JODI 4 9/11/04 10:58 am Page 1

JODI: COMPUTING 101B JODI 4 9/11/04 10:58 am Page 2

Comments from FACT guest book during Computing 101B exhibition, 16 July – 5 September 2004 JODI 4 9/11/04 10:58 am Page 4

JODI: COM PUTING 101B Published by FACT, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology

Computing 101B is an exhibition curated by FACT and presented for the first time in Liverpool from 16 July – 5 September 2004. JODI are primarily known for their pioneering work on the World Wide Web, but this exhibition consists entirely of recent video work created by JODI specifically for presentation in a physical gallery space. Led by the ‘tutorial’ aspect of the works shown, the exhibition was constructed as a crash course in (mis)using and (mis)understanding the computer. To further illustrate this theme, JODI and FACT collaboratively curated a selection of documents and artefacts related to the history of the computer, mostly taken from the web, which functioned as a parallel contextual exhibition alongside the artworks. This catalog is released to mark the opening of the exhibition tour at Spacex in Exeter, UK. The Computing 101B publication, tour and catalog were made possible through the generous support of Arts Council England, the Mondriaan Foundation and the Dutch Embassy UK.

Following page: Installation view of Computing 101B exhbition at FACT. Image courtesy Nathan Cox. JODI 4 9/11/04 10:58 am Page 6 JODI 4 9/11/04 10:58 am Page 8

COMPUTING 101B or HoW I LeaRNeD tO StOP WorrRYiNg & LoVe ThE BoMb

Steven Wolfram claims that he made 100 million keystrokes and moved his mouse more than 100 miles while writing A New Kind of Science, an 1100-page book about the mathematical foundations of the physical world. With all that time at the computer, Wolfram either created something of truly historical proportions, or developed an equally epic Internet addiction. He would probably go up to his office every night and spend hours on end bidding on eBay collectibles or playing some knights-and-maidens online fantasy game. It’s no use making fun of Wolfram, though. Everyone’s in the same boat: the computer is the biggest time-waster known to humanity. If human achievement could be measured in keystrokes and mouse miles, compulsively web-surfing, meme-addled, mp3-saturated twenty-somethings across the technologized world would be in luck. But no one would be more fortunate than JODI, the pioneers of Internet glitch art. By Wolfram's criteria, their recent works would rank among the greatest masterpieces of all time for requiring so many keystrokes and mouse movements – and yet their labours went to so little purpose. The works in the Computing 101B exhibition follow a simple formula: 1) Plug video output of computer into VCR. 2) Press 'record.' 3) Behave so badly with keyboard & mouse that the computer screen becomes interesting to watch. With this new methodology, the artist duo follow a trail blazed by the likes of You've Got Mail and Computer Beach Party into a new phase, their Screen Grab Period. JODI are most well known from the World Wide Web, where their work earned notoriety for upending the conventions of an emerging medium. Conventions of the World Wide Web, such as pop-ups, page redirects, and error messages were the raw material of a body of structuralist, conceptual artworks. Unsurprisingly, the work provoked as much sheer panic as it did intellectual appreciation. This visceral reaction was rooted in the human fear of loss of control over the machine that surfaces when unexpected things start to happen to one’s computer. With features like randomly opening windows and self- installing software, you could never be sure if JODI’s work was a benign or destructive invading force. Even if formal issues were their main concern, JODI quickly became notorious across the world for making work that had the potential to be hated, feared, and misunderstood – except by those who understood their inside joke. Where JODI’s early work challenged the norms of behaviour for a game, operating system, or website, the Screen Grabs shifts the focus to the norms of behavior for the computer Author unknown. advertising brochure (1983). Image courtesy DigiBarn Computer Museum. user. Instead of interacting with the work, the viewer is put into the passive position of JODI. Desktop Improvisations (2004). DVD with sound.Image courtesy the artists. looking at a video recording of someone else’s computer screen. The viewer of a Screen Awaiting image credit from JODI. Grab work assumes the role of, say an office snoop peering over the shoulder of a JODI 4 9/11/04 10:58 am Page 10

