Play! For arts sake!

Tuberman is the name of the game which was played by kids in Romania during the 80’s. The name varied depending on the region and that is why I’m not gonna insist on it now. There were no specific rules but I will try to describe the game ‘technically’. You get a 30-50 cm plastic tube, you make your own cornet shaped paper bullets and you start shooting by blowing through the tube.
When Szilard approached me and told me about his idea to re-enact the game I immediately agreed. Szilard has a background of playing, but generally his work involves slightly newer technology: he is developing different robot designs! Until he’ll invite us to play with his robots you can enjoy his old website: www.pinkphong.com.
Coming back to our game on Saturday 26th February, I have to tell you it’s been a long time since I’ve seen so many people on a natural high! Perhaps these are the kind of actions the small tumultuous contemporary art scene in Romania needs. This simple game has brought pure joy to all of us (excepting of course the rather tense episodes of dealing with the upset neighbor and the ever so dull street cops). Personally I felt such a great release of energy, it was like traveling back in time but at the same time being engaged in a serious fight – the feeling you get is a zillion times stronger than any shooter game no matter how well designed it is. Even though before the game I was trembling at the idea of shooting towards the Art University (2020 Home Gallery is located just across the road) in the end the second part of the action was by far more exciting (thank you, my dear neighbor for that!). The back of the building involved 3 different shooting spots: two balconies and the back garden. The excitement probably came from the similarity to an urban warfare area, you could hide behind things and run (with your body open to the other shooters) to collect the paper bullets. If only all wars were as peaceful as this!
One of the great moments of the evening was the arrival of Marius Grigore – a designer who likes to do more than his job in a lackluster advertising company: Unknown to most of us, Marius showed up carrying two boxes. One of them was written “Super Tuber” and the other one was “Hartie pentru Super Tuber” (rom. Paper for ST). Marius has taken the Tuberman weapon to a far greater design. Surely 20 years ago there were people making similar complicated combinations of the tubes but this one comes with it’s own brand as well as specially designed paper and instructions for use. This is nothing more than an idea of how to bring a socialist game of poor kids into the world capitalism. Imagine the poor Tuberman taking on Paintball®©TMetc market. For those wannabe capitalists with a greater appetite to making a business out of anything here is a list of poor kids games from the socialist Golden Era: http://www.poezie.ro/index.php/article/70982/.
Coming back to our game, I think we should all thank Szilard for coming up with the idea and for actually taking his time to roll over 300 bullets for us to enjoy. Also I would like to thank all of those who came and I hope one day we will meet in greater numbers for another game of Tuberman!

Vlad Nanca

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