[-empyre-] SELECTPARKS

r cannon <rebecca@tardis.ath.cx> · Fri, 18 Jun 2004 22:21:07 +1000

Hi everyone, 

Just to follow up on Helen's great introduction, I've been working on
selectparks for two years now. The archive, which has over 80 works in it,
contains artwork made with computer games. A little bit more about what
qualifies an 'art mod' as opposed to any of your millions of fan mods in a
bit. 

Firstly, I'd just like to apologise for the condition of the
http://www.selectparks.net webpage - in the past it has been frequently
offline, and is not in the best working condition at the moment.
Unfortunately this has largely been due to our popularity - we just havent
been able to afford to pay for the bandwidth out of our own pockets... And
being and international collection of work - have found it difficult to find
funding for the site. Each country/region has only been interested in
contributing the percentage of work representing itself, which is fair
enough. (who has time to apply for 50+ arts grants a year?) But in an
increasingly globalised world - which I don¹t necessarily think is a bad
thing, it might be time for some globally-sourced arts funding body.
However, I dream/ this isnt going to happen for a while, since it would
require the USA to actually put up arts funding.

Having said that - the forward thinking people of Slovenia -
http://www.ljudmila.org/ specifically, have just taken over the job of
hosting selectparks. We are thrilled with this development, and thank ACMI
and La Trobe Uni for also recently considering offering the same service.
(Just as an aside on the electronic condition of east europe - slovenians
have been buying their movie tickets on their wap enabled mobile phones for
several years now : ).

So, any time now, maybe before the end of this forum, the site will be more
functional than ever.

I started working on this after curating an exhibition that was held in
Melbourne in 2002 called Trigger: Game Art. Trigger exhibition surveyed a
collection of work that was inspired by computer games. This in itself was
an attempt at an anthropological survey of the aesthetic effect that
computer games had on us as a generation of people that grew up playing
them. [yes, kipper - big link between anthropology and art as you observed
earlier). And, if not playing, at least being influenced by them at an early
age. By the first form of immersive, digital interactive entertainment.

I included music videos, animations, interactive artworks, narrative/games,
public-art installations, sound artworks, video artworks, etc. Most not made
with computer games. I just wanted to show how pervasive a single medium
could be in the space of two decades. Of course, this phenomenon is
increasing exponentially with all media now... Particularly as the art of
advertising reaches killer (as in suicide-inducing) proportions.

http://www.selectparks.net/exhibitions/trigger/

Selectparks itself is a little more (a-hem) selective...
We restrict the content of the archive to artworks that were actually made
with computer games. Software mods/hardware hacks, machinima, musical
instruments, installations, video artworks, vj tools, etc. But as to what
actually makes these art mods, when there is a huge quantity of game mods
that are not represented in our archive::
Lets begin with - we havent ever rejected a submission to the archive that
was actually made with a computer game. So, pretty much the main defining
factor is whether or not the artist who made it thinks of it as an art work.
Many people who make mods don¹t want anything to do with the art scene -
including the guys who made the 911 mod that helen described. However, we've
included that work any way. Why? Well, because its brilliant. It shows in
one simple gesture how potent computer games are as a medium.

http://www.selectparks.net

Games - as Play - Are thought of as cultural environments in which 'serious'
issues can not find deep and meaningful critique. Why? Because play is
whimsical. Play is for children. Although in play, as children, we develop
many valuable life skills, social interaction, role playing, collaboration,
compromise, competition, the ability to accept success, gracefully, the
ability to accept failure - these characteristics are not those that we
associate with play in the long term. At least in virtual environments. We
associate time wastage, sedentariness, youth culture. Even though vast
percentages of people playing games are adults. Games carry cultural
baggage.

The other influencing factor in people's judgement of works made with
computer games - whether they are games themselves or artworks made with
games, or political statements made with games - is the association of games
with commercial enterprise. Kipper might have something to add to this with
the way that people responded - that is, the way that refugee advocates
responded, when they first heard about escape from woomera - and thought it
was a commercial game. I've heard they were irate. The same thing happened
with 911 - which, because of the school project that it was made for, has a
website framing it as a commercial game. People thought they must be
exploiting the issue. Take away the single factor of whether or not the game
is to be sold, and opinions soften. What - so games can deal with political
content successfully if no one is profiting from them? Even though the
content is exactly the same? I mean I like to be suspicious of commercial
motivations, but I think with the case of games, the scales are tipped a
little on the paranoic side.

For 911 in particular there was an amusingly ironic outcry. News merchants
have made who knows how many billions of dollars exploiting the attack on
the world trade centre. Replaying too many times the footage of civilians
jumping from 160+ stories to their deaths. I recently included this footage
in a collection of 'snuff' downloaded from gnutella. That footage horrified
me. Last night I had nightmares that two planes had been dumped on
melbourne. I couldn¹t even look at the city - look to see if anyone I loved
was alive. I didn¹t care. I just didn¹t want to see that horror again.

So when a group of four students feel motivated to express their own
experiences in the form of a game mod - as a hybrid art project and game
development exercise - are they really blaspheming the memory of those
(only) 2,792 people whose lives were taken for the sake of who knows what
politically underhand propaganda? That project in particular was an inspired
reaction to the desensitization which they experienced to 9/11 - keep in
mind these guys are from the west coast. Their distance (physical as well as
emotional) - like ours in australia and  most parts of the world, provided
them with sufficient platform to consider the event thematically relevant
content for a game concept. Sure, it sounds harsh to people living in new
york. To people with beloved that died in 9/11. But to most people in the
world, the event was not more traumatic that a plethora of attacks that the
USA has made on civilians in other nations. This event is so unreal, why not
make it a game?

A conceptual gesture symbolising the unreality of their mediated experience
of the event. 

