I began by building video projectors out of unusual materials, such as orange juice boxes, vacuum cleaners, and magnifying glasses. More recently I have been writing video games and building game consoles. My installation consists of three network video games playing “against” each other over a network. The physical pieces are the computer’s primary colors, meaning I thought of each as an elemental game universe. Over time the pieces evolve a unique means of influencing each other’s game play.
The “Green” game console runs a game in which a boy and his sister compete with dogs for survival in a land fill. “Blue” is an urban puzzle of macro-management. “Red” is a simulation flight of a Mars global surveyor satellite.
In addition to maintaining its own world, the game consoles acquire resources from each other over a network. The revenue and food generated by scavenging the landfill, for example, might be translated into “Blue’s” urban budget… whereas the global surveyor may “steal” the city’s “happiness rating” or spending in order to improve itself. In short, the games draw on each other in a way which is not immediately apparent. Over time the games will negotiate a relationship of their own making; a relationship that even I, the programmer, cannot anticipate.
