The presentation began with DeLappe's fascination with war games and the concept of having an "out of body experience" or how an individual's reality can be shaped by a 2D character. One of his projects called "Dead in Iraq" was an intervention in a game meant for recruiting people to the army called "America's Army". This was especially interesting to me because DeLappe used the game interface to name every individual to date that has died in Iraq. The reaction he received was not very positive, but a message was sent and people were probably shaken by this action. Rather than playing the game as usual, DeLappe sought to send a message to those that were shifting their own reality to essentially violent entities.
Another work of his dealing with video games that I found interesting was his march as Ghandi in Second Life. DeLappe was portraying the famous "salt march" Ghandi had made in the famous online game, Second Life, and he played the whole game himself walking on a treadmill. I thought this was a thought-provoking piece of work because it alluded to the idea of pushing yourself out of the game limits and physically becoming a 2D character. I think it happens quite often that people get so wrapped up in online games that they envision themselves as these 2D animations, but are essentially still human in form.
For the rest of his presentation, he spoke about his fascination with drones, and how they are wildly controversial and have made a huge impact in our society with a lot of us not realizing it. His works include stamping drones on dollar bills, adding drones to the background of old paintings, and creating a lifesize drone with names of those killed by them to emphasize their harmful nature.
He has lots and lots of works I haven't touched on, so if you are interested in learning more, please visit: http://www.delappe.net/
No comments:
Post a Comment