Critical Computer Games

Many digital artists are troubled by the notion that video games seems to reinforce the staus quo of the male dominated, violent, capitalist condition.



In repsonse to this, artists such as the woman at opensorcery (Anne-Marie Schleiner) and Natalie Bookchin among many others are producing gaming environments and modifications which both challenge the role of the video game as a purely entertainment based medium and use them to ecplore social issues and protest the violenece many of them are based aorund.



A great example of an artist using the game engine for social protest is Anna Schleiner Velevet Strike project . Velvet Strke is a game modification for counterstrike, which is itself a modification of a commercial game. In counterstike, a typical military-based, first person shooter game you play the roll of an trooper fighting terrorists. The velevet strike modification exploites code that allows th user to upload a spray paint which can be sprayed on the walls and floor of the game. The sprays found at velevt strike are very anti-violence and often poke fun at the male dominated nature of such video games and he American campaign in Iraq.

Velevt strike has a web page where other artists can upload image files that can be made into sprays for other artists. This idea of female artists confronting the mostly male game players in a networked war space with anti-violence propangda is very unique. It is the first anti-war protests that I have seen within virtual space. Anne-Marie Schleiner of Velevt Strike is definately an informed iindividual who beginning to study games from a crtical standpoint and then reacting in an artistic manor. Here is a link to her statement about velevet-strike.

In response to the project many CS gamers have become quite aggravated and resorted to sending hate male, etc. Here are some examples:

"Hello,
What a stupid initiative!!! If you don't like the game just don't buy it, and don't piss off other people with your shit.
Just a woman could have think of making something like Velvet Strike....
if you don't realize that videogame is just a VIDEOGAME, an that its a fake world, well then, GO PLAY WITH YOUR BARBIE!
its the same kind of people as you that tell that violent movie influence people and make them commit murders. The facts is that most people are intelligent and can see THE difference...
Anyway,"



"CS IS MY WAY OUT AFTER 911"
...I also take extreme umbrage about your section explaining Velvet-Strike. I watched as the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center burned and colapsed. I saw people jumping out of those towers live, not on some TV. I smelt the smoke, heard the rumble, felt the earth shake. Those are images and feelings that are indescribable. I cannot get the image of the first tower crashing down, destroying everything below. I was in that Plaza, was on the Observation Deck, had dinner at Windows on the World, knew people who worked there, took the PATH trains inside of it! And when you say that we should not be at war with Afgnastan, it makes me stomach turn and my heart sink. I cannot begin to describe the anguish I felt after 9/11.

By outraging these people she is not only provoking response but requiring them to think about their actions. Both of these men are very angry and have definately been affected by her work at an emotional level. I believe both men will tell others about it, even if in a negative light. In doing that her message spreads like a vrius among the people she would otherwise not confront until it reaches a taget, like myself, where it sets in.



Anna Schleiner was also the
co-developer of Anime Noir. Many web based
ar
t

initatives chall
enge the sexual oppression of
women. Anime Noir is a Macromedia Director based web art game that challenges the sexual oppression of women . Online games since the early days of text-based MUDs have always had an underground and often obvious sexual overtone. Anne noticed that men tended to control these domains. They aimed to create a sexual chat game that encouraged men to behave as sexually desired by females.



In the game, onlin eusers meet in avirtual place and are encouraged to get "sexual" through tickling, touching, chatting and other vritual foreplay methods. The goal is for the character to "score" with as many other users as possible - thus rasing levels. to do this the user must sattisfy the desires of the other user in order to be sexually accepted. This encourages men to give into the desires of the female characters in order to gain levels and self satisfaction. The makers of Anime Noir hoped that this influence would continue outside of the temporary gaming space.


Another game modification for artistic purposes called 911 Survivor was created in response to the terrorist attacks of 911. The "game" developers thought that by using a highly realistic 3D gaming engine they could put you in the place of what it was like to be in the tower during the terrorist attack.


In the game you are in your office when a plane hits the building. You try to escape. When I last checked you were eventually confronted with no exist and would make the choice - as many did on that on 9-11 to jump ot your death. People palying the game get a sense for the true height of the building and a glimpse at what it felt like from inside.


