GAMING PRODUCTION AND MODDING AS ARTISTIC PRACTICE
Examples of, the design of intersubjective communications
and human-machine communications as art...
These websites present art and gaming culture: production of
game patches or the invention of whole new games which deploy
the interactions among participants or interaction between human
and machine as art.
Specific ARTIST-PRODUCED GAMES (on-line or downloadable):
[Note: the phrase "artist-produced" is vague and
problematic. Generally, here, it is used to indicate works that
are (1) productions made independent from the commercial
gaming industry, (2) are (usually) non-commercial, made on a shoestring
budget, (3) are free of profit-requirements and thus independent
of the production-distribution circuits of the mass culture industry;
and (4) are developed (beyond whatever "fun factor"),
explicitly or implicitly, to intervene in some cultural discourse,
such as these few examples:
- Killer Instinct, Exhibition at the New Museum, NYC (2003-04), including these related links:
- Eric Zimmerman, SiSSYFIGHT
2000 (2000, U.S.)
- Natalie Bookchin, The
Intruder (1999, U.S.)
- Mongrel, Blacklash (1998, England)
- JODI (Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesman), SOD (1999, based on the primitive-now-classic 1992 first-person-shooter
game, "Castle Wolfenstein 3D")
- A new work by JODI, titled... Untitled
Game (2001, downloadable Mac and PC versions)
- Maciej Wisniewski, Jackpot
- Lonnie Flickinger, Pencil
Whipped
- Thomson & Craighead, Trigger
Happy
- Margarete Jahrmann/Max Moswitzer, LinX3D ("LinX3D is a 3rdWeb MultiUser game on ASCII loginfiles datavatars.")
- Josephine Anstey and Dave Pape, The
Thing Growing, (1999, immersive Virtual Reality storytelling,
documented at Anstey's website)
OTHER GAMING scenes and resources
- RE-PLAY website for the 1999 influential conference of the same name which brought together game developers, artists, theorists, hackers, etc. to dialogue about the digital game as a cultural form.
Some Games Studies websites (among others):
- Scene.org
- "non-profit organization aimed at providing the 'electronic
art scene' with a forum for communication and for sharing their
work."
"A demo is a program that displays a sound, music, and light
show, usually in 3D. Demos are very fun to watch, because they
seemingly do things that aren't possible on the machine they were
programmed on." - Trixter's
PC Demos Explained. [The "demo scene" was active
in the 1980s, reaching its peak in the early-mid 1990s.]
These websites examine "hacktivist culture" and "culture
jamming" (combining cultural activism and art). Although in
many obvious ways dissimilar to gaming (e.g. its explicit politics),
hacktivism is often discussed in parallel terms to gaming
culture (e.g., emphasizing as important value: the process-oriented
aspect of play within activist interventions and agit-prop.)
These websites animate and "play with" data as abstract
entities with uncanny "personality".
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