zkm_gameplay

start new game ! Bernhard Serexhe ZKM_Gameplay

The Game Platform at the ZKM

At all times and throughout their history since then, but also the increased impor- humans have played; indeed, one could tance of video games as a general cultural even say that the entire development of technology. In youth culture, video games humankind, its evolution both as individ- have become one of the leading media uals and as a species, depends to a great in digital society. This is why, all over the extent upon play, whether purposeless or world, academies of art and design have purposeful, the pleasurable and natural introduced study courses where the exploration of one’s abilities and social production and design of video games is competence, as well as the testing and taught. Through their massive use by all constant pushing back of one’s limits. public media, advertising, and the film Children explore their environment in play, industry in particular, video games increas- just as both teenagers and adults learn ingly leave their imprint on our images of the material and social conditions of our real and virtual worlds. complex world through play. The use of digital technologies in art Thus, naturally, the game as a medium cannot be distinguished from their use in was already a focal point of the ZKM from video games. Artists have always engaged very early on. Since the mid 1990s, the creatively and enthusiastically with the ZKM | Media Museum has ­systematically potential of games and play, and thus added video and computer games to have contributed substantially to the its collection. And since its opening in ongoing development of video games. At 1997 the Media Museum has an entire the same time, with subversively modified section dedicated to the world of games game engines and by programming their where visitors of all ages can explore the own art games, artists have acquired the myths and the forms of action of this most up-to-date gameplay skills with the rising digital culture in innumerable video intention of facilitating a differentiated games. As early as 1999 LAN parties in and critical view. From this, new genres the ZKM’s foyer attracted hundreds of have evolved within the last two decades – gamers who were connected for nights art games and serious games – which are on end. The increasing presence of video more likely to be found in exhibitions and games in ZKM exhibitions attests to the festivals than at the gaming conventions growing interest of the art world in this of the games industry. genre. «World of Games: Reloaded» was TheZKM opened its third large Game the updated second edition of the Media Platform in June 2013; its aim is to present Museum’s presentation of games which to the public – and especially to its gamers’ was set up for the ZKM’s groundbreaking fan base of all ages – the diversity of new exhibition The Algorithmic Revolution. trends and genres in video games. The Before the turn of the millennium, com- ZKM’s new Game Platform offers a whole puter and video games were already a sig- spectrum of possibilities: visitors can dis- nificant economic factor. Their enormous cover current best-selling video games, and wide distribution today not only evi- historic commercial games, and also get ZKM in 1997 dences the rapid technological progress to know – independent of their market Games are a part of ZKM since its opening. © ZKM | Center for Art and Media Photo: ONUK 3 success – games in which the creative and to the fascinating world of gaming. And artistic elements are the main focus. it is a platform that changes constantly, Thus ZKM_Gameplay is in no way the which takes in and adapts to current children’s section of the Media Museum. games and themes. This platform is designed for all of our visi- Start new game! tors. It offers all visitors enjoyable access

World of Games 1997 The upper floor of ZKM is completely redesigned in 2013 . 4 © ZKM | Center for Art and Media Stephan Schwingeler Start New Game!

Curatorial Remarks on ZKM_Gameplay

The ZKM | Media Museum as Pioneer are now a highly complex medium. In the Ever since the ZKM opened its doors in course of its history the videogame has 1997 computer and video games have developed its own specific repertoire of been permanently on display in the forms of expression. ZKM | Media Museum because they are ZKM_Gameplay in the ZKM | Media a significant and integral part of our eve- Museum traces these developments and ryday digital world. Here the ZKM | Media presents the video game as a medium that Museum has assumed a pioneering role; has achieved its own identity and has now by contrast, it is only since November 2012 entered a phase in which reflection plays a that New York’s Museum of Modern Art defining role. /2 has included computer and videogames in its collection, mainly focusing on the The Two Poles of a Video Game: aspect of interaction design. /1 Game and Play Early on the ZKM recognized the import- The German word «Spiel» has two mean- ance of video games and how influential ings in English with various connotations: they are. In 1995 educator and social wor- game and play. /3 A game is often «a form ker Friedemann Schindler and the desi- of competitive activity or sport played gner Frank den Oudsten started to develop according to rules» (OED), and play is a concept for an exhibition that would engaging in «activity for enjoyment and portray the different levels of the medium recreation rather than a serious or practi- of the video game which they identified cal purpose» (OED). In these senses, a as multilayered. This first exhibition, Welt game follows specific rules and play does der Spiele [world of games], was strongly not. The mass noun gameplay means influenced by Friedemann Schindler «the features of a computer game, such as and an educational approach to media. its plot and the way it is played, as distinct Schindler and den Oudsten addressed from the graphics and sound effects» various complexes of issues in the form of (OED); that is, the way a player interacts installations (e. g., Licence to Kill engages with a game. It is a category dealing with with the portrayal of violence in the mass the aesthetics of reception: the develop- media). Welt der Spiele provided the basis ment of a player’s experience of a game in for the ZKM’s new game exhibition ZKM_ his or her subjective perception. Good Gameplay. gameplay is the most important criterion Video games have evolved and are now of a game, be it analog or digital. The multi- very different to those of the early days. layered term gameplay is used for the new Classics like Pong (1972) and Pac-Man video games section in the ZKM | Media (1980) and contemporary games like Heavy Museum which has as its theme digital Rain (2010) are worlds apart – technically, games and their play elements. aesthetically, and above all commercially. Videogames now exist in a diversity of variations, genres, and multifaceted forms, Feng Mengbo: Long March: Restart at MoMA PS1. as well as in various art scenes, and they ZKM_Gameplay shows the piece as a 16m long version. Photo: courtesy of Feng Mengbo 7 Reflecting on Media: considerably influenced the new concep- acting when presented with the invitation Parallel to the artistic development and The Central Concern tion for ZKM_Gameplay. to engage in interactivity. One crosses the art history of video games, a trend can be In ZKM_Gameplay the medium of the border into the realm of play. One enjoys observed where commercial games are video game is interrogated. The potential- The Academic Discipline of the freedom of an intellectual and sensual beginning to probe and interrogate the ities of the videogame are the focus, and Game Studies game. Interaction is never the quiet of characteristics and conventions of the not cementing its conventions. The selec- In view of the huge cultural and economic contemplation, but always the moving medium. At present video games are in tion of exhibits prioritizes experimental, significance of video games a branch of image, action, playing with changing the a phase of self-observation and self- unconventional, and artistic forms of academic enquiry has developed that is parameters within limited possibilities.»/10 reflection which makes them open to all the video game. Concentrating on these concerned with the critical study of games, kinds of experiment. These trends are potentialities of the medium demonstra- including engaging with the question Art: Videogames as Artistic Material most marked in the segment of «indepen- tes how diverse the subject is and at the of the «meanings» of computer games, From around 1995 artists began to use the dent» yet nevertheless market-oriented same time allows its characteristics to which is by no means confined to a purely medium of video games as material, and / indie games. emerge clearly. educational perspective. Game studies, or to engage with the cultural inflences Indie games offer alternatives to main- Theidea of facilitating reflection on the which began to form in 1999, views video emanating from them as well as to work on stream commercial games. One of the medium played a definitive role in the games as a rich and multilayered subject them using other media. /11 The first exam- focuses of ZKM_Gameplay is on these new conception for ZKM_Gameplay. The investigating expressive artifacts. The the- ple of artists engaging with video games games, some of which have been created games are subjected to critical scrutiny. oretical work that has come out of Game was Orhan Kipcak’s and Reinhard Urban’s by just one or two authors, such as Jason The objective of presenting video games studies was an important basis for devel- video game modification Arsdoom (1995). Rohrer’s Passage (2007), Krystian Majew- is to contribute to investigating the oping ZKM_Gameplay. In the course of Since then «Game art» has spawned a rich ski’s Trauma (2010), Ed Key’s and David medium and to reveal its implications, developing game theory, art historians – in variety of artworks. Numerous exhibitions Kanaga’s Proteus (2009—2012). Examples conditionalities, and characteristics and isolated cases – began to take an interest since 1999 have been devoted to the prod- of commercially successful indie games render them comprehensible. In this way in the subject from a critical standpoint. ucts of an artistic engagement with video are Markus «Notch» Persson’s Minecraft ZKM_Gameplay makes a contribution The most important outcome of this work games. /12 Many internationally renowned (as of 2009) and Journey (Jenova Chen, to social awareness of this ubiquitous was to establish that there is a close rela- artists have created works that refer to thatgamecompany, 2012). Indie games phenomenon and fosters competence in tionship between interactive media art video games; for example, Feng Mengbo’s now have their own festivals, infrastructure, using and dealing with the medium. Thus and games. /7 Long March: Restart (2008) and Bill Viola’s and funding. They frequently explore the the ZKM | Media Museum intervenes pro- Heinrich Klotz, founding director of the The Night Journey (2010). To present, docu- medium in a qualitatively higher way than actively in public discourse and has the ZKM, acknowledged as early as 1997 that ment, and commentate on the positions the AAA games of the big publishers. possibility to shape and influence it. the entire genre of interactive media art of the artists is one of the main tasks of ZKM_Gameplay presents the exhibited possessed the character of play. Klotz ZKM_Gameplay. — video games and artworks in an interac- viewed this play element as a distinctive tive, playable form where feasible. ZKM characteristic of interactive media art- Commerce: Indie Games as an Annotations visitors are invited to play the games works and thus indirectly pointed to the Alternative to Mainstream Video Games together and to engage with the works of structural common ground of art and Naturally, commercial video games are /1 Game art. A game that is not being played games that share freedoms and, at the also featured prominently in ZKM_Game- See http://www.moma.org/explore/ is in a curious state of limbo. An unplayed same time, rules. Discussing Jeffrey play because their volume is greatest in inside_out/2012/11/29/video-games-14- videogame only exists as static lines of Shaw’s artwork The Legible City (1988— the entertainment industry. A firmly in-the-collection-for-starters/, accessed code. Only when it is played can the game 1991) Klotz referred to Johan Huizinga’s established part of the globally active 04.05.2013. develop its potential. For the theory of book Homo ludens : «Und das Ganze entertainment industry, digital games videogames Alexander Galloway put this hat etwas Spielerisches. Das Kunstwerk are economically a very significant factor /2 in a nutshell: «video games are actions.» /4 ist wieder Spiel geworden, der Mensch whose popularity rivals Hollywood cine- Currently the videogame, according to And that is precisely what ZKM_Gameplay ein Homo ludens» [The whole thing has ma, which in turn video games influence Lorenz Engell, who sees media as going stands for. something playful about it. The artwork in terms of images and sound as well as through four stages of development, is has again become a game, and man has being influenced by them. in its fourth phase of «enhanced self-ob- New Developments since become Man the Player.] Klotz makes a In addition video games are an impor- servation and reflection.» The medium Welt der Spiele clear distinction between two modes of tant driver of innovative technological is developing «access to itself, to its past Since the original conception for the exhi- the artwork, which require two specific development and a significant reason phases of development, to the set of rules bition Welt der Spiele was formulated (and forms of reception: seeing static images for the ongoing increased capabilities of it has developed, and subjecting them since its update in 2004 as «reload»), there and acting with moving images: hardware, which of course also needs to to scrutiny. In many cases this results have been developments in science, scho- «Falling silent in admiration when con- be seen in the context of profits and the in, for example, a period of experimental larship, art, and commerce and these have fronted with the pure act of seeing recedes market. probing and an expansion of the videoga- in the face of the joy of discovering and me’s technical, aesthetic, and pragmatic

