Controller: Artists Crack the Game Code

Interaccess is to open Controller: Artists Crack the Game Code, an exhibit featuring the work of five artists who modify video games by exploiting glitches in the code. By hacking the game code, these works question the latent meaning of the gaming language: who designs the software and for what end, who's controlling whom?

The works selected include:

Myfanwy Ashmore's mario trilogy. In mario battle no. 1, almost everything has been removed from Super Mario Brothers - including enemies, structures, performance enhancing drugs, and obstacles - and "all you can do is go for a walk."

In mario_is_drowning, all the architecture has been removed to. Mario is underwater, never quite finding anywhere to hold on, to rest. Eventually he'll run out of "air" and dies.

In mario_doing_time, the dungeon wall has been raised so high they are unpenetrable. Trapped behind the prison walls, all Mario can do is jump, walk, run around up and down, without ever being able to scale the wall. ventually your time is up and then you die.

Anita Fontaine + Yumi-co's CuteXdoom is a game installation that explores modern cultures' addiction to cuteness. Your mission is to become a member of the toy worshipping Yumi-co cult and gain access to the exclusive temple-quarters. To accomplish this, you must collect enough toys to make an offering and please the robotic panda guru, who will in return give you a special gift (see also networked_performance's post.)

Prize Budget for Boys's PacMondrian and Caleroids , two playable arcade cabinets that take PacMan and Asteroids and combine them with the work of Piet Mondrian and Alexander Calder.

RSG's Prepared Playstation is an installation using three scenes inside the game Tony Hawk's Underground 2. Using unmodified versions of the game, this work exploits bugs and glitches in the code to create jolting game loops.

Apollo Shrapnel Part 1 and Restless < Wrath are part of Tasman Richardson's Atari glitch video series. Theys explore abstract colour and form through captures of Atari game manipulations.

February 24- March 25, 2006. At Interaccess, Toronto, Canada.

Via rhizome.

More game mods: Karma Physics< Elvis, Evil Interiors, devmap, SweetPad, Clownerstrike, Tank and Supertank and Mutant and Berserk, Game Music, etc.