The Lost Biology of Silent Hill by ]]MEZ[[

Silent Hill is a title of a famous game with four sequels (total of five versions). It is looking to expand its audience range by making a movie version of it. The storyline of the game is basically solving multiple puzzles in order to escape from an army of zombies. Its various game elements such as sound and visual effects produce introspective thrill-connection.

The movie version, rather than emphasizing on the universal theme of Hollywood, plays out through game projections and is incrementally driven by a mixture of anticipatory/reactive adrenalin spike-&-pump. They do so by making film characters one of NPCs of the game which means no character development and just running away from the monsters.

The most important factor of the movie is the rewritten conception of ordered biology. The writers flip the gender roles of the characters. The woman protagonist, Rose, takes the role of hero, which was taken by male characters in game versions, and saves her daughter. However, Chris, Rose’s husband, falls asleep while the rest of his family is going through tough journey.

I, a maniac gamer, do not think of flipped gender roles. The movie is bad and ruins the reputation that the game version had created. Several games with zombies in it have turned into movies such as Resident Evil and House of the Dead. No matter how important the messages inside the movies are important, they were awful. The movie producers should leave games alone and create their own story. Two cents from a crazy gamer…

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Furtherfield Review
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?From=Index&review_id=203

Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5mT5LhbRJw&mode=related&search=

Oil Standard by Michael Mandiberg

Oil Standard is a Firefox plug-in developed by Michael Mandiberg. The program replaces dollars shown on the web browser with its equivalent price in barrels of oil. Not only that, the project retrieves any oil-related news from across the Internet. It allows the prices to rise and fall in real-time, depending on the fluctuation of the commodities exchange.

This project could be interpreted in many ways. One possible way is the educational purpose because of its technological resources while another is making a social and political comment. Using oil as his subject, Mandiberg allows its viewers to link the ongoing issues of money, war, pollution, and so on.

I never got a chance to try it out, but I think it is very interesting project. Since the artist did not express his purpose of making this project, I do not know what this project is about. The fact the artist use oil as his subject makes it interesting, but the artist letting the viewers to set their own interpretation makes it more enjoyable. My takes on the project is that the rising price of oil since War on terror and Katrina and the Bush Administration's fault for not taking care of it.

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Furtherfield Review
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?From=Index&review_id=183

Oil Standard
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?From=Index&review_id=183

Kill Yourself - Rebecca Cannon

Game art is new ganre that is following footsteps of the previous media arts such as video art, net art, sonic art, or telecomuncation art. However, most do not consider as art. In my opinion, game should be considered as art because of the fact art reflect the society it was created in. The game, nowadays, is a big part of the society.

Rebecca Cannon, with help of Karen Jenkins, developed the game with Java for mobile phones. This game is dedicated to all the people who are bored to death. Since playing mobile game means desperate attempt to end one's boredom, the artist's main theme and purpose could easily be understandable. The game requires the player to choose a character, and s/he will kill the same looking character over and over. The game's difficulty is set to increase as the player's self-hatred level increases.

I was really surprised to see game arts. Since I spend most of my time on playing video games, I can really relate to these pieces. The major figures for this kind of ganre are Cory Arcangel, Mary Flanagan, and Anne Marie Schleiner. I will study them and follow their project fron now on. I am hoping to get a chance to make game art just like this one.

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Furtherfield Review
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?From=Index&review_id=187
Kill Yourself
http://www.selectparks.net/rebecca/?2005:KillYourself