It has became common for game hackers, designers and artists to modify commercial computer games by altering the software to make mods, patches and plug-ins. Commercial computer game companies occasionally offer patching software with their product and the internet provides a network for instant distribution and feedback from on-line gaming communities. Players become co-creators of the modified game, often using humour and parody to subvert the existing gameplay. Finnish theorist Erkki Huhtamo has likened this phenomenon to the scratch video movement of the 80?s which was ?simultaneously a reaction to the ubiquitous television environment, and a tactical attack against its role as the mouthpiece of conservative politics?.1
The huge success of the global gaming industry over the past decade has inspired many artists to incorporate various types of gameplay into their practice resulting in new hybrid artforms. Following are descriptions of some of those artists? works.
Feng Mengbo Feng Mengbo is a Beijing artist, who chooses the game medium to make
work about contemporary Chinese society. In an early work he recast the
popular Nintendo character Mario as Mao Zedong. More recent is a patch
he created for the popular first person shooter game, Quake,
where the artist puts himself inside the game with a rifle in one hand
and a camera in the other. |
Mongrel Mongrel is a group of artists from the UK who make work about institutionalised
racism. In 1998, they created Blacklash, with Macattack, at fairly
simple, low resolution game for Macintoshes. In the Mongrel version of
the game, the internet is infected with icons representing Nazis, Ku Klux
Klan and bad cops which the player must destroy. |
Jodi In 1999, Dutch net artists, Jodi made SOD, a patch for Castle Wolfenstien,
an early carnage game where the player battles Nazis and their dogs. The
artists stripped the game of colour, characters and guns, creating a minimalist
aesthetic, while leaving the sounds intact. |
Josephine Starrs & Leon Cmielewski In 1999 Leon Cmielewski and I used Bungie Software, to create a patch
for Marathon Infinity, a fairly standard 3D shoot-em-up game
where the player has a choice of guns and basically has to kill as many
aliens as possible. In our version players clean up the kitchen laboratory
of a home bio-tech enthusiast using weapons such as dish cloths and egg
flippers. The player is attacked by nasty mutant vegetables which are
the product of genetic nouvelle cuisine, and learns throughout the game
of a world wide corporate conspiracy to take over the entire food chain. |
Natalie Bookchin Intruder is an online, browser based game, drawing on retro
computer games like Pong and Space Invaders in style
and gameplay. In Intruder, US artist Natalie Bookchin adapts
a short story by Jorges Luis Borges about the life of two brothers who
fight for the woman they both desire. Intruder can be found at: |
Delire Quilted Thought Organ is a modification of the Quake II game
engine by Melbourne sound artist, Delire. In qthoth, objects
and actions in the 3D game environment trigger sound samples, allowing
the game to be played as a musical instrument. |
Anne-Marie Schleiner Counter-Strike, a modification of the video game, Half-Life,
was initially released as free software. Building upon Counter-Strike?s
success, Sierra Studios and Valve Software released a retail version
of the game in 2000. Counter-Strike allows the user to play on
a team as either a terrorist or counter-terrorist and enthusiastic gamers
have created hundreds of new game maps for Counter-Strike. US
artist Annemarie Schliener?s recent project, Velvet Strike is described
as "Counter Military Graffiti" for Counter-Strike.
She writes on her website: |
Velvet-Strike is a collection of spray paints to use as graffiti on the walls, ceiling, and floor of the popular network shooter terrorism game Counter-Strike. Velvet-Strike was conceptualised during the beginning of Bush?s "War on Terrorism." We invite others to submit their own "spray-paints" relating to this theme.#2 | "C" spray by Pau Waelder ake first prize winner |
The project ran a competition for the best spray graffiti
and the various entries can be downloaded from the Velvet Strike
website and uploaded into the players own games:
Incident spray by K.R.N. |
References
1 Game Patch - the Son of Scratch?, Erkki Huhtamo
1999, http://switch.sjsu.edu/CrackingtheMaze/erkki.html
2 Velvet Strike, Annemarie Schleiner 2003, http://www.opensorcery.net/velvet-strike/about.html