Game Art: John Paul Bichard's "Severed Hand" (2007)
“Severed Hand” is a sculpture by John Paul Bichard, created in collaboration with sculptor Johan Strandahl. A realistic-looking waxwork model of Bichard’s severed right hand, captured in the position of holding an ergonomic computer mouse, the sculpture elevates the gamer’s paw to a work of art, redefining the very notion of hand-eye coordination.
Since we are dealing with Bichard, the hand has to be livid, drained of blood. Sited within the aftermath of the “Inverse Forensics performance, the hand rests placidly beneath the stairs in the blood soaked post-game environment. This happens if you play one too many videogame: amputation – not tunnel carpal syndrome – is the real punishment for lingering in virtual worlds instead of doing something more productive, like navigating a shopping mall with a concept map.
Playing is a morally reprehensible, morally contested activity. Those who frag go back to the house of painSeparated from the body, the hand becomes an entity, an abhomination – one is inevitably reminded of Oliver Stone’s 1981 horror cult, aptly titled, The Hand. In the context of the videogame – and the first-person shooter in particular – the hand becomes a signifier of both the ludic performance – the mouse as an extension of the player’s arm, in McLuhan’s terms – but also of the work performed by the fingers – after all, digital comes from the Latin digit, finger. In a sense, gameplaying is a form of fingering. Additionally, there is a certain Duane-Hansonesque element in “Severed Hand”, mixed with “Saw” imagery – torture porn as the ultimate game (after all, the ludic element pervades this horror series)
The simultaneous elevation and objectification of the hand as a symbol for gameplay also strengthens the association between videogames and masturbation (and the pleasures that derive from such activities), has its matrix in the interaction between the visible and the tactile, the spectable and the tentacle. Playing games requires a hand job, that is, the hand has to perform a form of labor in order to satisfy the animalistic cravings of its owner. Such work produces bodily pleasures. The hand that holds the mouse is the hand the rocks the cradle. But playing games leads to blindness, hence, the cut.
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