8 9 options. […] a process of aestheticizing /6 /8 which is often formalized in the forma- See: Schwingeler 2008, Hensel 2008, Homo ludens or «Man the Player» was first tion of an avant-garde. The opening up Schwingeler and Gehring 2009, Lohoff and published in 1938; see Johan Huizinga: of the medium to art […] is a typical form Schwingeler 2009, Hensel 2011, Hensel Homo-Ludens: A Study of the Play Ele- that this process takes, which ushers in 2011a, Beil 2012. ment in Culture (Proeve eener bepaling the phase of reflection or prepares the van het spelelement der cultur), trans. ground for it. (Hensel 2011a, p. 56. Lorenz /7 R. F. C. Hull (Haarlem, 1938; Routledge and Engell quoted in: Engell 2001, pp. 52 and Australian academic Jason Wilson traced Kegan Paul, 1949). 54; translated from the German by Gloria a media-archaeological line from Nam Custance). Lorenz Engell identifies four June Paik’s (*1932—†2006) TV artworks to /9 phases in the development of a medium: early computer games such as Pong; they Heinrich Klotz (ed.): Kunst der Gegenwart, 1. Spectacular phase. were created at around the same time and Munich, New York, 1997, p. 27; translated 2. Phase of withdrawal and orientation on also share the same zeitgeist informed by from the German by Gloria Custance. other media: photography orients itself on «technological utopianism» in the context painting, film on theater, the videogame of the 1960s and 1970s. This evidences /10 on film. the historical connection between digital ibid., p. 23; translated from the German by 3. Self-evident phase: the medium as a games and interactive media art; see Wil- Gloria Custance. medium disappears and refrains from rai- son 2007, pp. 123—185; Wilson 2006. In an sing itself as an issue due to its intention essay published in 2009 Söke Dinkla also /11 to become absorbed in «transparency.» linked video games and interactive media See Schwingeler, Stephan: Kunst mit 4. Phase of increased self-observation art, assigned them to different contexts Computerspielen: Künstlerische Stra- and self-reflection, self-thematization, (entertainment industry vs. art world), tegien und kunsthistorische Bezüge, in: self-criticism, avant-garde formation, and and referred to them as an «(un)gleiches Wimmer, Jeffrey, Mitgutsch, Konstantin opening of the medium to art; Geschwisterpaar» [dissimilar siblings]. und Rosenstingl, Herbert [eds.]: Applied see Engell 2001. Interactive media art clearly belongs to Playfulness. Proceedings of the Vienna the realm of art whereas video games exist Games Conference 2011: Future and Rea- /3 under the auspices of the entertainment lity of Gaming, Vienna, 2012, pp. 219—235. In Les Jeux et les Hommes (1958) the industry (Dinkla 2009). However, artists French sociologist and philospher Roger have now transferred video games to the /12 Caillois introduced the terms ludus and art system context utilizing various strate- Examples of exhibitions, which have pre- paidia for the two poles of game, which gies. Today there art computer games that sented artistic video games or modified proceeds according to rules, and play as fall into the category of interactive media games, are: Synreal in Vienna (1999), Cra- a free activity; see Caillois 1982 (German art as well as the category of videoga- cking the Maze (online, 1999), The Game edition), p. 20. mes. This renders any artificial separation Show (Mass MoCA, North Adams, 2001— between interactive media art and video- 2002), Games: Computerspiele von Künst- /4 games null and void. In Das systemische lerInnen (Phoenix Halle, Dortmund, 2003), Alexander R. Galloway: Gaming. Essays on Bild Inge Hinterwaldner remarks: «Diese GameArt (Völklinger Hütte, Völklingen, Algorithmic Culture, Minneapolis, 2006, Trennung in Computerspiele einerseits 2003), and Artgames (Ludwigforum, p. 2. und interaktive Kunst andererseits lässt Aachen, 2005). The following related exhi- sich heute nicht mehr aufrechterhalten, bitions were mounted as a trilogy at LABo- /5 da es künstlerische Computerspiele gibt» ral Centro in Gijón, Spain: Gameworld On the interdisciplinary development of (This division into interactive media art on (2007), Playware (2007—2008), and Homo Game studies see Julian Kücklich: Inva- the one side and video games on the other Ludens Ludens (2008). Games were ded Spaces. Anmerkungen zur interdiszi- is no longer sustainable because there already exhibited in 1989: the exhibition plinären Entwicklung der Game Studies, are now art videogames.» (Hinterwaldner curated by Rochelle Slovin, Hot Circuits: A in: Siegener Periodicum zur internationa- 2010, p. 380, translated from the German Video Arcade (6 June 1989—20 May 1990), len empirischen Literaturwissenschaft by Gloria Custance). was a non-artistic, history of technology – SPIEL, vol. 23: no. 22004, pp. 285—304; show which presented early slot machi- Aarseth 2001, Perron and Wolf 2003, Raes- nes at the Museum of the Moving Image in sens / Goldstein 2005, Mäyrä 2008, Perron New York. and Wolf 2009.

10 11 Adam Rafinski Are you ready for Gameplay?

