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.
