Page 75 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2016

time, abstract interactive pieces or site-speci c installations equips the artist in question with a new knowledge of its technology and functions.Technologically-minded authors of mods might have been expected to have gone on to design and develop games of their own from scratch as a result. However, all this work on digital games and the stylistic resources and patterns of dysfunctional, speculative and innovative design that arise from it are not as presentas they might be in the production of games dating from immediately after that period and we are only just beginning to see them in a few contemporary creations.At the start of 2000 the widespread adoption of sixth- and seventh-generation consoles as the main ecosystem of digital games (Dreamcast by Sega, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube by Nintendo and Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii by Nintendo) posed a certain di culty in creating counterpractices in this environment governed by commercial console games. A few authors draw attention to the potential grounds for criticism the medium o ers by describing the less pleasant side of this cultural industry: proprietary hardware and software, high levels of planned obsolescence and erce competition are just some of the features that characterise the more commercial side of this digital technology (Franklin 2009).In the 2000s artistic creation and the eld of experimental games began to share creative interests: net.art, software art and artistic modi cation of videogames.This nature of half-closed and market-drivenis an environment in which countercultural practices ourish. And it is this scene, coupled with the emergence of digital distribution platforms and technically accessible and a ordable or free development tools, which provided a perfect breeding ground for the subsequent emergence of designer games from the 2000s onwards.During this period a few artists began working with videogame development software to create their own designs. Such is the case of Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn: hailing from the 1990s digital art scene, they set up the Tale of Tales studio in 2003 with the rm conviction that digital games can be as diverse and signi cant as any other medium. Their projects belong to the realm of poetic experiments designed to interest both regular players with unconventional tastes and non-players.FIG. 6: Photogram of the gameMemory of a Broken Dimension (2015), by XRA.Artistic creation and the experimental games scene are starting to share creative interests and these synergies are generating parallels that are not going unnoticed to theoreticians and curators such as those of the latest edition of the Not Games Fest (Cologne, 2015). Examples of coexistence and conjunction are the projects ZYX by Jodi (2012) and Boundenby the Dutch studio Game Oven (2014). Jodi, pioneers in the eld of net.art, software artand artistic modi cation of videogames, continue to experiment with common aspects of technology and its e ect on our daily lives. ZYX is an application that uses mobile telephone sensors and the camera function to choreograph spectators’ movements. By requiring users to perform a series of gestures such as rotatingthe telephone to the right ten times or seeking connection by holding out their arm, ZYX shows the dissonance between digital activities and our physical environments, also creating a new form of public representation. The design by GameAC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 201675Smart Culture: Impact of the Internet on Artistic Creation