colleague, an aggravated IT technician explaining rudimentary computer use to a disastrous novice, or a 14-year old trying to show his Dad how to play the latest video game. The computer screens pictured in the Screen Grab videos are not under the viewer’s control. They are controlled by an unseen and irrational force. Being subjected to someone else’s computer use can bring on a sense of powerlessness and frustration, but this frustration is magnified when the computer user works or plays as frantically and incorrectly as JODI do in these pieces. The first work in JODI’s Screen Grab series, My%Desktop, takes on the minimalist work environment of Apple’s Macintosh computer. Appropriately, this year marks the 20th anniversary of the launch of the Apple Macintosh, or Mac, the computer that popularized the Graphical , or GUI. A GUI is computer software that translates computer commands into mouse-clickable icons. The rise of the GUI signaled a kind of democratization (the protocol-literate might call it a dumbing-down) of computing. In order to learn to copy or delete a file, or open an application, it would no longer be necessary to memorize and correctly type commands like ‘LOAD’ and ‘SAVE’, but merely to understand visual symbols on the screen. Lev Manovich writes that in the Mac vision of the future, 'the lines between the human and its technological creations (computers, androids) are clearly drawn, and decay is not tolerated.'I Apple articulated this promise through a full-on marketing campaign and through careful attention paid to the computer’s visual language. The Mac icons represented the office environment of a 'knowledge worker’: folders, a waste bin (named, in culturally imperialist fashion, the ‘ can’), and papers neatly arranged on a desktop. Susan Kare was the designer responsible for the black-and-white, 16x16-pixel symbols of this new language. She attests to the painstaking work that went into the development of the Mac look-and-feel: "When I came, the title bar was always called the title bar, and I spent a LOT of time working on different designs for it. Should it have stripes, should it have little architectural details on the side?"II The extropic promise of the Mac, to bring order from chaos, was only true up to the point when it started flying off the shelves. As soon as actual humans got their grubby hands on it, things began to look very different – and this is the point where JODI’s interest in the GUI originates. In the hands of a human user, the Mac’s desktop would soon be littered with files named Untitled Document.txt, and the damn thing would crash all the time. And when it crashed, the Mac displayed an icon that had merited considerably less design attention than the title bars, but said a good deal more about the computer. It was the icon for a system error. "Apple told me to come up with whatever I wanted to for this image, and that probably no one would ever see it," Kare said.III She came up with a cartoon bomb with a lit fuse. Contrary to the expectations of the overconfident Mac developers, it seems that people actually did see the bomb icon, and quite a lot. It was JODI 4 9/11/04 10:58 am Page 12

probably the first computer icon designed to represent the failure of the computer – other computers would simply display error messages – and it struck fear into the hearts of those who encountered it. There are even (perhaps apocryphal) stories of users in some countries refusing to touch their computer, convinced it would blow up in their face.IV The onscreen appearance of the bomb represented the moment when the computer was not alien, but human. Irrationality, inefficiency, chaos, and failure are human traits; these are things we hold in common with the computer, and the things the Mac strove to elide. The appearance of the bomb onscreen, the moment when the machine fails, is the moment when we identify most closely with the machine, when the division between technology and the human identified by Manovich begins to falter. The dissolution of this boundary is what gives JODI’s My%Desktop its power. The four-screen video appears to depict mammoth computers running amok: opening windows cascade across the screen, error messages squawk, and files replicate themselves endlessly. In fact, what we’re witnessing is not a computer gone haywire, but an unedited video recording of a computer user gone haywire. In this video, JODI simply point-and-click, drag-and-drop so frantically, it seems that no human could be in control of such chaos. The line between human irrationality and the similar caprices of the computer is, at first, indiscernible in the piece, and yet as windows open and shut frantically and the computer beeps and squawks, we realize that what we had initially understood as a computer glitch was, undeniably and against all reason, human. At this moment, the utopian vision of a harmony between man and machine based on reason and efficiency is replaced with a different kind of harmony: one based on irrationality, absurdity and failure – characteristics that JODI hold up as virtues. It’s easy for most of us accept the premise that the computer is fundamentally irrational and chaotic, but it may be less comfortable to think that humans share these traits. The dangers of overestimating the power of our own reason are very real. Reason is not enough to stave off chaos and self-destruction; in fact, it may speed the process along. The hawkish nuclear advisors of the 1950s – satirized in films like Dr Strangelove and Fail Safe – were advocates of applying a cold rationalism to the problem of nuclear strategy. Prominent among them was John von Neumann, a brilliant mathematician who contributed to the development of the first American computers and the first A-bomb, and – drum roll, please – came up with the theoretical basis for the computer virus. von Neumann did much to popularize game theory, the application of mathematics to develop strategies for games, (Cold) wars, or businesses to maximize winnings and minimize losses. In the 1950s, von Neumann used game theory to arrive at the conclusion that the best possible US nuclear policy would be to destroy the Soviet Union before they developed the weaponry to return the favor. He is often quoted as saying, "If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why

