GAME ART: NILSON CARROLL'S UNTITLED (DRAGON WARRIOR GLITCHES) (2020)
The latest project by Rochester-based artist and curator Nilson Carroll is titled Untitled (Dragon Warrior glitches),
an evolving HTML hypertext collection of captured handmade hex glitches from the NES titles Dragon Warrior II, III, and IV paired with prose poems that explore game mechanics, narratives, and genre legacies, queering each through the glitch process. Themes questioned include heteronormativity, binary thinking, colonization, and the neoliberal values inherent in these and all games’ mechanics and goals. Not only are the games’ digital/physical boundaries broken and expanded, but the implied ones, too. The myth of the hero is shattered, the protagonist finally made vulnerable
The artwork was created as part of Carroll's digital art residence with Welcome to my Homepage, and it is the result of a month long exploration of Dragon Warrior's glitches.