The USA deserved it. Pain forces self-awakening. And if a few gamers
snickering over a the idea of a computer game simulation of the most
traumatic event in its history is offensive - good.

Everyone I've spoken to outside the us appreciates this perspective. Most of
those inside it don¹t. Brody Condon and I both spoke about the piece at
Siggraph 2003. One report online quoted it as the most interesting idea
thing they heard all conference (not hard). Everyone else either -left the
room in a huff, or - Sent death threats to the guys who made it, or - posed
as me sending messages to email lists saying that I thought the project was
bad ( oh alright. Only one person that I know of did this) (and, ok. Some
people understood). The website for the project was taken offline 2 days
later because of a several-thousand-us-dollar hosting bill garnered by the
additional publicity. We took up hosting the mod as an apology.
http://www.selectparks.net/archive/911survivor/index.html
& (the actual mod download - this one's secret :)
http://mildchoice.mine.nu/pub

I know many critics think the game/film analogy is as flogged as a dead
horse -  or however that decaying cliché puts it - but I think its a very
very relevant analogy. We started with single media experiences. These
amalgamated into sagas, religion, and then into musical theatre  -
acting/images/costume/music/choreography
Enter Film: a non-instant, edited version with scenic flexibility
Enter Animation: effectively film without the constraints of reality
Enter Computer Games, the same thing - with immersive interactivity.

So, here's an excerpt from something I'm working on regarding the topic of
this forum:
 Here an interesting comparison can be made between computer games and film,
as film is similarly an entertainment media, but one which is accepted as
suitable for conveying sensitive issues in a thoughtful and
thought-provoking manner. This paradoxical treatment stems from the
perceived contrasting passivity and activity of film and computer game
audiences, respectively. The combined lack of physical and cognitive
perception required to comprehend (most) films is seen to provide
intellectual space for attending to and recognising issues symbolised within
the filmic narrative. The emphasis on participation in computer games is
considered too demanding of our 'lower' perceptual faculties, immersing
players in the pursuit of selfish, short term goals, that are dependent on
trained hand-eye reflexes rather than philosophical or ethical enquiry. Art
mods that employ characteristics of computer games, such as interactivity,
team-based problem solving, hand-eye co-ordination, emergent authorship, and
competition (as an ideology in itself)  to address political, social and
philosophical issues, counter these common perceptions. These art mods
reveal that the activity involved in game play is capable of arousing far
more intellectual engagement than do films, which, overall, are designed to
appeal to an audience's desire for passivity. 

*** 

Gamers know how potent the medium of their lust is. A great multiplayer
session is as good as sex. And it lasts longer. You need to be able to
interact. To frag. To obliterate the other's (simulated) physical
experience. 

Virtual worlds provide environments for the representation of potentially
more truthful indices of inner selves. Take Tobias Bernstrup - an artist
from europe. He started working with computer games by making mods that
included a virtual version of himself - as a girl - or as a trans-gendered
performer, masturbating himself (as a girl), performing alone in a club, or
as a (ho?) in a "penthouse idle".
I love tobias' work. And I love his history. I've got a chapter on both his
and (melbourne's) linda erceg's work coming up in a MIT publication. He
started out by doing pseudo-parody/subliminally-realistic performances on
cruise ships. A self-conscious 80's idol, stripped of its mediated
perfection. Then he took this performance character into game mods - but
only recorded the content as machinima (check machinima.org and
machinima.com) - and installed it in galleries. The work got increasingly
distilled - increasingly conceptual. A brilliant work shows tobias as a
girl, with his own head, masturbating his female form. I mean, how many guys
include that image in their sexual fantasies? I know my own are mixed of
gender. And why not - the genetic borders between genders are almost as
blurred as those between races.

Adrenaline - physicality - vibrancy.

Theres much more to be said on this topic, but its Friday night and I'm
getting a little too drunk to be writing this. So before I leave - one last
thing. Heres the direct link to a work that I made that is represented in
the 2004 exhibition currently on at acmi. In the networked section
specifically. Unfortunately, due to the lack of terminals and headphones at
acmi you cant actually experience the work on location, but it being
networked, you can get it now and here:

http://mildchoice.mine.nu/pub/buff

A machinima soap-opera parody made in Quake 3 Arena. The native butch
characters become bickering, jealous gay lovers, and fragging becomes
synoymous with sex...

Enjoy

Rebecca Cannon
http://www.neopoetry.org/rebecca

Life is art. It just needs a lot of editing.

On 18/6/04 5:58 PM, "Melanie Swalwell" <Melanie.Swalwell@vuw.ac.nz> wrote:

> Hi Kipper, 
> 
> - no, don't think so and I think that's a little harsh - the gamers are
> neither naive nor lacking in agency here/needing our protection.  Quite the
> contrary.  And I don't think it will be like you say.  It could work really
> well, as an encounter.  I mean, you could make the same virtual tourism
> argument about other works too, and it could be on the money some of the time,
> but it doesn't mean others don't go further than that.
> 
> Speaking of which, what about the EFW demo installed in the museum space?  &
> the other game works in the show?  How is the response?  What are the
> difficulties?
> 
> Melanie
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:    Kipper [mailto:kipper@escapefromwoomera.org]
> Sent:    Fri 6/18/2004 6:42 PM
> To:    soft_skinned_space
> Cc:    
> Subject:    RE: [-empyre-] games experimentation
> So essentially this is a museum exhibit that's an excercise in real-
> time anthropology? Like if you staged a rave in the museum space an
> invited people to come along to watch people from that subculture dance
> to pop music?
> 
> I think it's very commendable and sporting for the museum to give
> gamers a venue, but what's the stated purpose in terms of museology?
> 
> 
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