An exhibition about the culture of contemporary play

Nonetheless word is beginning to get around mass medium of games and their culture. that art is a kind of game, that one can ap- The ZKM_Gameplay platform is a unique proach painting or photography with the forum for examining the cultural signifi- same categories as bowling or poker, and that cance of this medium in all its facets in a these categories can be expressed in the form dialog with museum visitors. of algorithms. This is beginning to be talked about because the general public is obviously The Game as an Art Form becoming increasingly aware of video games./1 Games represent a new lively art, one as ap- vilém flusser propriate for the digital age as those earlier media were for the machine age. They open up Whereas in the twentieth century film and new aesthetic experiences and transform the cinema were responsible for the domi- computer screen into a realm of experimenta- nance of the moving image, today, in the tion and innovation that is broadly accessible. twenty-first century, video games are And games have been embraced by a public providing a wide audience with access to that has otherwise been unimpressed by major achievements of media art. It is not much of what passes for digital art./2 developments in computer, information, henry jenkins and communications technology that have left their mark on our experience of A main focus of ZKM_Gameplay is how games, but the artistic interrogations and artists use video games as material and explorations undertaken since the 1960s. the treatment they receive in contempo- Performance, Concept art and Context art, rary art practice. Recently there has been as well as the expanded concepts of art more overlap of commercial indie games and media are closely tied to the develop- and art games. The popularity of indie ment of the video game. This has led to an games has encouraged the commercial increasingly upward revaluation in social availability of art games. The huge influ- terms of gaming activities in the enter- ence of Marcel Duchamp’s understanding tainment and culture industries. The scope of art and the advent of avantgarde move- for game development grows exponen- ments like Futurism, Dada, und Fluxus intro- tially with the popularity and economic duced strict formulations of rules in the success of games. And our general under- production process of art. The question of standing of games changes correspond- whether video games can be compared ingly. to great works of the theater, cinema, and The ZKM | Media Museum in Karlsruhe so on can only be addressed if they are was the first cultural institution in the accorded a place in museums. This is the world to set up a dedicated exhibition precondition for making any comparison for games. Originally inaugurated in 1997 of this kind. The greatest challenge is ZKM_Gameplay addresses both the the aspect that playing games is a genu- general public and a specialist audience; inely pointless pursuit, which has been it explores the historical, cultural, and radically expanded in the twenty-first artistic importance of the algorithmic century through the enhanced experience

Amanita Design: Botanicula concept sketches, 2012, courtesy of Amanita Design 13 of electronic virtual worlds. However, the museum with challenges similar to The Museum as a Playground Annotations ZKM_Gameplay has revealed that on the exhibiting Fluxus objects or Land art, for If photographs are images, and films are one hand games spur the free flow of the example. As soon as such works are moving images, then video games are actions. /1 imagination and improvisation (play), transferred to the secure and tranquil Let this be word one for video game theory. Vilém Flusser, Gesellschaftsspiele, in: and on the other bring forth systematic environment of the museum, it happens Without action, games remain only in the Hartwagner et al. (eds.): Künstliche Spiele, and cultural mechanisms that enable us only too often that they lose the possibility pages of an abstract rule book. Without the Munich, 1993, p. 114, translated from the to shape our picture of reality together of finding complete expression. Artistic active participation of players and machines, German by Gloria Custance. (game). ZKM_Gameplay’s strength lies in forms of games are impossible to exhibit if video games exist only as static computer the fact that it raises visitors’ awareness they do not have the opportunity of being code. Video games come into being when the /2 of both extremes and challenges precon- played and thus claiming the space and machine is powered up and software is exe- Henry Jenkins, Games: The New Lively ceived notions like video games cannot be time needed for themselves. For this rea- cuted; they exist when enacted./6 Art, in: John Hartley (ed.): Creative Indus- fun and at the same time have the poten- son ZKM_Gameplay adapts to the open, alexander galloway tries, Malden, MA, 2005, p. 313; available tial for critique. incomplete, and uncertain character of online: http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/ Game design is design of experience. its exhibits. In other words: the museum In the nineteenth century it was assumed henry3/GamesNewLively.html [accessed Thus the design of an exhibition, which visitors and the museum as an institution that simply by exhibiting objects people 11.06.2013]. has games as its subject, must be a place both have to become gamers/players in would gain access to knowledge. Today where games can both be played and order to gain access to the works. we know that learning is an active process. /3 at the same time reflected upon. If the Yet many museums still adhere to the old Johan Huizinga, Homo ludens: A Study space is too predetermined, one runs didactic concept of imparting information. of the Play-element in Culture, London: the risk of undermining the museum as a By contrast, the ZKM invites its visitors to Routledge, 1949, p. 199. space for reflection. If it is too indetermi- participate in generating meaning through nate, one runs the risk of not doing justice playing together. «Man only plays when in /4 to the aesthetic potential of the works. the full meaning of the word he is a man, See Ian Bogost, Persuasive Game: The ZKM_Gameplay succeeds in creating the and he is only completely a man when he Expressive Power of Videogames, Cam- right balance and allows visitors to forge plays.»/7 Museological displays only do bridge, MA, 2007. links between history, culture, and the justice to the culture of gaming if they take artistic potential of the medium of games. this insight of Friedrich Schiller’s to heart. /5 In his book Homo ludens: A Study of the Then the exhibition becomes a living stage See Gregory Bateson, Eine Theorie des Play-element in Culture Johan Huizinga and the visitor an actor and performer. Spiels und der Phantasie, in: Claus Pias shows how the excitement of undertaking Curators, artists, and the visitors to this and Christian Holtorf (eds.), Escape! Com- an experiment with an uncertain outcome form of art and discourse would certainly puterspiele als Kulturtechnik, Cologne, is intimately connected with the creation not be satisfied if they were presented 2007, pp. 193—208. of cultural artifacts. Consequently, the with a totally predictable selection of museum needs to become a highly con- works. Thus ZKM_Gameplay seeks a /6 centrated playground and experimental balance between the first-time amaze- Alexander R. Galloway, Gaming. Essays on laboratory for which the ZKM in Karlsruhe, ment intrinsic to the game (play), and the Algorithmic Culture, Minneapolis, 2006, with its orientation and structure, is pre- discursive, cultural value of games with p. 2. destined. the medium (game). With this in mind Games need to be played, otherwise visitors are invited to be proactive and /7 they have no opportunity to develop their assume various roles in the museum ritual, Friedrich Schiller, Letters upon the Aesthe- argument. To play means to accept that for example, the academic, the tourist, the tic Education of Man. Letter XV, § 9. Literary the outcome of the game is uncertain, to expert, the cultural aficionado, the roman- and Philosophical Essays. Vol. XXXII. The take a gamble. In games we find that kind tic, the leader of a group, and so on. In this Harvard Classics. New York: P.F. Collier & of magic, which we express in marveling at way the Gameplay platform allows visitors Son, 1909—1914; Bartleby.com, 2001. www. «the first time». As Huizinga put it: «Really to see their museum visit with different bartleby.com/32/. [accessed 3.10.2013]. to play, a man must play like a child.»/3 eyes, enhanced by their confrontation Games live off their «procedural rhetoric» with the culture of games and gaming. In which is only expressed when their rules their multiple roles visitors are invited to are applied,/4 and this implies that as a see themselves as co-producers of ZKM_ medium they are incomplete. This is only Gameplay, together with the ZKM | Media meaningful on condition that we pretend./5 Museum, and to play with us. Thus the presentation of games confronts

14 15 /1 /2 /1

Jodi Jodi (Joan Heemskerk, *1968 (Joan Heemskerk, *1968 and Dirk Paesmans, *1965) and Dirk Paesmans, *1965) SOD Max Payne Cheats Only 1999 2005 — — Video game modification based on Machinima based on Max Payne Wolfenstein 3D (Remedy, 2001), (id Software, 1992), digital video PC — — Max Payne Cheats Only is a video that The video game modification SOD by the shows how the artists take control over Dutch-Belgian artist duo JODI, is based the action game Max Payne. Instead of on the controversial first-person shooter playing the game the intended way, that is, Wolfenstein 3D, which was withdrawn following the story, shooting enemies, and from circulation in Germany. In Wolfen- moving from section to section through stein 3D the player has to escape from a the environments of the game, JODI use castle, and defend himself against Nazis. the software in the opposite way to the The final opponent is Adolf Hitler himself, game’s idea. Through their actions, JODI who appears as the very epitome of a send the game into unresponsive hangs supervillain in a martial combat suit. and endless loops. Their performance First-person shooters such as Wolfen- gives rise to absurd perspectives, image stein 3D aim to produce the impression, errors, and repetitions, which can give the that the players move into the environ- impression that the program has crashed, ment of the images presented in per- and is stuck in an error state. spective. SOD is a deconstruction of this Further, the Max Payne game is in a kind illusion space, which is suggested by the of open mode, which originally was only /2 imagery of Wolfenstein 3D. The visuals intended for the developers. In this mode, of the game are translated into objects. it is possible to intervene in the program’s JODI have replaced every image element structure, and it can be altered and modi- of the original game with simple geomet- fied in a specific way: for instance, it is rical shapes or letters. The scenario of the possible to steer the character through action game, which dramatically embel- seemingly massive walls. Gamers use lishes the action, and narratively under- such pins it, is in this way entirely negated and interventions in games to gain advantages critically disrupts the game’s structure. in the game (for example, invulnerability, The ameg audio and game rules remain infinite lives, etc.). This behavior, known as unchanged. However, the abstract user «cheating,» has its own tradition and a rich interface does have an indirect influence culture in videogame history. on the rules of the gameplay: The game — becomes a game with the image per se, Photo: courtesy of Jodi which comes close to a concrete com- puter game that only has itself as the sub- ject. This has the effect of firming up the actions that are performed repeatedly during a computer game in a feedback loop consisting of action and reaction. — Photo: courtesy of Jodi