The artists responsible for this have received numerous death threats , etc. But I do not think their point was to make fun of the victims of the terrorist attck but rather to use the medium most familar to them in order to express the situation to others. The situation is, however, quite ackward as the Unreal 2003 engine used is very much based on killing.
While I feel that the gaming industry, just as many corporate industries is based on greed, violence, and deception. I do feel that the gaming medium is just beginning to be explored as a potential medium for social change and influence and should be seen as an obvious extension to the multimedialisation of art.

The other day at UB I was having an open conversation with some adjuncts about teaching as adjunct professors. We were discussing how we work really hard and get paid very little. I assumed we were all talking about similar figures when we said very little.

Some of them had been attending the DeLanda seminar at Canisius and commented on how beautiful the Canisius Campus is and asked me how much it costs to attend. I said I wasn't exactly sure but somewhere around $25,000. They were astounded and responded with you must make so much money. I laughed and then we started talking about our salaries. It turns out they make about $3600 to teach a class while Canisius adjuncts up until this year only made $1800 (since the union tried to form $2300). Let me mention that the adjuncts at UB with whom I spoke are new adjuncts and have not been teaching for years. I thought to myself well, I am not technically an ajunct. I mean my contract says multimedia specialist and get paid a lot more than if I was an adjunct teaching two classes each semester because I tutor students 10 hours a week in the web lab. But when you multiply the UB rate times 4 classes a year I am getting paid only slightly more than if I was just teaching the classes at UB with no other responsibility.

I have to say in defense of Cansius, that the work environment is significantly better. I have an office, my contract has been renewed 3 years in a row. There is serious hope for me becomming full-time once I complete my MFA and the staff and other faculty are extremely nice and a pleasure to work with. My classes are also smaller than at UB. One class I teach has 12 students while the other only has 16. So really I am not that upset with my pay and situation at the time. I am, however, a little disillusioned with this new letter I received from Herbert J. Nelson - Vice president for Academic Affairs at Canisius.

I was wondering what happend with the Union at Canisius. I hadn't heard anything since the pay increase. I do, however, remmeber receiving some letters from Canisius that made me feel like I should not join. I guess other people did too, so the union tried to charge the school with an unfair labor practices charge. Somehow, it fell through. According to Herbert Neslon, "the charge was, of course false and without foundation." Yet , I do remember feeling that I should not join. I wish I still had the original letter. At the time, I even had a talk with a full-time tenured faculty member in my department who told me to distance myself from it ASAP - or at least that is what he would do!
This week I received a letter from the Union asking me to sign up again (which I find to be really unorganized) , however, I also received a letter from Herbert Nelson explainign that Canisius has never intimidated anyone about this union issue and then closing the letter with an intimidating statement and now I am conflicted with what to do. What should I do?

Today I took part in a lecture about video game violence. in case you didn't knwo I am 100% against violence in video games. I thisnk its a lame excuse that we want to do thisngs we can't do in real life. what about magic for magic sakes and not just killing. Where are the kids that want to use magic to turn into squirrels and dance on rainbows.
As for ultra violence, two thisngs stick in mind. The game postal where you mission is to get some milk from the convenient store while gas, matches, chainsaws, knives, and machine guns get in the way of innocent civilians carrying out their lives and the new America's Army game which is made by the government and trains you to be a soldier. Whats really sick is that the government cam up with rating system to keep violent games away from kids but this one and all its gory killing amazingly slipped by with a 13 and over rating. Here is my favorite the fragmentation grenade.





What's weird in thiss next screen shot is they gave the bad guy terrorist a pretty big package. I thisnk that's weird homo agenda for some army 3D modeler.



There are lots more screen shots and even videos at


Check it out.

Note: Screen shots are exactly 666 pixels high. Coincidence or work of the devil - you decide!!!

I just learned two new 3D come in 3D. One of them is one of the best applications I have ever seen in 3D. It is an earth browser.



It allows you to actually browse the earth in 3D and zoom in on things as small as a car. This is the campus where I first started speaking German in at Northern Arizona University.


