Babes in the Woods

Babes in the Woods is an art computer game for women and girls (men welcome to play).

 

Players solve puzzles as they follow three “goddesses” – the first is a Barbie doll on a quest for her pubic hair. The second is the spirit of Cleopatra, seeking to be reborn as a contemporary woman of colour. The third is  a cranky old Anglo-Saxon bag of bones, looking for her flesh. The Goddess as maiden, mother, and crone.

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I designed and wrote the project, and Terry McAuliffe programmed it.

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Because of Mattel’s litigious actions against artists using images of Barbie dolls (since defeated in a test case), we decided to give away the CDs as a culture jamming protest. In all, over 600 games were given away, including several given by the French newspaper Liberation, Xtra! Magazine, and Michelle Landsberg, who wrote two Toronto Star columns about the game.

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Unfortunately, like so many artists' web and software projects, the game is no longer compatible with current Mac and PC operating systems, and can’t be downloaded.