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Jodi (Joan Heemskerk, *1968 and Dirk Paesmans, *1965) /3 Untitled Game: CTRL-Space and Untitled Game: Arena 1998—2001 — Computer game modification based on Quake (id Software, 1996), PC — JODI’s series Untitled Game consists Nam June Paik let an unexposed, «empty» of various levels for the first-person roll of film run through a projector. shooter Quake. The levels presented in In a contradictory way, the deletion of ZKM_Gameplay are CTRL-Space and the image data has both the effect of ma- Arena. king one aware of the constructedness CTRL-Space is the first attempt by the of the image and of highlighting the con- artists Heemskerk and Paesmans to uti- tinuing existence of the image. The audio lize videogames as material. A prototype level is still intact, and the game allows was already developed in 1998 for the the players to enter commands. By dele- Budapest media art center C3. The work ting the image information, however, it is transforms the play space of the first- impossible to use the computer program person shooter Quake into abstract forms, in the originally intended manner; that which can be altered by the players. is, to play the game. The audio and the The level Arena is the most extensive changes to the framing image elements modification of the original Quake game: give rise to the impression that the game The players are confronted with just a is still taking place behind the opaque white surface, which is framed by image white field, like behind a milky pane of elements. glass. Thus Arena is a contradictory Arena represents the transformation construct – an unplayable game – which of a game into an entirely unplayable one, offers the user certain actions, but defies and is the most radical intervention in the being used in any way that makes intuitive structures of the gameplay that is actually sense. The radical contradiction of Arena possible. The degree of abstraction goes brings out the conditionalities of the video as far as the complete eradication of game medium, although and especially representational images, which was par- because the controlling comes to nothing, tially achieved by deleting lines of code. and there is nothing more to be seen. The artistic strategy of deletion used — evokes associations with monochrome Photos: courtesy of Jodi images in art history, such as Rauschen- berg’s White Paintings (1951), as well as his erased drawing The Erased De Kooning Drawing (1953). In Zen for Film, in 1963

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Mary Flanagan (*1969) Bill Viola (*1951) Pile of Secrets The Night Journey 2011 work in progress — — digital video video game, — PC For her video work Pile of Secrets, the — American artist Mary Flanagan collected In 2005 the video artist Bill Viola began /5 several terabytes of video material from working on a computer game with the popular computer games, which she team at the Game Innovation Lab of the has assembled into themed videos. In University of Southern California called ZKM_Gameplay her videos Jump, Ascend, The Night Journey. Players move within a Corridor, and Treasure can be watched. three-dimensional environment, which Game characters from various video they experience from the first-person games repeat the same movements, perspective. The surroundings constantly which are strikingly similar from game adapt in a subtle way to how the player to game: The characters jump, move treats the environment, how they explore upwards, walk along corridors, and collect it and get to know it. The X button on the things. controller does not fire off a shot as per This found-footage material of video usual, but triggers «thoughts.» Reflection games is subjected to analysis by the sets «dream sequences» in motion, which artist whereby she assembles it into are computed according to the actions of /6 categories. This demonstrates very clearly the players. the basic structural elements of video Audiovisually The Night Journey is com- games. Additionally, the presentation as parable to Viola’s video works. The graphic an endless loop enhances this impression. artists participating in the project have In the repetitions Flanagan’s videos show modelled the computer graphics on the the formative actions of video games. image lines of video, and translated the — grainy, almost blurred appearance of Photo: courtesy of Mary Flanagan Viola’s video images. The game utilizes the entire range of video aesthetics and renders them in an interactive form of computer graphics. — Photo: courtesy of USC Game Innovation Lab

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Feng Mengbo (*1966) Long March: Restart 2008 — video game, PC — Since the 1990s, we have seen artists turning their attention to video games. The Chinese artist Feng Mengbo is one of the pioneers of this new artistic focus on digital games. In 2002, for the first time an international audience became acquainted with an artistic video game modification through Fengbo: the artist presented his work Q4U (2000 / 02) at the Documenta11 in Kassel. The spectacular work Long March: Restart, which is presented in ZKM_ Gameplay, leans aesthetically towards the two-dimensional videogames of the 16-bit era. In Feng Mengbo’s video game, the world of symbols of communist propaganda mixes with set pieces of the Western consumer world and Asian stereotypes in video games such as Street Fighter II (the sumo fighter E. Honda and the Chinese fighter Chun Li, well-known characters from this game, both make an appearance). The installation, which is playable via a wireless controller, consists of a sixteen-meters long projection, which presents the game’s action. Thus, in form and content, the overtly political work satirizes the heroic myth of the Long March of the Communist Party of China’s Red Army in the years 1934 and 1935. — Photo: courtesy of Feng Mengbo

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Alan Kwan (*1990) Mary Flanagan (*1969) Bad Trip [giantJoystick] 2012 2006 — — video game, sculptural interface, PC video game (emulated Atari 2600) — — Since November 2011, the artist Alan Mary Flanagan’s sculptural work [giant- Kwan from Hong Kong has been recording Joystick] consists of a functioning joystick every step he takes with a camera that with which the visitors of ZKM_Gameplay is attached to his glasses. Every evening, take control over classic arcade games the artist uploads the video material to for the console Atari 2600. The joystick the video game Bad Trip, which Kwan is approximately three meters high and, designed and programmed himself. The because of its sheer size, requires players players can then experience the images to join forces to move it and play the game as memory fragments in the 3D environ- together. ment of the game, and metaphorically The sculpture, whose dimensions are navigate the memories of the artist. monumental, steers attention towards The orkw Bad Trip foregrounds the the spatial, performative, and social highly topical themes associated with aspect of gaming. In ZKM_Gameplay, lifelogging and the Quantified Self Flanagan’s joystick is positioned at the movement, which are currently in the center of the exhibition. It raises the news not least to the recent launch of players onto a pedestal, and in this way Google Glass, a wearable computer with demonstrates that video games do not /8 an optical head-mounted display (OHMD). only consist of images, sounds, and sto- — ries, but they mainly develop their poten- Photo: courtesy of Alan Kwan tial through players acting in them and with them. At the same time, Flanagan’s work raises questions about the funda- mental way we treat computers and devices. [giantJoystick] was commissioned in 2006 by Furtherfield (formerly HTTP Gallery), London. — /9 Photo: Installation view during an exhibition in LABoral, Gijón, courtesy of Mary Flanagan

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Orhan Kipcak (*1957) Orhan Kipcak (*1957) Reinhard Urban (*1963) Arsdoom II Arsdoom 2004 1995 — — video game, computer game modification PC based on Doom II (id Software, 1994), — PC Arsdoom II is the sequel of the computer — game modification Arsdoom, which was In 1995, the architect Orhan Kipcak was created in 1995 for the Ars Electronica invited by Peter Weibel, who at the time media art festival. Arsdoom presented the was the art director of the Ars Electronica event location of the Ars Electronica – the and is now CEO of the ZKM, to produce an Brucknerhaus in Linz – as a virtual model artwork for the Ars Electronica media art within the game. Arsdoom is widely regard- festival. In collaboration with the archi- ed as introducing the computer game as tect and mathematician Reinhard Urban, material into art. It cofounded the genre Orhan Kipcak created an interactive work. of artistic video game modifications. The result was a video game modification The sequelArsdoom II with more based on the engine on which the games up-to-date technological instruments, Doom and Doom II run – id Tech 1 (id Soft- which freshens up the original concept ware, 1993). The modification Arsdoom after ten years. The location of the shooter was produced with various level editors is the ZKM. In Arsdoom II, the visitors of and AutoCAD software. Arsdoom marks ZKM_Gameplay can navigate the halls of the entry of computer games as artistic the ZKM in the game. This duplicates their /10 material in art history. spatial situation: the players are actually In Arsdoom, the audiovisual interface of present in the room that they explore in the brutal first-person shooter Doom has the computer game. been changed completely. This redecora- — tion presents the navigable environment Photo: courtesy of Orhan Kipcak of the original game as an art exhibition: /11 textures on the walls are digitized depic- tions of artworks. The spatial structures of the video game modification are a model of the Brucknerhaus in Linz, which at the time was the venue of the Ars Electronica. Arsdoom was exhibited in the Bruckner- haus, thus presenting a virtual copy of the exhibition hall. In the digital environment, the players encounter enemy characters. They are digitized faces of various artists and other well-known people involved in Ars Elec- tronica – for instance, Peter Weibel Jörg Schlick, Ecke Bonk, and Heimo Zobernig. The weapons in this first-person shooter refer to figures in recent art history. — Photo: courtesy of Orhan Kipcak

