mario trilogy

2006

mario trilogy is the grouping of 3 games - within an exhibition called controller: artists hack the game code, at Interaccess Media Arts Centre, Toronto

Press release:

CONTROLLER: ARTISTS CRACK THE GAME CODE An exhibition featuring Myfanwy Ashmore, Tasman Richardson, Anita Fontaine + Yumi-co., Prize Budget for Boys, RSG (Alexander Galloway) February 24- March 25, 2006 Alexander Galloway artist talk Friday February 24, 3 pm Opening Friday, February 24 at 7pm

Exhibition runs February 25 - March 25, 2006 InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, 9 Ossington Avenue, Toronto

InterAccess is pleased to present Controller: Artists Crack the Game Code, an exhibit featuring the work of five artists that modify video games by exploiting glitches in the code, adding or removing elements in the game and isolating specific visual components. By hacking the game code, these works question the latent meaning of the gaming language: who designs the software and for what end, who?s controlling whom?

Please join us for a special opening reception on Friday February 24 at 7:30 pm when the gallery will be transformed into an interactive arcade for all to play. Participating artists Myfanwy Ashmore, Tasman Richardson, Anita Fontaine + Yumi-co., Prize Budget for Boys, and RSG (Alexander Galloway) will be in attendance.

InterAccess also presents an artist talk with Alexander Galloway (RSG), which will take place earlier in the day, Friday February 24, 3 pm at the Ontario College of Art & Design auditorium, 100 McCaul Street, Toronto. The talk will be presented as part of Part of the OCAD President's Speakers Series. Alexander R. Galloway is assistant professor in the Department of Culture and Communication at New York University. Galloway previously worked for six years at Rhizome.org, and is the author of Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization (MIT Press, 2004). Gaming, his series of essays on the aesthetics and politics of video games will appear in spring 2006 from University of Minnesota Press.

In Myfanwy Ashmore's mario trilogy, viewers are invited to play three hacked versions of the original Super Mario Brothers game- in mario battle no. 1, all the architecture of the first level of the game has been removed, leaving an empty landscape in which the player can take mario for a walk. Her work mario_is_drowning is a similar hack, only this time Mario is underwater and has a limited time before he runs out of air and dies. In mario_doing_time, Mario is trapped behind prison walls, counting down the seconds of his prison sentence.

Prize Budget for Boys's PacMondrian and Caleroids are custom designed arcade cabinets that take classic arcade games PacMan and Asteroids and combine them with the work of famous artists Piet Mondrian and Alexander Calder. The cabinets are fully functional and playable to gallery visitors.

RSG's work Prepared Playstation is an installation using three scenes inside the game Tony Hawk's Underground 2. Using unmodified versions of the PlayStation game, this work exploits bugs and glitches in the code to create jolting game loops. Video games are the content of the work; no additional footage or editing is used. After being "prepared," the game plays itself perpetually.

Anita Fontaine + Yumi-co's CuteXdoom is a game installation that explores modern cultures' addiction to cuteness. Your mission is to become a member of the toy worshipping Yumi-co cult and gain access to the exclusive temple-quarters. To accomplish this, you must collect enough toys to make an offering and please the robotic panda guru, who will in return give you a special gift. The game runs within the game Unreal Tournament 2003.

Apollo Shrapnel Part 1 and Restless < Wrath are two previously unseen works of Tasman Richardson?s Atari glitch video series. These videos explore abstract colour and form through captures of Atari game manipulations.

Controller: Artists Crack the Game Code is generously supported by Creemore Springs Brewery and the Ontario College of Art & Design.

InterAccess gratefully thanks the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

THE ACT OF TRYING TO DO NOTHING – it's not a complacent gesture. mario trilogy:

mario battle no.1 – nes game rom, 2000

I removed all of the enemies, performance enhancing drugs, money, and architecture from the game so all that you can do is jump, walk, run around and dance in the landscape with the bushes and the grass and the mountains. Eventually you run out of time and die.

mario doing time – nes game rom, 2004

mario doing time is an illegally modified Super Mario Bros game rom where the enemies, performance enhancing drugs, money, prizes, have been removed and the dungeon wall raised to become an impossible barrier – formerly Bowsers Dungeon – now Mario's incarceration facility. All you can do as a game player is jump, walk, run, never being able to jump quite high enough to scale the wall, inside the confinement of this altered game. Eventually, you run out of time and die.

mario is drowning – nes game rom, 2004

I removed all of the enemies, performance enhancing drugs, money,and architecture so the water becomes a lake again, and so all that you can do is jump, walk, run around up and down and swim never quite getting a breath, finding anywhere to hold on, to rest, inside the confinement of the altered game. eventually you run out of “air” and then you die.