Posted via web from Amusement Device

For those who’ve followed this blog for the past couple weeks, you know that I have a newfound appreciation of (obsession for?) work that blurs the line between videogame player and author. While most of the videos I’ve found do extra manipulation outside of the game (e.g. video effects), here’s a video that turns the available tools from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater into a space for composition. Normally, it’s a stealth action game; in this video it’s a photography sandbox. The author manipulates soldiers in the game, either by tranquilizing them or scaring them into submission. 

Many of these moments highlight the more obscure programming decisions in the game – more than one shows the guards’ total distraction by the placement of adult magazines in their midst, for example. At their best, however, these moments show the game as a compositional space and the intimate understanding of the game engine necessary to create something like this, especially when the game engine is not open for modification.

From last year; a mix of public domain footage, footage recorded from my car and backyard, and a soundtrack remixed from Air, Aphex Twin, Broken Social Scene, and Sigur Ros. I composed footage of cars and traffic with the natural traffic and movement of wind.

Here’s video footage of a performance I did last year with the group of Advanced Audio Production students. It was more of a proof of concept of the technology, which took a long time to get configured and just working, so the quality of the audio and the performance in general were not what I had hoped. The Wii remote triggers audio, while the video is simply a capture of gameplay from the classic Nintendo game Metroid. I’m interested in experimenting with the way that sound influences the formation of images in our minds, and especially in the immediate reception of sound vs. the iterative process of imaging. There are video images on the screen, but there is also the image of the player using a game controller to trigger the sounds. I’m thinking of working more on this piece to submit it as an installation for the upcoming student/alumni show in the Myhren Gallery.

The video piece (available here and embedded in the previous post) is a combination of machinima (footage from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath, and Shadow of the Colossus) and live-action, public domain US Military footage. I’m really concerned with the propagation of the message that war is simulation, and with recruitment based on this premise. The US Army and Navy both promote games on their websites, and both actually have a dedicated videogame (America’s Army being far more popular and robust than the Navy’s Strike & Retrieve Navy Training Exercise).

Where does “the other” fit into the stories told by America’s Army, and by the media construction of war in general? One project, Dead in Iraq, is one response to this question (for which “the other” is actually the dead US soldier, whose face and body has become invisible). Joseph DeLappe logs onto the game and simply reads the names of US Soldiers killed in the current war in Iraq, to various reactions from players in the game.

For those who don’t seek out the games, there is always recruiting. Here’s a story about the Air Force recruiting with the popular first-person shooter Halo 2. Halo 3 is being used to recruit for an entirely different army.

The piece is called Layers in order to address the visual layers of indirection involved in modern, distance, “smart” warfare. Other questions I’d like to address with the final piece:

1. What is Machinima? Is it simply re-enactment of movies in a virtual environment? Here’s one example, in which the military re-enactment simply refers to “the enemy” as he is comically killed in the game engine.
2. Who controls the images captured from videogames? What are the “fair use” rights of producers?
3. Can part of play be a critique when it comes to videogames?
4. Finally, where is the propaganda to recruit volunteers for local, humanitarian service to those who need it? How can games be used for these ends?

I would like to make a series of video pieces along similar formal lines and exhibit them together in a show, as well as online. That’s as far as I’ve gotten, so any feedback here would be very helpful.

This is a project I worked on last year for a digital cinema course. It also played as an honorable mention in the ADAPT festival, but I’m at the point where I’d like to rework it and also to work more on integration of “virtual” and “real” footage. I think this will be a larger project for me this quarter. In general, I’m looking to examine games critically, and in this case stealth videogames as they relate to the depersonalization of war. I captured all the game footage within and found the military footage on archive.org. This was some of my first work in video, so I think the intro text should be redone, but I am also concerned that the soundtrack is sensational. Some of this fits into machinima, but I don’t know if there’s a term to describe the positioning of machinima-like footage with real footage to form a narrative. I’m also aware that Real and Virtual are problematic; the particular footage I use is all simulacrum. I welcome (in fact am looking for) feedback on this.

I’ll be posting more video work soon.