Lisa Devaney put together a report of the Artful Gaming exhibition that took place last week in London. Here’s her text:
ARTISTS-EYE-VIEW ON GAMES: LESS GORE, LESS SCORE, MORE TO EXPLORE
Given a joystick, a monitor or projection screen and a bit of programming, some artists have discovered video games as a new favorite digital medium. Depending how you look at it – hacking or art – a few digital creatives exhibited and discussed their work at Artful Gaming, part of the recent (and first ever) London Games Festival in the UK this month.
Unlike the traditional concept of gaming, the collection of works on view at The Science Museum’s Dana Centre, proved to be more like playful experiences, with no particular objective to shoot things, earn points or high score. Sponsored by Cybersalon.org and SelectParks.net, five artists presented their takes on how to DIY a video game.
Two works demonstrated how a game called Unreal can be transformed from its original bloody shoot-em-up massacre into something that transports you into an experience that leaves you feeling tranquil, cuddled and warmly loved by nature itself. In Summerbranch, by igloo you are put inside the heart of the UK’s New Forest, where the joystick becomes a navigator allowing you to explore a scene that lets you pretend to be Maid MaryAnne, out for a stroll or Robin Hood camouflaging himself as he lurks, watching for the next wealthy patron to pilfer. Enjoyable for a fantasy was having the eye-view of a fluffy bunny, poking about for nibbles or scouting for places to shelter and bed down. Headphones complete the impressive experience with piped in sound of the forest itself. All in 3D, it makes your head spin a bit, until you get used to moving about, and once adjusted, you might not want to leave this digital forest. There are no hidden menacing creatures to threaten your visit, just sun dappled leaves and moss covered trees all wrapping you in its calming peace.
In another more cartoonish environment, take a visit to Chit Chat National Park where Toshi Endo has designed a Tele-Tubby like world that up to 16 people can use together. Become a bubbly, cuddly blob-like character inside his fanciful world where you can chat to others, and explore, even traveling underwater. Soothing, playful melodies can be played from your head and you can make up songs with others inside the park.
Both Summerbranch and Chit Chat National Park re-rigged Unreal to become these fantasy worlds, so very different from the original game. When asked about ‘hacking’ Toshi explained that in purchasing Unreal for the Xbox, you are provided with all the software tools you need to redesign the game to your liking, so he is not truly being a hacker, just getting creative with openly available software. A student, it took him 4 months to do the project, and he only uses it with his friends. As everyone loves it, he looked into possible distribution, but after finding out that it would cost him $20,000 in licensing fees, he has no plans to share the game commercially. Chit Chat National Park is available for download on SelectParks.net, but you have to buy a copy of Unreal to run the software. So, it looks like the publishers of Unreal would win on the artist’s creation, except that the game fell out-of-publication in 2003.
Perhaps one piece on view at the Artful Gaming exhibition that may qualify in the outlaw artistic category is the result of artist Myfanwy Ashmore’s reprogramming of Mario’s world. In Mario Battle No. 1, she decided to enter the famous Nintendo game character’s environment and delete all the irritating bombs and blasts that usually destroy him as he tries to have a nice walk. Mario is left strolling in a world of peace, with nothing to do but walk around until the game times out. Again not for commercial sale, her artistic expression appears to be more of a political statement, poking fun about the video game industry’s classic games being centred around conflict and aggression, even with something as playful in nature as Donkey Kong.
One artist’s piece did follow a more traditional blast things or die trying model to gaming, in EdgeBomber by Susigames.
You are invited to first manipulate your own game play environment by arranging strips of sticky tape on a screen and then guide a marshmallow looking character through your self-designed maze. Sensors determine the game’s course by identifying the tape markers, keeping you more in control than most games. Even in this game, the threats your character faces are less terrifying than most games, with one attacker being wiener sausages, probably the result of its German-based creators having a go about their wienersnitzel.
Also on view at Artful Gaming was The Sancho Plan (image on the left), an instantly fun and addictive chance to thump away on drum pads that trigger animated characters to produce images and sounds. Ghosts by squidsoup, plays with the cultural proliferation of ‘instant messaging’ and allows you to type messages into a shared virtual sculpture, feeding new thoughts of many minds into a rotating 3D geometric image. The collective expressions are projected on a screen, on view to all.