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Thatgamecompany Thatgamecompany Journey Flower 2012 2009 — — video game, video game, PlayStation 3 PlayStation 3 — — Journey is an award-winning independent In Flower, the players slip into a special game for the game console PlayStation 3. role: they take control of the wind, which The players take control of a nameless carries petals over lush grass landscapes. character navigating a non-specified Flowers give up further petals. In this way desert landscape. The goal is obviously players interact with their environment, represented by a mountain, which looms and make grey areas blossom with colour. /13 mysteriously on the horizon. During the In the first-person perspective, a journey through the desert, the players fast flight over the game’s landscapes can encounter a second character in the develops. This makes the game’s world game environment. This character is the the main focus in Flower. The game shows representation of another real yet anon- in an impressive way that the first-person ymous person, who is brought into the perspective in video games does not only multiplayer game via the Internet. have to be reserved for shooters or racing Thefigures cannot communicate via games, but can also evoke the feeling of speech or text, only by a musical chime. flying over meadows of flowers. Through teamwork, both figures reach — their goal in the end. Photo: © Sony Computer Entertainment A musical side note: The composer Austin Wintory’s soundtrack for Journey was nominated for a Grammy in the cate- gory Visual Media. Previously, only movies had been nominated in this category. With Journey, for the first time a computer game was shortlisted for the world’s most important music award. /12 — Photo: courtesy of thatgamecompany, © Sony Computer Entertainment

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Niklas Roy (*1974) Institut für Angewandte und PING! Augmented Pixel Numerische Mathematik (IANM), 2011 KIT und Liegenschafts­amt­­­, Stadt — Karlsruhe­ interactive video installation, [Institute for Applied and Numerical video camera, ATmega 8 microcontroller Mathematics, Karlsruhe Institute of — Technology and Liegenschaftsamt of the PING! is an interactive video installation City of Karlsruhe] in which the viewers become parts of the Virtueller Flug durch Karlsruhe image via augmented reality techniques [virtual flight through Karlsruhe] and are able to interact with the image. 2011 This work by the Berlin artist Niklas Roy is — a homage to the computer game classic interactive installation, Pong from 1972, and translates its way of PC, Kinect functioning into the context of media art. — It shows a square pixel, which moves Thevirtual flight through Karlsruhe allows across the screen. Recorded by a camera, the viewer to explore the fan-shaped lay- the viewers can enter the image and seem- out of the city from a bird’s eye view. To go ingly touch the pixel. A «touch» influences on a virtual flight through Karlsruhe, one the direction of the pixel. A game with the stands in front of the screen. With arms pixel develops, which becomes a plaything outstretched, the user navigates the flight and a toy. through the three-dimensional urban — landscape. Movements of the right hand Photo: © Niklas Roy change the perspective; movements of the left hand change the direction. The project was a collaborative endeav- or of the local authority real estate office of the city of Karlsruhe, the Engineering Mathematics and Computing Lab (EMCL) of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), and the ZKM. — Photo: © Liegenschaftsamt Karlsruhe

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Quantic Dream Team ICO Heavy Rain Shadow of the Colossus 2010 2005 — — video game, video game, PlayStation 3 PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 — — Heavy Rain is an adventure in which In Shadow of the Colossus players battle players go on a hunt for a serial killer. The with enormous creatures. The character game is impressive because of its almost controlled by players is confronted with photorealistic graphics and its dense and giants as big as a house, who stand in sombre atmosphere, reminiscent of Film the protagonist’s way like a multi-story /16 Noir detective films. In this thriller in the building. To defeat these colossi the player form of a game, there is special focus on has to climb up the creatures. It is as the story, which is told in many cutscenes. though architecture has come to life in a The player’s actions continually trigger spectacular way: new cutscenes. The decisions made by The legs of the colossi have a basis and the players directly influence how the cornices. On their backs are galleries and story develops. balconies. Their stone limbs are richly The ame,g which belongs to the genre decorated. The giants rage and riot, and of the interactive film, clearly illustrates try to shake off the players. The action is the distinctions between the two media embedded in a mysterious story, which forms of video game and film: Heavy Rain often remains very vague. The protagonist is a hybrid of film and game, which keeps fights the colossi to save the life of a girl. switching between narration and inter- Where the mysterious, gigantic creatures action, passive observation and active come from, or whether they are good or action. The game also shows two other evil in the conventional logic of a com- things: first, it demonstrates the current puter game, remains unclear. state-of-the-art of real-time computed, — interactive 3D graphics. Second, it illus- Photo: © Sony Computer Entertainment trates how some computer games try to equal the «old» medium of film. — Photo: © Sony Computer Entertainment

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Lieven van Velthoven (*1984) Giant Sparrow Room Racers The Unfinished Swan 2010 2012 — — interactive installation video game, PlayStation 3 — — The racing game Room Racers combines In The Unfinished Swan, the players follow the virtual world with the real world via an a swan, which has escaped from a paint- interactive game interface. The players ing. At first, the game’s world consists of can custom-design the race track with an entirely white, indeterminate space in randomly selected objects. With the help which orientation is not possible. At the of an infrared camera mounted on the touch of a button, black «paint» is shot, ceiling, which recognizes the outlines of which leaves large splotches of color on the objects on the playing surface, the walls and objects, and renders the sur- race track is determined. At all times, roundings visible through colouring them. the software of the game can recognise In this way the space can be defined, and changes made to the boundaries of the possible ways through the game’s spaces race track and integrate it in the course become visible. The stark black and white of the track without stopping the game. A aesthetics are occasionally disrupted by projector projects virtual racing cars onto the yellow footprints of the escaped swan. the track, which can then be controlled The Unfinished Swan is a first-person by the players. Different modes of the shooter, which functions entirely without game also allow races with several drivers, violence, and draws its action exclusively for example. The Dutch game developer from exploring the spatial structures of Lieven van Velthoven developed the the game’s world. video game while he was studying media — technology at Leiden University. Photo: © Sony Computer Entertainment — Photo: courtesy of Lieven van Velthoven

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Krystian Majewski (*1981) Adam Saltsman (*1982) Trauma Canabalt /20 2011 2009 — — video game, video game, iPad iPad — — Trauma tells the story of a young woman Adam Saltsman created Canabalt during who survives a terrible car crash. While a game design competition in just five she recuperates in hospital, she puts the days. In music, one would speak of an fragments of her memory back together in impromptu. The game idea is simple but her dreams. Who is she? What did she do elegant: The character runs automatically before the crash? What happened to her from left to right, all the while increasing parents? its speed. The gamers only have one action In Trauma, the players experience these available to them –making the character dreams as an adventure. The journey jump up at the push of a button. This through the subconscious of the storytell- makes the character jump from roof to er leads to lonely places, where a spooky roof, evade obstacles, and flee from an atmosphere reigns. The classic point- invisible danger. and-click principle is reinterpreted by a The simplicity and compelling nature gesture-controlled interface, and sur- of the game mechanics have led to Cana- real-looking photographic aesthetics. balt founding a new sub-genre of platform — games. These days, there are vast num- Photo: courtesy of Krystian Majewski bers of these «endless running» games, which are especially popular on smartpho- nes and tablets. The fact that Saltsman /21 invented a new genre in such a short time was also one of the reasons for including Canabalt in the video game collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. — Photo: courtesy of Adam Saltsman

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Mary Flanagan (*1969) Mario von Rickenbach (*1987), [domestic] Michael Burgdorfer (*1987) 2003 Krautscape — 2013 video game modification — based on Unreal Tournament (2003), video game, PC version for Mac /23 — — The video game modification[domestic] Krautscape is a racing game for two play- by the American artist Mary Flanagan is an ers, who battle it out over the Internet. The example of how computer games are used race track, on which the driving and flying as an artistic, personal way of expression. vehicles move, is not defined. The leading [domestic] is based on the first-person vehicle «builds» the track during the game, shooter Unreal Tournament, which the which also gives the game a tactical touch. artist rearranged and redesigned into an Game design, visual design, develop- environment. ment: Mario von Rickenbach; game design, In [domestic], the artist comes to terms development: Michael Burgdorfer; sound with a traumatic childhood memory: design, music: Phil McCammon. When Flanagan was seven years old, on — her way home from church she noticed Photo: courtesy of Mario von Rickenbach, that her parents’ house was on fire. Be- Michael Burgdorfer cause her father was inside, she ran towards the burning house without giving a thought to the consequences. In place of Flanagan the players enter the house within the game engine, whose architec- ture represents a memory space. On the walls one can see pictures and text, which fit together as fragments of the autobio- graphical story. The goal of the game is to put out the fire and save the house. — Photo: courtesy of Mary Flanagan

