Let the Games Begin: Arthouse Presents RESET/PLAY

RESET/PLAY, Arthouse's interactive multimedia exhibit curated by Marcin Ramocki and Paul Slocum, borrows much of its aesthetics directly from old video games, but no one looking for nostalgia will find sentimentality here. The exhibition seems sparse at first, with an almost jarring amount of wall space between each screen, but the unique melding of science and politics with art and technology will keep the theorists among us talking for days.

Eddo Stern's "Best…Flame War…Ever" recreates a message-board dialogue between a fervently antiwar gamer and a soldier recently returned from Iraq. Each character is colorfully depicted by an amalgam of masks and weapons from EverQuest, and their argument gives way to a stirringly honest look at the world around them. The conversation culminates in an understanding that takes on an evolving life of its own, independent of the screen on which it flashes.

Brody Condon, Judgment Modification (After Memling), 2008. Courtesy of the artist and Virgil de Voldère Gallery

Michael Bell-Smoth's "While We Slept" turns an early Atari marble game into a black-and-white, pixilated nuclear war, shifting between scenes of chaos and tranquility. His ominous arcade game, "Mike Builds a Bomb Shelter", originally exhibited in 1983 and fully restored for the Arthouse, forces the square-headed "Mike" to stack blocks outside his suburban window when a bomb siren goes off. The game is programmed so that the doomed Mike can never complete his task, but those willing to challenge their fated failure are welcome to do so, for a quarter each play.

"Return of Balance", created by Nick Hanselmann, Joe McKay, and Gregory Niemeyer, challenges the notion that video games necessitate conflict and disengage players from the physical world. In this meditative game, players must pay close attention to their balance and find their unique center of gravity in order to move a bouncing ball into colored hoops as they stand on a platform. As this challenge becomes more difficult, subtle shifts in weight and balance are paramount. In a nod to the exhibition, the backdrop of the game presents a view of our fair city, with the map centered on the Arthouse.

By far the most emotionally compelling component of RESET/PLAY is Kristen Lucas's "5 Minute Break," an installation piece whose backdrop is the sub-basement of the World Trade Center. Lucas photographed the location herself just one year before the building was obliterated from the New York skyline. Watching an animated woman roam these once-solid gray labyrinths with innocent curiosity is a deeply haunting experience, particularly when she pauses to raise her eyebrows at a green graffiti warning of "Danger."

Our scientifically-inclined readers might enjoy the interworkings of Mike Beradino's "Liquid Pong" and "Electric Paints", which succeed in making low-resolution pixels with water, and playing an Atari war game with conductive paint, respectively. Brody Condon's "Judgement" takes the viewer to a Hell-wracked Paradise with disorienting loops, and Alexander Galloway's stripped down dissection of World of Warcraft might leave some gamers questioning their own addiction. RESET/PLAY won't provide all the thrills of competition, but it is an adrenaline rush for the mind.

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