Batu Bozoğlu
The Process
Performance
2024
Studio ALTA, Prague

“The Process” is the output of my two-month stay in MeetFactory and StudioAlta Prague Residency. During my time there, I continued my research on historical trauma and war and focused on Terezin Ghetto where arts and crafts played a large role in the struggle for morale.

“The Process” is a community exercise in the form of a game, depicting and emulating the process of genocide in its state-based, systematic implementation. It is inspired by an artifacts produced in the Terezin ghetto: a variation of the classical Monopoly game renamed as The Ghetto designed by Oswald Poeck, an inmate and graphic artist. This historical game replaces property names and card names, and adds some different rules to Monopoly in order to simulate the ghetto life. Most notable among these changes is the KUMBAL replacing houses and hotels, which translates to small closet spaces which were important for the life in the Ghetto. “The Process” follows the design principles of Oswald Poeck in creating a narrative via game mechanics and conceptual design.

The Process, is not a conventional game. Its basis as a game functions as a specific medium, through which the implementation of a genocidal regime, with its attack on people’s rights, possessions and agency can be experienced in an alternative way, though its mechanics. While the illustrations and the visual design of the game tells a process of genocide, the gaming experience curated by the newly implemented mechanics aims to simulate, at least in part, the frustration, anger and helplessness felt against unfair and oppressive systems.

The Process as a game has a linear narrative comprised of 10 major events, which are introduced to the game as players draw from a stacked deck of the Process Cards. Through these cards new rules are implemented to the game, which renders the game ever more unfair and finally almost unplayable. These events robs players of their money, limit their actions and finally forces them to be trapped in ever multiplying ghetto tiles on the board. During the final stage of the game, the players are transformed into almost completely passive agents, financially broke and stuck in ghettos.