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Ed Key, David Kanaga Playdead Studios Proteus Limbo 2009—2012 2010 — — video game, video game, version for Mac PlayStation 3 — — In Proteus, the players step onto an island In the award-winning independent game full of magic. The game is about freely Limbo, the players take control of a name- exploring the island, and enjoying its less boy, who is searching for his sister. behaviour as an aesthetic experience. The platform game is set in a dark, spooky The landscapes in Proteus are randomly scenario. It seems like looking through generated; also the music and the sound­ fog at an alien, nightmarish twilight zone. track adjust to the actions of the players In some Christian beliefs, «limbo» is the in the game’s world. The island in Proteus supposed abode of the innocent souls of is a mysterious place. The symbolic story unbaptized infants, and of the just who metaphorically follows life’s natural cycle. died before Christ’s coming; more gener- In 2012, the game received the Most ally, it is an uncertain period of awaiting a Amazing Game Award of the Indie Games decision or resolution, or an intermediate Festival A MAZE. in Berlin. state or condition. — The boy finds himself confronted by vari- Photo: courtesy of Ed Key and ous dangers and obstacles. For instance, if David Kanaga he walks into a trap, he dies in a gruesome and spectacular way. Recommended age: 16 years and older. — Photo: courtesy of Playdead Studios

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Thechineseroom Jonathan Blow (*1971) Dear Esther Braid 2012 2008 — — video game, video game, PC PC, Xbox — — Dear Esther is a video game, which in visu- At first sight, Jonathan Blow’s independent als reminiscent of a first-person-shooter game Braid is a platform game, based on tells an atmospheric story in an experi- classic games such as Super Mario Bros. mental way. It plays with the motif of the kidnapped The players find themselves on an princess, which in numerous computer abandoned island in the first-person games is the linchpin of the rudimentary perspective. The game is impressive in action. On a meta-level, however, in the its intelligent level design, and ambiti- narration of the game serious subjects ous depictions of landscapes and nature. such as regret, forgiveness, and the desire While the players explore the lonely place, to correct mistakes, are addressed. On his they listen to an off storyteller, who reads heroic journey the protagonist Tim can out fragments of letters. The letters are influence time: With the push of a button, /26 addressed to a woman called Esther. There the game’s action is reversed. This game are many hints that Esther is no longer mechanic generates thrilling riddles, alive, and the nameless protagonist is on a which are integrated into the dexterity journey through his memories. game. — — Photo: courtesy of thechineseroom Photo: courtesy of Jonathan Blow

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Jason Rohrer (*1977) Students at the Karlsruhe University of Passage Arts and Design 2005 Produced@GameLab — — video game, ZKM_Gameplay presents projects, works, PC and works of art, which were created at — the GameLab of the Karlsruhe University Passage is a small game with a large sub- of Arts and Design (HfG Karlsruhe). ject. It can be described as an interactive The ameLabG of the Institute for Post- memento mori that confronts the player digital Narrativity of the HfG Karlsruhe is a with very existential questions. Passage brand and a production site for media art. has an exact length of five minutes. The The students study games, the computer player steers his pixel alter ego through game as a medium and contemporary the game’s world from left to right. He computer game culture. /29 soon meets a woman, and is confronted The profile of the GameLab is character- with the first major decision: should he fall ized by artistic production and research, in love, or continue on his path? Together including on Game art, retro games, seri- with his partner, he can score more points, ous games, indie games, machinima, and although at the price of no longer being so on. The GameLab presents game-like so mobile – he has to take his partner into artworks and interactive experiments. The consideration. On his way towards the focus is an expanded concept of the game, right, and over time, the characters age which investigates the boundaries of what visibly – they become grey and bent. After constitutes the «magic circle» of a game exactly five minutes, the vanitas game environment. ends. — Rohrer experiments with the core Photo: © W. Fox element of computer games, namely, interaction, to make statements that are remote from what characterizes the com- puter gaming industry today: feelings and thoughts versus spectacle and illusion. — Photo: courtesy of Jason Rohrer

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Gold Extra Jens M. Stober (*1986) Frontiers 1378 (km) 2006—2012 2010 — — video game modification video game modification based on Half-Life 2 (2004), based on Half-Life 2 (2004), PC PC — — Frontiers has a serious political back- In the serious game 1378 (km), the player ground: The subject of the first-person is transported to different sections of the shooter is the refugee situation at Europe’s border between East and West Germany. borders. The year is 1976. Players can assume the The ameg shows the focal points of a role of either an East German border guard refugee route, which leads from sub- or an East German refugee. In detailed Saharan Africa to Europe: The players reproduced scenarios of sections of experience four different border situations the inner German border, the situation and a nightmarish room with documen- there can be experienced in the form of a tary materials, which the artists have first-person shooter. assembled during their on-site researches. It is only possible to win the game if one The players can choose from various per- does not shoot. If one shoots a refugee spectives: They can choose between the in the role of a border guard, the players role of a refugee or that of a border guard. find themselves in a court room. In a trial For Frontiers, the Austrian artist group they are held accountable for their actions. Gold Extra modified an existing game soft- 1378 (km) was created as a student art ware, namely, Half-Life 2, and in this way project with an educational character at reinterprets common game strategies Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design of first-person shooters. Frontiers is a (HfG) in the GameLab. so-called serious game – which it is – that It was planned to release 1378 (km) on takes up a clearly educational stance. German Unity Day 2010. The art project — caused a scandal, which was particularly Photo: courtesy of Gold Extra orchestrated by the negative reviews of BILD newspaper, which described the game as «disgusting.» Some of the rela- tives of victims killed at the inner German border felt offended, which led to a com- plaint being file charged against the author Jens M. Stober for «incitement of popular hatred». The charges against the student were dropped, and the German press council condemned the reviews published by BILD newspaper. — Photo: courtesy of Jens M. Stober

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Amanita Design Amanita Design Machinarium Botanicula 2009 2012 — — video game, video game, version for iPad Mac — — In Machinarium, the game designer Jakub In Botanicula, Amanita Design focuses on Dvorský (*1978) brings a fantastic world to the microcosm of a tree. In the point-and- life. The point-and-click adventure tells click adventure, the players take control the story of the robot Josef, who finds him- of various inhabitants of this biotope, for self on a scrapheap in bits. Machinarium example, a branch or a female mushroom is characterized by intuitive gameplay, called Mrs. Mushroom. The players have loving design, and individual aesthetics. to utilize the special skills of the tree’s The visual style of Amanita Design is clearly inhabitants to defend their habitat against in the tradition of the Czech animation film. parasites. The inspiration for the audio- — visual style of Botanicula is the traditions Photo: courtesy of Amanita Design of Czech animation films. — Photo: courtesy of Amanita Design

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And-or Paidia Institute Laichenberg Paidia Laboratory : feedback #2 und #6 2010 2011 — — video game, modified software and hardware PC, Mac — — The artist collective Paidia Institute from The first-person shooter Laichenberg is to Cologne, Germany, engages with the ques- be understood as a critical commentary tion of how interactivity and control work on violence in computer games. The artist in video games. While playing a computer group and-or from Switzerland presents game, the users are bound to certain rule here a first-person shooter with an uncon- sets: for example, they act via the pushing ventional game mechanic. The Swiss art buttons or by moving the mouse, and as project criticizes the brutality of many a result, something happens in the game /34 video games by taking the violence of the world. This in turn triggers another reac- action to extremes: in many first-person tion of the players. In the sense of cyber- shooters it is common that after a charac- netics – the study of control – one can view ter has been killed, they vanish as if by the computer as the acting entity within magic from the game, and then reappear a rule set. unscathed somewhere else on the playing In their sculptural series Paidia Labora- field. In Laichenberg this does not happen. tory: feedback, the artists bring the seem- Therefore, the corpses gradually begin ingly independent existence of the devices to clog up the playing field. The conse- to the fore, and short circuit it. Paidia quence of this is that the tunnels are Laboratory: feedback #2 is a self-playing blocked, which results in the game suf- karaoke game. The kinetic sculpture Paidia fering cardiac arrest. In an animation at Laboratory: feedback #6 consists of two the end, one sees a mountain of piled-up PlayStation 2 consoles, which open their shot-down figures like on a rubbish tip. disk drives in turn and then close them The drastic brutality of this image makes it again. Here, the work makes reference very clear how violent the game action is to the «ultimate machine» of the father by presenting the player with the symbolic of information theory Claude Shannon: a consequences of his/her actions. In this useless machine, whose only function is to way the game also reflects the relation- turn itself off. ship between violence in media and real Paidia Institute: Jonas Hansen, violence. Thomas Hawranke, Karin Lingnau, and Recommended age: 16 and over Lasse Scherffig. — — Photo: courtesy of And-or Photo: courtesy of Paidia Institute