V Macintosh 1.0 System Error icon. Susan Kare, 1983. Image courtesy the artist. not today? If you say today at 5 o'clock, I say why not 1 o'clock?" JODI 4 9/11/04 10:58 am Page 14

The link between gaming and rationalism, articulated so clearly and applied so chillingly by von Neumann, is turned on its head in JODI’s Cheats-Only Gallery. The piece is a series of ten short video loops of JODI playing Max Payne, a high-graphics video game that features a film noir-style hero who takes life so seriously that he becomes a parody of himself: The game’s marketing campaign describes him as “a man with nothing to lose in the violent, cold urban night.”VI To win the game, players must kill enemies and uncover clues to stop the spread of the drug ‘Valkyr’ and clear Max of a murder for which he has been framed. Like most off-the-shelf video games, Max Payne is freakin’ difficult. Special codes built into the game, called ‘cheats’, allow you to become invincible, slow down time, or have an inexhaustible supply of ammunition. These cheats are published on the web, and are often as frivolous as they are numerous. Not unlike the bomb icon, they are the built-in playful moments that break the ontology of the game. But JODI don’t seem to notice the ontology of Max Payne at all. They apply a different narrative to their game play. They don’t care if Max lives or dies, and the spread of ‘Valkyr’ bothers them not in the least. They refuse to accept the premise or mission of the game, and yet they still cheat constantly. Most of the videos in the series show an onscreen display of computer text as JODI enter a cheat code, followed by footage of JODI (mis-)playing the game, putting Max through an exhausting series of futile tasks and pointless situations. Some of the videos show Max with anatomical abnormalities such as a missing head; another shows Max doing an endless headspin, yet another is an upside down tour of the New York skyline. Max Payne Cheats-Only Gallery is presented as a kind of tutorial, a lesson in how (not) to play a video game. Video tutorials of game play are a well-established genre on the web, where expert players share recordings of their best game run-throughs. These tutorials demonstrate both the virtuosity of players and the hidden secrets of game worlds. JODI’s tutorial is the inverse of these: ‘How To Take the Fun Out of Max Payne in Ten Easy Steps’. They flout the rules and don’t care to win. This version of play makes them not cheats, but spoilsports. Even for game fans, the suspension of disbelief required to enter into a video game world is considerable. Video games have a long way to go before they can achieve anything approaching photorealistic graphics. We consciously accept this artifice when we play the game - and yet when JODI point out the fragility of the illusion, the reminder is still jarring. In Homo Ludens, Huizinga likens the spoilsport’s relationship to the game world as that of a heretic to the religious orthodoxy: The spoilsport is not the same as the false player, the cheat; for the latter pretends to be playing the game and, on the face of it, still acknowledges the magic circle. It is curious to note how much more lenient society is to the cheat than to the spoil-sport. This is because JODI 4 9/11/04 10:58 am Page 16

