Game Art: Alex Myers' "WINNING" (2008)
Alex Myers' latest project, WINNING, visually examines the inner logic of the FPS by compressing both temporal and spatial coordinates. Originally developed in 2008, the project has been updated for its upcoming showing at Vector Game + Art Conference in Toronto, Canada. Located in Omaha, Nebraska, Myers "Make artgames to explore how accidental meaning/anomalous discourse emerges by breaking rule-based game spaces to disrupt player expectations and concepts". In the case of WINNING,
"By limiting the game space to a small room with two players, I've removed any overt reason to play the game in order to highlight the basic dynamic of violence. Both models, the terrorist and the counter-terrorist are wearing my smiling face, inverting the traditional place of a game avatar. It is not about fighting myself, but about about seeing myself and ourselves reflected in this perpetual cycle of violence and asking, "is this winning?". If there are no human players, then the cycle is broken." (Alex Myers)
Absolutely brilliant.
Myers is also an Assistant Professor and Program Director of Game Studies at Bellevue University.
Submitted by Matteo Bittanti (via Vector, all images courtesy of the artist)