You can zoom out from car to space in about a second. I believe this whole thing works by applying sattelite photos as a texture to topigraphics data, plotted as 3D lanscapes. Here is anothe rphoto of where Matt, Terry, and I went hiking in Las Vegas

Here is a photo of the same mountain zoomed out a little. It is circled in red on the right. The red circle on the left s where Terry's parents house was. You can zoom in right up to the car out front.

This is my family coat of arms. I never knew. Thank you google.

I experienced a tragic racist situation at Wilson Farms today. Below is my letter to Wilson Farms recounting the situation. You can respond in the forum on our site, as well as, send your thoughts to them - here is the contact information.

Phone: 1-800-522-2522
Web:


Snail Mail: Wilson Farms]
6363 Main Street
Williamsville, NY 14221

To Who It May Concern,
Today, I went to Wilson Farms on Elmwood Ave at Auburn to buy a gallon of water as I have almost everyday for about 2 years. I wish I never left the house. Outside the store was a black homeless guy. He apparently was told by the Wilson Farms Manager Ken Kensek (or something close to that) that he could noo wait outside because he was "bad for business." Then the manager dragged him inside by the shoulder in a very "I'm gonna lynch you kind of way." and said he was going to have him arrested for trespassing. Although, I feel this is kind of harsh, that is not even the situation that really offended me as a customer.

At that point, the black homeless man pleaded with Wilson Farm's Ken Kensek? not to be to not be arrested for trespassing outside and then Ken told him, "here's the situation . . if I ever see you again I AM GOING TO CRACK YOUR HEAD OPEN WITH A BASEBALL BAT." Then the black man said, "ok, ok, just don't call the police." Followed by the manager saying, " DO YOU THINK I'M KIDDING, I'M GOING TO BREAK YOUR SKULL." I find this to be disgusting and totally unprofessional.

I was shopping at the moment and ran out to tell my friend who was out of earshot. I came back a couple minutes later, not sure what to do.

I decided to return what I bought in protest of the unfair racist treatment and coproral threats against this man. Ken was not immediately visable to I returned the products to the cashier and loudly stated why.

The people behind me also left their goods. I am going to start an all out boycott until there is some sort of formal reprocussion for Ken.
Lastly, I would like to point out that I am the webmaster of the new a community forum that is just starting this week in order to report on neighboorhood news in the Elmwood Strip Community of Buffalo, NY. I am also a professor at Canisius College, and thus have many venues for spreading this information if you ignore this situation.I expect a formal report as to what reprocussions Ken suffered for his unprofessional and downright illegal behavior in your store.

Sincerely,
Paul Visco

You may question . . . why I have been ignoring you . . why I don't pick up my phone . . . why I have black circles under my eyes. . . why I don't' update the site . . why I don't post to my journal . . why I have stopped production just about 100 % on all of my once loved projects. . . why I have no friends except for the few who are stuck with me . . why I can't make any new ones. . Its because I am busy trying to get another certificate proving who I am in some abstract way - just like the first one it is meaningless. . . In fact I would say that getting this certificate of public approval is actually detracting from my artistic abilities. . . fuck you UB and your lame ass busy work.

While avoiding homework during a lightning storm, i went and visited Saja in There. It is a really pretty place made up of weird baloon like trees on floating sky islands. My avatar looked kind of sad though. I took a picture for the record. I fyou click on the image it will open another larger image face closeup.

Today I decided to purchase professorV.com in order to put up a bunch of my tutorial work and student examples, etc. Then I found out someone already bought it. I am so mad, really who would have thought that even professorV.com is already taken.

To make it worse, I don't even want anything similar because people will inevitably go to the other professorV.com and think its me. Here is a picture of him. We have nothing in common. His web site sucks. I just want to get mixed up so I am going to cut the idea. You can click on his image to check out his site and see why I feel this way.

It seems like the wirefusion thing is going to work out afterall. I am really quite excited about it. SOme of the models looked really professional. I will display them all here when it is done. In the mean time I decided on my VR project. A VR rendition of Wario Party.