codons, thematically fun fit)
Go the the corals, click on each coral to play a sound and see the note.
Play C-A-C, click on the algae that appears and it will be added to the key slot on the door.
go to the door, click on the key, DOOR WILL OPEN (YOU WIN?)
*** The idea of an “escape” room in the context of the themes is tongue-in-cheek, as we are not escaping from these ways of thinking, instead, we are opening ourselves to them and letting them in. Thus, the room fills with moss and lichen when the door is opened, symbolizing the acceptance of sympoeitic thinking.
Lauren Thu 