the spoil-sport shatters the play world itself. By withdrawing from the Notes game he reveals the relativity and fragility of the play-world in which I Manovich, Lev, The Language of New Media, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001), ***. he had temporarily shut himself with others.VII II Pang, Alex, “Susan Kare on Working on the Macintosh,” , The tag of ‘spoil-sport’ or ‘heretic’ is one that JODI wear gladly and consciously in relation http://library.stanford.edu/mac/primary/interviews/kare/mac.html (accessed 10 October 2004). to the computing orthodoxy, and indeed to every kind of orthodoxy. This identity applies III Weiss, David, “Catching up with Mac Icon Creator Susan Kare: Behind the smile.” Macworld, March 2004. to every aspect of their work. For example, their original proposal for the exhibition of Max IV Louis, Tristan, “Usability 101: Errors”, http://www.tnl.net/blog/entry/Usability_101:_Errors (accessed Payne Cheats-Only Gallery involved filling the space with a giant metal grid so that visitors 10 October 2004). would have to climb their way through the jumble. Even with the eventual solution of V Gleick, James. “Book Review: John von Neumann by Norman Macrae,” The New Republic, 23 October 1992. using peepholes placed in front of each video screen, the experience of viewing the work VI , “Max Payne: Official Site”, Rockstar Games, remained vaguely uncomfortable. Another example is this catalogue: JODI were opposed http://www.rockstargames.com/maxpayne/main.html (Accessed on 1 October 2004). to the idea of having what they call a ‘bla-bla’ text included at all, preferring to rely VII Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), ***. instead on images & scrawled notes. This text was written in spite of their initial protests. ,The self-styled enfants terribles of the computer world let no rule go unquestioned, from the gallery to the GUI to the game, challenging the structures of work and play that suggest that computers and humans should be seen as rational entities. No one, though, could believe that JODI themselves are guided by rationalism. Even when conducting urgent business in the throes of pre-exhibition stress, JODI’s emails are written in a cyborg-like language with excessive punctuation and hidden ASCII drawings. They’re jokers, and it comes across in every aspect of their public personae. The works in JODI’s Screen Grab phase make their contrarian image the very subject of their work. When we see a speaker open a PowerPoint presentation, how much do we infer about them by what their computer desktop looks like, and whether they have a screen saver? Plenty. Computer use is a personal thing; in Max Payne (and My%Desktop), JODI explore this personal connection, using themselves as guinea pigs. They recorded more than 140 hours of tape while creating the Max Payne piece alone. These are hours that were spent sitting at home, maybe with a beer, probably after the kids were asleep, clicking away at the computer. It was a long, solitary exploration of a video game world that was undertaken without ever once accepting the artifice of that world. At this level, the line between the production of an artwork and a compulsive or unconscious behaviour is blurred. This psychological dimension pushes the piece into the realm of an artists’ action, or performance piece. By turning the camera on their computer screen, JODI turn the camera on themselves. JODI’s Screen Grab period subsumes work and play, artifice and unorthodoxy, success and failure in an extended orgy of pointing-and-clicking. In both My%Desktop and Max Payne, JODI’s demonstrations of computer use celebrate the shared irrationality of people and machines, and testify to the massive futility of most of the hours that we waste at the computer screen. Unlike Wolfram, who overcame all of the distractions and unwieldiness of the computer as a tool to churn out 1100 semi-usable pages, JODI have turned the awkward moments themselves into work of an abject beauty and bloody-minded humour. JODI 4 9/11/04 10:58 am Page 18

DOCUMENTATION JODI 4 9/11/04 10:58 am Page 20

JODI, My%Desktop (2002). Still images from DVD. Images courtesy the artists. JODI 4 9/11/04 10:58 am Page 22 JODI 4 9/11/04 10:58 am Page 24 JODI 4 9/11/04 10:58 am Page 26

JODI, My%Desktop (2002). Installation shot of four-channel DVD with sound. Image courtesy the artists.

JODI, Caption JODI, Desktop Improvisations: My%Desktop Live (2004). Image courtesy Nathan Cox. JODI 4 9/11/04 10:58 am Page 28

JODI, My%Desktop (2002). Installation shot of four-channel DVD with sound. Image courtesy Nathan Cox. JODI. Installation view of Computing 101B exhibition (2004). Image courtesy of Nathan Cox. JODI 4 9/11/04 10:58 am Page 30

JODI. Desktop Improvisations (2004). Installation view. Image courtesy of the artists. JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 32 JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 34 JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 36

JODI, Sketch for installation design of Max Payne. Cheats Only Gallery (2004) Image courtesy the artists. JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 38

JODI, Max Payne Cheats-Only Gallery (2004). Installation shot of 10-channel . Images courtesy the artists. JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 40

JODI, Max Payne Cheats-Only Gallery (2004). Installation view . Images courtesy the artists. JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 42

JODI, Max Payne Cheats-Only Gallery (2004). Still images from ten-channel DVD. Images courtesy the artists. JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 44

NOTES JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 46 JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 48 JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 50 JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 52 JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 54 JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 56 JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 58

Apple Macintosh , 1984

Apple Lisa 1983 Robert Cringely proposed this concept to show when files were waiting to be deleted on the : 'I was determined that deleting a file would be a two-step process. On some systems, the trashcan bulges (defies physics); on others, the lid goes off (defies my mother). In my version, a fly circled the trashcan. The focus groups thought it was fuckin' awesome. But by turning off the fly, the computer could be made to run twice as fast. They fired me.'

