![]() I will surely make more levels for "Art Assault" but not necessarily another FPS. Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida are organizing talks and showing artists making work related to power and hierarchies in art at the Seven art space. Paul Steen: In December 2010, I'm showing a live game play projection of "Art Assault" at the opening of #RANK, an alternative event to Art Miami. GameScenes: What lies ahead for "Art Assault"? Will you continue to develop the game in the future, adding extra levels and features? Are you planning new exhibitions? His example showed me in the first place that it was possible to construct simulations or a set of rules and to present them as a work of art, an interpretation of the world, a metaphor. I am familiar with other contemporary artists making use of FPS or games in art and I'm happy to inscribe myself in that context, but my greatest iinspiration has to be the Swedish artist Öyvind Fahlström and his Cold War Monopoly games. Paul Steen: Palle Torsson is an old acquaintance of mine that I have great respect for, for his entire work, not just his game related stuff. Are you familiar with such works? Is "Art Assault" an homage to these previous efforts? ![]() More recent artworks include Michiel Van Der Zanden's " Museum Killer" (2008) and Chris Reilly's " Everything I Do is Art, But Nothing I Do Makes Any Difference, Part II Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Gallery". One early example is " Museum Meltdown" by Palle Torsson and Tobias Bernstrup. The idea of going berserk in a sacred space, devoted to art, is very popular among the enfant terribles experimenting with games. GameScenes: The "modded" art-gallery is a recurrent theme in Game Art. "Art Assault" is the realization with better means of many things I wanted to say back then. It was a slightly minimalist and cartoonish third person shooter made with Coldstone. I made a somehow similar smaller game several years ago that was gracefully lost in a computer crash before I could show it: Art Counter-Strike. This corresponds to how FPS online players often resort to either "camping" or "ramboing". One thing that fascinates me with the FPS genre in games (Although you find it in other games like RTS) is that you can discern two different tactics for survival described by Gilles Deleuze in A Thousand Plateaus: The sedentary farmer and the nomad who masters mobility. I am always looking for materials and means of expression on the one hand that fit different concepts I'm mulling on the other hand, and I thought the way I could edit Assault Cube made it a fitting platform to make a picture of things I wanted to say about the art world. ![]() No one side ever really has the upper hand for long. Every time someone falls a new bot spawns in his name: Fame is fickle and there is always someone there to take your place. They even shoot their own team members if they stand in the way. They are parted randomly into the teams Outside and Inside, a picture of social boundaries and the struggle between establishment and wannabes. The bots are named after the most successful living artists according to. The levels are all modeled after real life galleries and museums, with textures based on photos I've taken myself at the various spots. It's about hierarchies and the struggle for power. Paul Steen: "Art Assault" is a mod of the open source FPS Assault Cube, set in a caricature of the art world, hence the name. How did you come up with the idea? W hat does the title mean? GameScenes: You latest work, "Art Assault", is a bold, full-frontal attack on the art establishment. Paul Steen, "Art Assault", 2010, game modification,- All images courtesy of the artist 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 Paul Steen took place via email in December 2010. 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.
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