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 (Annd 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 art initatives challenge 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
t
he


e
arly 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.

I stayed up again to make the buttons shinier and change some code. I was going to go to bed but I knew if I stayed up to 3am I could be the first one to get a star for today.

Matthew and I had a serious talk about life and I tried to get him interested in doing an online childrens book style journal. I think he might actually like it. I hope so because he seemed very bored and sad recently and I just want to see him happy.

On another note, I am really excited about applying for the job at Canisius. I do not really have a lot of time to prepare a portfolio but I have lots of work to show. Really, I spend most of my time working on the site now, so I guess I will have to include that. If I don't get the job its fine because I know I will have a ton of opporuntiy as soon as I graduate but if I do get it, it will make paying off my student loans that much easier.

Heather Killian, if you are reading this please call me 885-1492 or IM on my sideKick, the link is right at the top of my link list. I am really excited to finally see you after all this time.

Rachel, if you are reading this, we should get togther with Heather soon before she goes. Call me so we can figure something out.

I met with Mike from the site, who also happens to be my best brother, at spot. Anyways, we talked about the site and decided that maybe it was time to start a restaurant review.

Mike said the he and Jill could review restaurants with photos and all, and then othe rpoeple could leave comments and rate the restaurant. This would allow for a diversified opinion poll. Say for vegetarians and other people with special dietary concerns like gluten intollerance.

It would also allow for restaurants to be continually reviewed over time in a similar way to the journal format.

Anyways, as a first step I would liek to say that I had the albacore tuna sandwich at Spot Coffee on Elmwood and it was quite tasty. As you can see from the pic I completely finished it all, which is rare for me.

So I spent the whole morning fixing up some last minute stuff and adding the new features. Now I think I am going to head over to Canisius and print out some flyers to hand out at Spot and around the neighborhood.

Maybe I'll see you around.

Well, its is 7am and I am still updating stuff for the brand new ver 1.7. Nobody really new what it was going to be so I hope people are surprised and really happy. It took a lot of work this evening in order to set up the search engine and voice and music messaging system.

Tomorrow, Terry is going skiing and I kind of wnat to go but now I will be for sure to tired. I am also going to start promoting the site to people. I willl begin by passing flyers out on elmwood and doing some video interviews on the street to get more people to visit. I also, think the radio needs more organized shows.

I am really most sad that Matthew no longer particiates in the site. I am not sure why he has stopped but it makes me sad. He used to be one the more interesting journals. Maybe he'll change now that he has his new super halogen fish tank light. He really seems to have suffered a bug setback when his salt water tank starting having all those problems.

After spending the afternoon hunting variable and programming my seahorse onto my sideKick, I am now going to go ahead and dance. I better go get ready. Maybe I will have pics of the event later. I guess like 10 of us are going.

Terry and I are having a debate about the role of the excutioner in the State Prison Systems. I am saying that not only the executioner, but all people that work on death row are most definately sick individuals. Terry says they are most likely poor people from the country with no other job alternatives beside Walmart.

I think they are guilty of murder and can make the choice to move within our large country and find another job. Maybe a lower paying job but definately something less horrific. Especially if they were working in the prison and lived in the country. Working there as a prison guard would afford them the ability to save enough money to move to another city and start over.

I cannot justify that any environmental situation can alleviate the responsibility of organized and mechanized mass murder.

On another note, if you check executioner.com it takes you to mastertrader.com - a day trading site.

We were here to celebrate the end of the semester and graduation for Rachel and Desi. Rachel, Terry, Holly, and I lost money, Desi won $75.



I definately thought I could like gambling. It started by dropping $1 in a machine and getting $9.

Next I lost $25. Now I hate it. My advice, don't gamble, however, definately come for free drinks and the earth-unfriendly buffet. There were seriously piles of shrimp, crab legs, organic mesclux mix salad, etc that the waitress told us would all be "thrown out" in 10 minutes, because it was almost closing time.



It seems crazy that so much food can go to waste, especially in such a poor place, as Rachel noted in her journal. I mean Niagara Falls is so poor that they decided to turn their convention center into a casino.

Lemonheads are still only $.25 after the 20 some odd years since my childhood.



Does anyone else think its weird. Well, Holly, my smartest frined just figured out the missing link in this mystery. Remember, as a kid how lemonheads were made out beeswax and it was really weird that you were eating and thinking that bugs made it.

I am sure some of my friends thought about that. At least my brother, right? Anyways, They are now, no longer made of beewax but carnuba wax. Sound like a real price dropper. But what is carnuba wax afterall?


Well the google #1 search return for it is this:

••Carnuba Wax in Automotive Care•• Compare Prices & ...

Car Wash Chemicals: Liquid Carnuba Wax (1 gal)

Here is the actual definition from Soap and More:

The exudate from the leaves of the Brazilian wax palm treet used as a texturizer in foundation makeup, mascara, cream rouge, lipsticks and deadorant sticks.

Here is the official site of Ferrara Pan, the makers of Lemonheads and other tasty cleaning product substitutes.



Notice they changed many of the names of the products. What used to be Johnny Appleseeds are now Appleheads, and Alexander the Grape is now Grapehead. Maybe Michael will know how longs that has been affect, I sense a buyout. He is by the way the specialist on old Candy items and the only owner a an original Milk container gum pack from Fay's ->Eckert.

What does this mean for food? Is it, that for a good price, we will even feed our children cleaning products ingredients! I hope America has not come to this. Maybe we should just start feeding them pertoleum. It would be great for Haliburton.

Well I am off to Ub for some unfinished business. Then I am going to spend the evening chillaxing (j. Ho 1998) and visiting Maria.

I ending up making a seahorse. I like it cause the tail curls on demand, as a good seahorse tail should.



Here is the seahorse Daddy teaching the baby seahorses to smoke cigarettes. This should not be mistaken for a pro-smoking advertsiement for children. It is only intended for seahorses. Which, of course cannot smoke underwater anyways. Unless maybe they are smoking those new eclipse cigarette, because I would bet money they could smoke underwater.

Check out eclipses cigarette, they are really scary.