Susan Kare designed the trash icon for the first Mac - and all these too: The symbol for the 'command' key on an Apple computer was taken from a Scandinavian symbol that is currently used on road signs to identify an 'interesting feature' JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 60

First non-Mac trash

Commodore 64 GEOS IBM OS/2 Warp 3 1986 1995

IBM OS/2 2.1 1992

Apple Macintosh System 3, 1986

IBM OS/2 Warp 4 1996 Shortly after the appearance of the Warp 4, OS/2 was discontinued.

Apple Macintosh System 4, 1987

Microsoft Windows 95 1995

In 1988, Apple filed a lawsuit against Hewlett- Packard and to protect visual elements of the Apple GUI, including the Oscar the Grouch add-on trash can, from being for Mac System 7.5 copied. The lawsuit was one When files were deleted, of the most complicated Oscar would sing 'I love ever in computer history, trash'. The add-on was lasting until 1994, when the discontinued after attracting courts ruled against Apple unwanted legal attention on most counts. Shortly from the Sesame Street after the ruling, the 'recycle copyright lawyers. bin' appeared in 95.

Apple Macintosh System 7.5, 1995

Apple Macintosh System 8.x & 9.x, 1997 (EMPTY) JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 62

Microsoft Windows 98 1998

Microsoft Windows 2000 2000

Microsoft Windows XP 2001

Apple Macintosh System 8.x & 9.x, 1997 (FULL)

Apple Macintosh OS X 2002 JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 64

HOWTO JODI JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 66

wwwwwwwwww.jodi.org WEBSITE 1995

The address of this site makes fun of the convention of beginning all web addresses with the letters ‘www.’ When you navigate to this page, you will see what looks like pure gibberish. In order to understand the joke behind this page, you need to look at the source code, the computer programme that tells your web browser how to display the page. You can look at it by going to the menu at the very top of the screen and clicking on ‘View’ and ‘Source’. When you do this, you’ll see that the source code for the web page is actually a diagram of a hydrogen bomb! JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 68

asdfg.jodi.org oss.jodi.org WEBSITE 1998 WEBSITE & SOFTWARE/CD-ROM 1998

asdfg is a website that uses html – the simplest and most common computer language Before you go to this site, make sure you are not using a web browser that blocks those used on the web – to create a glitchy animation. annoying pop-up windows. If you are, this site won’t work at all. As you watch asdfg, your web browser will be redirected, or bounced, from one web Also, make sure you do not have any unsaved work, such as an email, open in your web page to another. All of the pages have strange-looking urls like: browser or other applications. If your computer automatically executes software that /____o___o___L______l______.html. downloads automatically when you visit a website, then you have problems outside of the Your browser remembers all of the sites it visited in its page history, which you can look scope of this howto. at by clicking on either the ‘Go’ menu or the ‘History’ menu at the top of the screen. When When you go to the website, a series of small pop-up windows will start flying around on you do this, you will see a pattern like this one begin to emerge: your computer screen, creating an abstract animation. To escape the website, press Apple-Q (Macintosh). For Windows, hit Control-Alt-Delete, /______o___L______o_l_o____.html select Internet Explorer, and press End Task. /______o___L___o____l______.html The website will download a files called My.sit, SCRRR.sit or a number of other variations to your desktop. If opened, these applications will make your computer screen go haywire, /______o___Lo______l______.html with icons and windows seemingly rearranging themselves at random. Not for the faint of /______o_o__L______l______.html heart. /____o___o___L______l______.html JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 70