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Polytron Margarete Jahrmann (*1967), FEZ Max Moswitzer (*1968) 2012 LinX3D — 1999 video game, — Xbox 360 video game, — arcade video game machine cabinet, FEZ is a platform game with puzzle ele- PC ments. The hero Gomez lives in a flat, — two-dimensional world, until a magical fez LinX3D features a video game machine hat allows him to perceive and enter the cabinet as is familiar from arcades; the third dimension. The players can alter the players are recorded by a camera, and are perspective of the game world, and thus then integrated as video ASCII art into solve riddles, for example, by passages the game environment. The visitor can becoming visible or new routes opening. explore various levels of the code environ- The game was awarded the Seamus ment alone or together with other players’ McNally Grand Prize at the Independent avatars. Data protocols and surveillance Games Festival 2012. footage from the real world are the basic The long development of the game – components of this seemingly harmless since 2007 – is documented in the video game. award-winning film Indie Game: The LinX3D was one of the first works of the /37 Movie. Game art genre, which emerged in the — 1990s, and the ZKM presented it in 1999 in Photo: courtesy of Polytron the exhibition net.condition. — Photo: courtesy of Margarete Jahrmann, Max Moswitzer

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Olaf Val (*1968) Frank den Oudsten (*1949), Verstärker Friedemann Schindler (*1954) 2001 Licence To Kill — 1997 interactive sculpture, — PC video sculpture — — The focus of Verstärker is the interplay of The theme of the video sculpture Licence light and the interaction designed by the To Kill is violence in the media. The huge artist. The theme is the everyday treat- spotlight of an anti-aircraft gun is the ment of electric light. Around the turn of frame of video monitors on which the the twentieth century, in 1900, the light viewers can watch brutal scenes. As a war bulb stood for the optimistic belief in prog- machine, the spotlight not only provides ress through technology. The light bulb, light, but conveys the impression that it though, also simply stands for light, the is itself a big cannon. To see the horrific mind, and ideas. In Verstärker, the light images viewers have to confront the mar- bulb is used as a feedback medium. The tial device metaphorically and look deep notion of a display is reduced to a simple into the barrel of the cannon. light bulb. Because of its haptic and sculp- Frank den Oudsten and Friedmann tural qualities, the PlayStation controller Schindler created Licence To Kill in 1997 for is actually the main attraction of the work. the ZKM’s video game section which was Playing with Verstärker makes the user originally called Welt der Spiele [World of aware that computer gaming is play with Games]. glowing dots. At the same time, the work — implies a criticism of video games as Photo: © ZKM | Center for Art and Media games with light that lack substance. Karlsruhe — Photo: courtesy of Olaf Val

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//////////fur//// Frank den Oudsten (*1949), art entertainment interfaces Friedemann Schindler (*1954) PainStation Ahnengalerie 2001 [ancestral portrait gallery] — 1996 interactive sculpture — — TheAhnengalerie was designed by Frank At first glance, the interactive sculpture den Oudsten for the opening of the Welt PainStation by the artist group ////////// der Spiele [World of Games] in 1997. Six fur//// appears to be a pong game, which historic gaming computers and consoles since 1972 belongs to the great classics were presented: a Magnavox Odyssey of computer gaming, and represents the (1972), an Atari VCS (1977/80), a Commo- beginnings of the medium as a harmless dore 64 (1982), an Amiga (as of 1987), a Tele-game. The PainStation, however, has Gameboy (1989), and a Super Nintendo a special feature: When the players lose Entertainment System (1990). a ball in the simple game, they are «punis- — hed»: They get an electric shock on their Photo: courtesy of ZKM | Center for Art hand, or a whiplash. and Media PainStation is one of the most famous works of the Game art genre. It addresses the sometimes fragile boundaries bet- ween reality and virtuality, and serious- ness and play. It underlines the fact that games have an effect on their players.The /40 PainStation exaggerates this effect by inflicting real pain on the players. With this, it exposes the idea that a virtual sphere exists in a vacuum, detached from the reality of humans, as a myth. The martial undertone of the artwork poses questions about the brutal nature of some computer games, which has accompanied the me- dium of the video game in general for a long time. In 2003 the artwork was awarded the media art prize of the ZKM, and was then presented in numerous international exhi- bitions, for example, in the MoMA and in the computer game museum in Berlin. Use At Your Own Risk. — Photo: courtesy of fur

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Game Oven Susigames Fingle EdgeBomber 2011 2003—2012 — — video game, video game, iPad PC /42 — — Fingle is a game for two players, who use EdgeBomber is an interactive installa- one iPad together as a game board. tion and a mixed media video game. The Symbols appear on the iPad, which players are integrated into the process have to be moved to their target position of generating a game world by creating a by touch. Body contact is intended and games scene for a classic platform video indeed cannot be avoided; the hands twist game with sticky tape and scissors. A and intertwine. The game is an example for camera system recorded the game scene the tendency of contemporary computer and a computer processes it into a level. games to extend their action into the real The extended game scene is projected space of the gamers. Fingle extends be- onto the scenery of the game, so that the yond the screen, and stimulates especially real game surface melts together with the social interaction between the players. the depiction to a combination. The real — picture on the wall, designed by the play- Photo: courtesy of Game Oven ers, and the virtual world of the game are brought together and projected back onto the wall. Real game scene and synthetic game scene are merged into one. With the hero Ozkar, the players now have to defend themselves against attacks by the devilish sausage and Hubert the chair in order to rescue the beautiful ice princess Susi. Through the possibility of designing the playing scene themselves, players can influence the action in very different ways. EdgeBomber was developed during a guest artist schol- arship at the ZKM. Concept and development: susigames /43 (Ole Ciliox, Richard Gutleber, Thomas Hawranke, Nikolaus Vahrenkamp, Kai Welke); code: Kai Welke, Niko Vahrenkamp, Ole Ciliox; graphics: Richard Gutleber; animation: Richard Gutleber, Thomas Hawranke; production: susigames sup- ported by ZKM | Institute for Visual Media. — Photo: courtesy Susigames

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Die Gute Fabrik, Fabian Schaub, Franziska Remmele & Copenhagen Game Collective Thomas Krüger GbR B.U.T.T.O.N. Globosome FREE 2010 2012 — — video game, video game, PC iPad — — B.U.T.T.O.N. is an acronym for «Brutally Globosome FREE is about balance, respon- Unfair Tactics Totally OK Now.» This multi- sibility, and dexterity. With an intuitively player game relies almost entirely upon controllable gyro controller, the players /44 the action that goes on in front of the take control of a plant-eating ball, which monitor or the projection screen and not has been separated from its swarm, and on it. A typical round goes like this: Four now it tries to return to it or establish its players position themselves at a fair own swarm. If the ball eats enough, it gains distance from the controllers, and follow enough life energy to reproduce by divi- the instructions given out by the game. For sion. However, if the ball succumbs to glut- example, the players have to do push-ups, tony, resources become scarce, and the move in slow motion, or like ninjas. During life of the growing swarm is endangered. the game, the rules change constantly. The ameg is a project of the major field Sometimes a person loses who has pushed of study animation and interactive media a button on their controller. Afterwards the at the Institute for Animation of the Film­ rule is given out: Whoever manages to akademie Baden-Wuerttemberg. In 2012, depress a button on a controller for seven Globosome FREE won the AppArtAward of seconds, wins. the ZKM in the category Game Art, winning — prize money of 10,000 Euros. Photo: courtesy of Die Gute Fabrik Producer: Anna-Katharina Brinkschulte, Franziska Remmele; game director: Sascha Geddert; game design: Fabian Schaub; programming: Thomas Krüger; graphics: Tonio Freitag; GUI design: Max Jung; sound design: Namralata Strack; concept design: Jin-Ho Jeon; music: Maryna Aksenov; support game design: Oliver Witzki. — Photo: © Fabian Schaub, Franziska Remmele & Thomas Krüger GbR created at the Institute of Animation of the Film- akademie Baden-Wuerttemberg

