Domino is a type of game played with small rectangular blocks, usually wood or plastic. Each domino has a face that is either blank or marked with an arrangement of spots or “pips” similar to those on dice. A domino set contains a number of such tiles, and rules for various games determine the way they are used in play.
Each player begins the game by placing a tile on the table. The tile must touch another domino’s end, and the chain of contact between the two must continue until all the tiles are played or blocked. A player may then place a new tile on the top of the chain, or pass and bye (see below).
Some games of domino have the rule that all tiles in the stock can be bought by a winning player; others do not. The number of tiles that are bought depends on the game, but some games count only one side of a double or two squares of the same color. A winning score may also be determined by counting the pips on tiles left in the losers’ hands at the end of a hand or game, rather than the total number of all tiles.
The most popular domino games use positional rules. Each player in turn places a domino edge to edge against another so that the adjacent faces form a specified total or match a requirement of the game. Players must then follow the instructions for playing each piece in turn to build chains of dominoes.
A chain of dominoes can grow very large, and if a single mistake is made, it can bring the entire installation crashing down. Because of this, Hevesh is careful to split each project into smaller sections and use fractions to help her determine how many dominoes she will need for an installation. She also tries to omit some of the pieces until the last minute, so that if she or a teammate accidentally knocks them over, it won’t bring the entire thing down.
Hevesh’s work as an artist is inspired by her passion for mathematics and science. She finds that a lot of her creative processes can be explained with the help of fractions and dominoes.
While she’s not always successful in predicting how her work will be received, she feels confident that she is on the right track. “I am constantly pushing the boundaries of what I can do,” she says. “The goal is to push the boundaries until something happens and then see what happens next.”
She thinks about the process of writing a novel much like she does when constructing a domino effect. While she might compose her story off the cuff or take time with a detailed outline, the basic question of what will happen next is invariably the same: What will happen after that domino falls? The answer to that question is what gives a novel its plot. She believes that understanding how to use the concept of the scene domino will help her create an engaging plot.