GameScenes is conducting a series of interviews with artists, critics, curators, and gallery owners operating in the field of Game Art, as part of our ongoing investigation of the social history of this fascinating artworld. Our goal is to illustrate the genesis and evolution of a phenomenon that changed the way game-based art is being created, experienced, and discussed today. The conversation between Mathias Jansson and Riley Harmon took place via email in December 2010.
GameScenes: In your recent work “A Watermelon In The World” (2009), you question the apparent dichotomy between the real and the virtual. Can you tell me more about this piece? How do you make sense of the boundaries between physical and digital reality?
Riley Harmon: This was really just an experiment, to play with alternative game interfaces, and to also be a little satirical. The watermelon is embedded with sensors and injects packets into a game server to control and spawn virtual melons. It became a weird intervention into the normal flow of gameplay. So many melons piled up that players became stuck and couldn’t fight each other anymore.
Riley Harmon, What It Is Without the Hand That Wields It, installation, 2008, Photo credit; Riley Harmon
GameScenes: In “What It Is Without the Hand That Wields It” (2008) you gave a physical form to the virtual violence produced during a typical Counter-Strike session and situated that performance into the material space of an art gallery. The same theme - the virtual becoming material - returns in another piece of yours, "Ghosting" (2006). How did you create “What It Is Without the Hand That Wields It” and what was the reaction from the public?
Riley Harmon: I started with a question - 'was it possible to break the fourth wall?' Could I blur some sort of digital boundary. Then I made a mod on top of another mod, EventScripts by Mattie Casper (a bit of a hero to me). Counter-strike itself was a mod for Half-Life that was eventually picked up by Valve commercially. So what I did was make a mod of a mod of a mod. This is how we evolve in nature, not just code, when you think about it. Constantly modding our surroundings and ourselves. Some mods workout and some don’t. Some are beneficial, some aren’t. (Technically speaking though, I originally used Processing and Arduino, and then modified the whole system to be Python based.)
GameScenes: Both installations are based on Counter-Strike. Why did you choose this specific game? What is your personal “history” with Valve's first-person shooter?
Riley Harmon: In highschool I was apart of a group of friends that would have a LAN once a month. I think Counter-Strike was the most played game there. It was an opportunity to learn about larger things than just moving a mouse or WASD. In that environment we shared knowledge, and emerged from that was a curiosity of where we could explore. A comparison would be parkour or freestyle runners in an urban environment, except us on the web and our machines. I started to dig into the environment and see where I could go. I ran a small scale render-farm for visual effects in a spare closet. It was complete with box fans for cooling and cold cathodes - my tricked out blingee space. I would often get bored with the machines just churning out numbers, so I would run a Counter-Strike server in off render times. My friends one mile away in each direction would connect when we weren't hanging out IRL and we'd battle against people from around the world. As admin of the server, I learned the ins and outs of the system, along with some pretty amazing mods people were making. This led me to further and further curiosity of what I could do. But outside of just the 'wow-factor' of the technologies, I've always wanted to ask critical questions at the same time. I don't necessarily have answers to the questions I ask, but instead open it up for others to come to their own conclusions.
GameScenes: You are a currently studying at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and pursuing an interdisciplinary MFA. How do you see on today’s education when it comes to understanding and knowledge about new media forms such as videogames?
Riley Harmon: I work with some top notch media theorist and practitioners as both peers and advisors. The education of new media here is superb, especially in game design and critical media theory. But again, I think there should be critical discourse OF media and not necessarily just using media.
GameScenes: As an artist working with new media and videogames, what is your take on critics writing about Game Art? Do they understand the meaning of your work, do they understand the references, the processes, and the self-referential play or are they just... clueless, so to speak?
Riley Harmon: I am extremely grateful to have been able to tour alot of the world with just a few works, but they aren’t the only thing I create. Sometimes I don’t like to speak about game art or things I’ve created in game engines for fear of being pigeonholed. Other artists I’ve talked to feel the same way. We have a depth to our thinking and practice that goes beyond pixels and sound. I feel like alot of art criticism towards gaming and the visual arts is to make it a genre or often times focus on the novelties of just the technology. This is a problem for me because while I enjoy using the tools I know, they aren’t the only tools I use for expression. They are just another form that ideas and communication can take on.
LINK: Riley Harmon
Text by Mathias Jansson
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