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Thatgamecompany Amanita Design flOw Samorost 2007 2004 — — video game, video game, PlayStation 3 Mac — — flOw was based on ideas in the game de- With Samorost, the game designer Jakub signer Jenova Chen’s MA thesis at the Uni- Dvorský (*1978) proved his talent for versity of Southern California. The project, interaction design for the first time. On which began as a student work, was then the visual level, Dvorský mixes organic remade for the game console PlayStation 3 structures like wood and moss with his and technologically improved. own comic-like inventions. Here influ- The players take control of a simple ences from the rich tradition of Czech organism, and navigate it through an animation film meet the genre of point- underwater landscape of bizarre beauty. and-click adventures. The goal is to assimilate other organisms, — to progress and become a more complex Photo: courtesy of Amanita Design creature, and to remain in the game’s flow. The ameg automatically adjusts the difficulty according to the player’s skills, so that flowing action in the game is always guaranteed. — Photo: © Sony Computer Entertainment

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/46 Selected Bibliography

Aarseth, Espen: Computer Game Studies, Flanagan, Mary: Critical Play: Radical Kunde, Harald [ed.]: Artgames: Analogien Schwingeler, Stephan: Störung als Year One, www.gamestudies.org, vol. 1, Game Design, Cambridge, MA, 2009. zwischen Kunst und Spiel, Aachen, 2005. künstlerische Strategie. Kunst mit no. 1, 2001, http://gamestudies.org/0101/ Computerspielen zwischen Transparenz Flusser, Vilém: Gesellschaftsspiele, in: Lohoff, Markus und Schwingeler, Stephan: editorial.html[06.06.2013]. und Opazität, in: Benjamin Beil, Philipp Georg Hartwagner, Stefan Iglhaut, and Interferenzen. Eine kunsthistorische Bojahr, Thomas Hensel, Markus Bateson, Gregory: Eine Theorie des Florian Rötzer (eds.): Künstliche Spiele, Betrachtung von Computerspielen Rautzenberg, Stephan Schwingeler, Spiels und der Phantasie, in: Claus Pias Munich, 1993, pp. 111—118. zwischen Wissenschaft, Kommerz und and Andreas Wolfsteiner (eds.): I Am and Christian Holtorf (eds.): Escape! Kunst, in: Stephan Schwingeler and Fuchs, Mathias: Mouseology – Ludic Error – Störungen des Computerspiels, Computerspiele als Kulturtechnik, Ulrike Gehring (eds.): The Ludic Society. Interfaces – Zero Interfaces, in: Georg Navigationen,. vol. 12, no 2, Siegen, 2012, Cologne, 2007, pp. 193—208. Kritische Berichte 2 / 2009, Marburg, 2009, Russegger et al. (eds.): Coded Cultures. pp. 61—79. pp. 16—39. Baumgärtel, Tilman (ed.): Games – Creative Practices out of Diversity, Vienna, Schwingeler, Stephan: Kunst mit Computerspiele von KünstlerInnen, 2011, pp. 242—262. Mäyrä, Frans: An introduction to game Computerspielen: Künstlerische Frankfurt am Main, 2003. studies: games in culture, Los Angeles, Galloway, Alexander R.: Gaming. Essays Strategien und kunsthistorische Bezüge, 2008. Baumgärtel, Tilman et al.: Games. on algorithmic culture, Minneapolis, 2006. in: Jeffrey Wimmer, Konstantin Mitgutsch, Computer Games by Artists, in: Christiane Mertens, Mathias: A Mind forever and Herbert Rosenstingl (eds.): Applied Hensel, Thomas: Für eine Ikonologie Paul (ed.): New Media in the White Cube Voyaging. Durch Computerspielräume von Playfulness. Proceedings of the Vienna des Computerspiels oder: Schießen and Beyond: Curatorial Models for Digital den Siebzigern bis heute, Bundeszentrale Games Conference 2011: Future and Sie auf das Bild. Lecture at the ZIMT Art, Berkeley, CA, 2008, pp. 233—251. für politische Bildung, bpb.de, 2005, http:// Reality of Gaming, Vienna, 2012, Siegen, 2008, http://www.uni-siegen. www.bpb.de/themen/VLU0YO,0,0,A_ pp. 219—235. Beil, Benjamin: Avatarbilder: Zur de/zimt/dienste/mediathek/digital/ Mind_Forever_Voyaging.html [29.10.2012]. Bildlichkeit des zeitgenössischen archiv.xml?streamit=92&lang=de. Slovin, Rochelle: Hot Circuits: Reflections Computerspiels, Bielefeld, 2012. [17.10.2012]. Perron, Bernard und Wolf, Mark J. P. [eds.]: on the 1989 Video Game Exhibition of the The video game theory reader, New York, American Museum of the Moving Image, Berger, Erich et al. [eds.]: Homo ludens Hensel, Thomas: Das Spielen des Bildes. NY, 2003. in: Mark J.P. Wolf (ed.): The Medium of the ludens: Third Part of the Gaming Trilogy, Für einen Iconic Turn der Game Studies, in: Video Game, Austin, 2001, pp. 137—154. Gijón, 2008. MEDIENwissenschaft Rezensionen, no. 3, Perron, Bernard und Wolf, Mark J. P. [eds.]: 2011, pp. 282—293. The video game theory reader 2, New York, Steward Heon, Laura [ed.]: Game show: an Bogost, Ian: Persuasive Game: The NY, 2009. exhibition, North Adams, MA, 2001. Expressive Power of Videogames, Hensel 2001a: Hensel, Thomas: Nature Cambridge, MA, 2007. Morte im Fadenkreuz – Bilderspiele mit Raessens, Joost und Goldstein, Jeffrey Wilson, Jason: Verworrene Schaltkreise / dem Computerspiel, Trier, 2011. H. [eds.]: Handbook of Computer Game parallele Linien: Das Entstehen von Caillois, Roger: Die Spiele und die Studies, Cambridge, MA, 2005. Videospielen und der neuen Medienkunst, Menschen: Maske und Rausch, Frankfurt Hinterwaldner, Inge: Das systemische www.pong-mythos.net, 2006. am Main, 1982. Bild: Ikonizität im Rahmen Schrape, Niklas: Die Rhetorik von computerbasierter Echtzeitsimulationen, Computerspielen: Wie politische Spiele Wilson, Jason: Gameplay and the Dinkla, Söke: Meta Games. Interaktive Munich [u.a.], 2010. überzeugen, Frankfurt am Main, 2012. Aesthetics of Intimacy, Brisbane, 2007. Medienkunst und digitale Spiele: Ein (un) gleiches Geschwisterpaar, in: Stephan Huizinga, Johan: Homo ludens: vom Schwingeler, Stephan: Die http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_ Schwingeler and Ulrike Gehring (eds.): Ursprung der Kultur im Spiel, Reinbek bei Raummaschine – Raum und Perspektive out/2012/11/29/video-games-14-in-the- The Ludic Society. Zur Relevanz des Hamburg, 1987. im Computerspiel, Boizenburg, 2008. collection-for-starters/ [04.05.2013]. Computerspiels. Kritische Berichte Klotz, Heinrich [ed.]: Kunst der Gegenwart, Schwingeler, Stephan und Gehring, Ulrike 2 / 2009, Marburg, 2009, pp. 88—94. Munich, 1997. [eds.]: The Ludic Society. Zur Relevanz Engell, Lorenz: Die genetische Funktion des Computerspiels. Kritische Berichte Kücklich, Julian: Invaded Spaces. des Historischen in der Geschichte der 2 / 2009, Marburg, 2009. Anmerkungen zur interdisziplinären Bildmedien, in: Lorenz Engell and Joseph Entwicklung der Game Studies, in: Vogl (eds.): Archiv für Mediengeschichte Siegener Periodicum zur internationalen 1. Mediale Historiographien, Weimar, 2001, empirischen Literaturwissenschaft SPIEL, pp. 33—56. vol. 23, no. 22004, pp. 285—304.

64 Credits

/ Exhibition / Brochure

Curators Editors Stephan Schwingeler, Bernhard Serexhe Bernhard Serexhe, Stephan Schwingeler

Project management Work descriptions Bernhard Serexhe, Stephan Schwingeler Stephan Schwingeler

Assistance Translation Elke Cordell Gloria Custance, Isaac Custance

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Feng Mengbo: «Long March: Restart», 2008, Computerspiel, Detail, Courtesy of Feng Mengbo Feng of Courtesy Detail, 2008, Computerspiel, Restart», March: «Long Mengbo: Feng Mon/Tue closed