404.jodi.org Untitled Game WEBSITE 1998

‘404’ is the code for the error page that comes up when you try to go to an incorrect ‘Untitled Game’ is a set of modifications, or ‘mods’, of the video game Quake 1. There are address on someone’s website. You’ll see JODI’s 404 page when go to a non-existent 13 versions of the piece for PC and 12 for Mac OS 8 or 9. page address on the jodi.org website, or when you navigate directly to http://404.jodi.org. ‘Untitled Game’ was made just as game modifications began to gain widespread There are three ‘hidden’ links on this page. In order to follow them, click on the numerals recognition as an art form unto itself. JODI made the piece by altering the graphics of ‘4’, ‘0’, or ‘4’. Quake as well as the software code that makes it work. Their mods reduced the complex The links will take you to: graphics of Quake to the bare minimum, aiming for maximum contrast between the complex soundscapes and the minimal visual environment. For the mod ‘Arena’, JODI took 1) Unread – http://404.jodi.org/bcd/ this principle to the extreme: they completely erased every graphical element of the game, Unread is JODI’s verion of an online bulletin board. Type a message into the text window turning monsters, characters, and backgrounds all to white. The more psychedelic at the bottom of the screen, and press the ‘Re’ button to publish it. Your message will ‘Ctrl-Space’, the earliest of the set, is not based on a static image. Instead, it features a appear at the top of the page, with one difference: JODI’s software will have removed all swirling black-and-white background (pictured below). The game engine generates this of the vowels. This act of censorship satirizes similar arbitrary word replacement rules set effect as it continuously tries, and fails, to visualize the interior of a cube lined with black- by many online web forums to eliminate obscene or insulting remarks. and-white wallpaper. 2) Unsent – http://404.jodi.org/ae/ Playing the game is very simple – simply use the arrow keys to navigate, and the ‘enter’ Unsent has the same setup as Unread, but instead of filtering out vowels, it filters out key to shoot. consonants. 3) Reply – http://404.jodi.org/ip/ Reply is another example of an online bulletin board. Again, type your message in the text window at the bottom of the screen. This time, the bulletin board will delete your entire message and display only the numerical address of your computer. This is a breach of anonymity not far different from calling a toll-free number and having your home phone number broadcasted on television. JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 72

SOD (sod.jodi.org) text.jodi.org MODIFICATION OF VIDEO GAME (WOLFENSTEIN) 1998 WEBSITE RECONSTRUCTION OF A TELETEXT PIECE 1999–2002

There are many different versions of SOD, which work on both Mac and PC. To make text.jodi.org, JODI returned to a more than 20-year old form of television To download SOD, visit sod.jodi.org and click on the words ‘SOD.SIT 1.4MB’ or ‘SOD.zip communication known as TeleText. TeleText started with the BBC 25 years ago. It allows 730K PC’. The piece is a modification of the video game Wolfenstein, which is one of the a viewer to flip through hundreds of pages of information about travel, weather and the easiest to modify, stripping away all of the graphics of the game until it is reduced to a like, all presented as low-resolution images. Teletext was brought to the web in the very black and white skeleton. early days of the medium. To navigate the game, use the left, right, up and down arrows. To open doors, which are The 400 image files in this project were made using the TeleTexteditor as an image- usually white panels outlined with a black line, hit the space bar. To shoot the growling editing tool. The result is a series of abstract images that could be ‘read’ either as visual abstract patterns before they kill you, hit the control key. nonsense created by a TeleText channel gone haywire, or on a more aesthetic level as visual art or design. The piece was broadcast on Dutch television, where it was rarely viewed, but has now achieved renewed popularity on the web. JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 74

wrongbrowser.jodi.org Jet Set Willy Variations BROWSER SOFTWARE FOR PC OR MAC 2001 MODIFICATION OF VIDEO GAME ‘JET SET WILLY’ 2002

These five web browsers (.co.jp, .nl, .co.kr, .com, and .org) are good for web surfing if you These are playable modifications of the 1984 game ‘Jet Set Willy’ for the Sinclair ZX are tired of the structure of 'Forward', 'Back' and 'Refresh'. However, the browsers will not Spectrum, a British computer in the early 1980s popular with hobbyists. help you find a specific site or view an html web page in a readable way. Unless you have a working ZX Spectrum, then you need to install software called an The best way to use the wrong browsers is to randomly click on icons on the screen and ‘emulator’ in order to play this game. An emulator is a computer programme that enables drag them to other parts of the screen. Some of the wrong browsers allow you to enter one kind of computer to act like another kind of computer. To play JODI’s version of Jet web addresses. Set Willy, you’ll need an emulator that makes a recent computer to behave like the ZX When using the .co.jp browser, you may also wish to turn your computer monitor on its Spectrum. side. You can download the emulator and games at http://jetsetwilly.jodi.org. There are links at the top of this website that will work for both Mac and Windows. The Mac software is for OS 9, but should work on an OS X computer as long as it has ‘Classic’ mode. Download the file, unzip and open the emulator software (Mac Spectacle or ZX Spectrum Emulator.exe). Then open the games, which have names like jsw011.sna. They take a few moments to load. On the ZX Spectrum or an emulator, use the ‘5’ key to move left, ‘8’ to move right, and the arrows to jump. These versions of Jet Set Willy aren’t meant to be very playable. From jsw011, they become increasingly more abstract, finding inspiration in the non-narrative parts of the game. One of JODI's modifications is based on the copy-protection card, a red, blue, green and pink grid that shipped with every copy of the original game. The pattern provided access codes that were necessary to 'unlock' the game. Trying to navigate the white square that represents Willy through the coloured blocks of the copy-protection screen is nearly impossible. JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 76

