Games as political and cultural avant-garde!

Recently I came across the works of artist Joseph DeLappe. He uses a unique way of using a game space as an environment to initiate social, and political change. DeLappe in 2006 began using the US Army's own game server to protest the war in Iraq. Using the "Dead in Iraq" for his avatar, he logged onto the US Army simulation game servers and began entering names and dates of U.S troops killed in the war. When describing this project he says "It's really a multi-faceted gesture to (protest) what's in the game and the hyper-reality, the disconnect that game has. I'm trying to make a direct link with the game and with what's going on in reality."

The official website about Delappe's project is http://www.unr.edu/art/DELAPPE/Gaming/Dead_In_Iraq/dead_in_iraq%20JPEGS.html

GamePolitics also interviewed Delappe asking him about game spaces and the use of mediums like games to protest and reflect upon reality and social change.

Where do Virtual Corpses go?

The following is a great article written by Brody Codon about visual art and it's implications. Brody's work’s aim is to create new and disorienting experiences for gamers, specifically designed to deconstruct modern games and in term reconstruct a more critical piece of art that represent new ideas in terms of form and content and another reality. In the conclusion of his paper, he summarizes the ideas presented through his work stating “I have invested myself in the creation of alternative possibilities for game development technology beyond the commercial sphere. Each piece is a meditation on a different manifestation of dysfunction and its relationship to a contemporary culture that is becoming dependent on interactive screen based representations of its environment.”

http://www.cosignconference.org/download/32

We Are The World

A short commentry on war and peace

NMC CampusTour

One of Second Life’s main strengths is that it provides a virtual space for academic research and discourse. Many communities rather islands on Second Life have been built specially for these purposes and have been specifically designed for new media research. The New Media Consortium is one such experimental community that supports academic research and collaborative learning.



The amphitheater located at the heart of the Island is one such structure used for group discussions and lectures.


The Aho Museum showcases, contemporary digital art, a medium that is becoming increasing popular and changing the way we view art and how it should be exhibited.


Another useful resource found at NMC is a virtual library that provides up to date information of recent developments in new media technology.

Second Life Scavenger Hunt

Virtual Hallucinations on Sedig Island


Nexas Prime


The Science Fiction Geek Museum on Indigo Island

An Audience with Suzanne Vega

One of its kind performance

Commercializing the MUD

It is estimated that today, almost 4,000,000 people from virtually all corners of the globe flood Second Life, inhabiting this completely user created, virtual world. Despite all to Hoo Haaaas about this supposedly revolutionary “second life” many people forget the history of virtual environments. A decade allow the so-called computer geeks logged onto a completely text driven virtual space called a MUD; a space that I personally was very fascinated with. In my view, it was the MUDs that was the real revolutionary technology. I can't help to feel that Second Life in many ways has just commercialized the MUD by creating a visual layout and therefore has lost the true experience that a text based environment creates. As stated by another link minded blogger Susan Wu “Text is like mainlining opium right into your subconscious – it doesn’t get filtered by any visual or auditory filter – it goes straight into your brain and feeds your imagination”. Although Second Life is truly a creative idea for another ground breaking means of communication, I believe the experience does not invoke imagination and the idea of a “second life” in the ways in which other virtual spaces do. I believe that Second Lifes main aim to be as close to reality as possible is limiting the imagination and ‘out of this world’ experience. In a metaverse like Second life their seems to be this strong desire to replicate reality and make it a real as possible. But the simple argument is: It just not reality and it can never be.