Roberto Fassone's Sibi jr turns art-making into a game for kids

During the COVID-19 lockdown, Italian artist Roberto Fassone made his project Sibi jr available online. Originally created in 2016 for the workshop Artisti in erba promoted by the Rome-based foundation smART Polo per l'arte, Sibi jr is a children's game that provides instructions for producing an artwork. Players download a PDF, get a die, and follow random constraints to create a collage, drawing, story, photograph, or performance. The project evolved from Fassone's broader Sibi series, which began in 2012 with a manuscript version called 'Artwork Generator' that used dice. During a residency at Spinola Banna with Massimo Bartolini, Fassone expanded the game and used it for his thesis. In 2012, he transformed it into software to increase accessibility. Fassone stated that Sibi was born from the need to develop a matrix replicating his playful design approach, aiming to make the concept of play more serious and the concept of artwork less serious. The game is downloadable at www.sibisibi.com.