My%Desktop All Wrongs Reversed ©1982 4-CHANNEL DVD WITH SOUND 2002 DVD 2003

It’s very easy to make your own version of My%Desktop. You’ll need a Macintosh with OS This piece is a Screen Grab video tutorial of how to make simple computer graphics using 8 or 9 and a good pair of computer speakers, or even better, a PA. the BASIC programming language. This continues JODI’s work for the Sinclair ZX Optional: If you want to record your performance, you’ll also need a video and audio Spectrum computer. See Jet Set Willy Variations to learn about running software for the output on your computer hooked up to a VCR. ZX Spectrum. First things first: turn on your alert sounds. These can be found in Control Panels – Sound. In order to follow JODI’s tutorial on this DVD, you’ll need a ZX Spectrum or emulator It’s best to find the most obnoxious one possible and turn your volume up all the way. software (again, see p. 73). You’ll need to be familiar with the apple key. This key, when pressed at the same time as You can follow along with JODI on this DVD as they programme the ZX Spectrum in real other keys on the keyboard, will help you cause mayhem. time. It’s fairly friendly to programme because its computer commands are all in English: Load, Run, If/Then. One thing that’s a bit tricky is that sometimes these emulators will To start creating folders on your desktop, hit apple-N type out a whole word – such as RUN – when you just press a single key, such as R. Click and drag with the mouse, or hit apple-A, to select the folders Here’s a sample of a BASIC programme: Hit Apple-C to copy them 10 PRINT “I AM GREAT” Hit Apple-D to duplicate them 20 GO TO 10 Then hit apple-A again, followed by apple-O You’ll love this. You get the idea! It’s a good idea to keep switching your alert sounds and desktop appearance using your throughout the performance. If your computer crashes, you win. JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 78

Max Payne Cheats-Only Gallery 10-CHANNEL DVD INSTALLATION WITH PEEPHOLES 2004

Max Payne is a little more difficult to recreate than the other Screen Grab works. You need to have a copy of Max Payne before you can try and make your own version of it, and I wouldn’t really suggest buying a copy of Max Payne just so you can try this yourself. It’s a hard game and teaches men to suppress their inner emotional life. If you want to give this a try, I’ll assume you know how to play Max Payne and that you are playing on Windows. To enter a cheat, you have to start the game from the command line. To get to the command line, go to the start menu, click on’run’, enter ‘cmd’ or ‘command’ and hit OK. This will open a DOS prompt. Then you have to type in the location of maxpayne.exe in order to start it, followed by the extension ‘-developer’. This is probably something like C:\Program Files\Max Payne\maxpayne.exe. So it would look like this: C:\Program Files\Max Payne\maxpayne.exe –developer This should start the game. To enter a cheat during the game, just hit F12 key, type in your cheat, and press enter. Some good cheats can be found here: http://www.cheatplanet.com/pccheats/max_payne.htm My favorite cheat is , which you can implement by typing: GetBulletTime JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 80 JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 82

Comments from FACT guest book during Computing 101B exhibition, 16 July – 5 September 2004 JODI 4 9/11/04 10:59 am Page 84

Published in 2004 by FACT, the Foundation for Art & Creative Technology Made possible by the Mondriaan Foundation and Arts Council England.

Publication Concept: JODI Editor: Michael Connor Advisors: Lauren Cornell, Kendra Gaeta, Ceri Hand, David Nolen, Jackie Passmore Design: Alan Ward @ www.axisgraphicdesign.co.uk Printing: Andrew Kilburn Print Services

Exhibition Concept: JODI Curator: Michael Connor Production Managers: Nick Lawrenson, Ceri Hand Production Coordinator/Researcher: Hilary Thorn Advisor: Eddie Berg

Distributed by FACT, 88 Wood St., Liverpool L1 4DQ, United Kingdom Tel. +44 151 707 4444 Fax +44 151 707 4445 Email [email protected] http://www.fact.co.uk Reg. charity number: 702781 Reg. company number: 2391543 2004 FACT, the Foundation for Art & Creative Technology, the artists, contributors and writers

ISBN 0-9546931-1-6