The exhibition presented in the framework of VideoZone 3
The first computer games were developed for research purposes, to prove scientific ideas, and less so for pleasure. In 1947 the first computer game was created in the United States, using several knobs to adjust the speed and direction of a missile represented by a dot as it flew toward a target. Five years later, in 1952, a Ph.D. student at Cambridge University developed the tic-tac-toe (noughts and crosses) game ”OXO” to illustrate his thesis about human-computer interaction. This situation continued for over a decade: scientists created games for super computers in research labs. In the 1970s progress was made in miniaturization of computer chips and the development of personal computers, which enabled the creation of games on platforms accessible to the public. The two routes in which the market evolved since were the home consoles connected to the television set and the arcades where people went to play games.
Now the video game industry is one of the leading entertainment industries in the world. This is manifested in growing exposure to larger audiences, which, in turn, yields substantial increase in the game industry (the industry’s revenues for 2003 reached 31 billion dollar; second only to the Hollywood cinema industry whose income in that year stood at some 44 billion dollars, which makes video games a highly significant factor in the Western entertainment industry).
The industry produces alternative reality games, community and strategy games, most predominant among them is the war games genre. The realistic war game, which has always been popular, has gained momentum in recent years concurrent with the increased media use of terms such as ”the axis of evil” and ”the war against terror.” The global war against terror has led to intensification of nationalistic and patriotic feelings among gamers, and gaming companies have identified the potential and hurried to issue ideological fighting settings. Western gaming companies develop countless realistic war games with a clear-cut – not to say dichotomous – division between ”good” and ”evil.” ”The American/European/Israeli hero” will usually belong to some security force sent to thwart the sinister missions of the forces of evil threatening the free world.
Playwright Harold Pinter, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, proposed in his Nobel lecture to write a short speech for the American President, George W. Bush, encapsulating the dichotomous world view led by the US today: ”God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden’s God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam’s God was bad, except he didn’t have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don’t chop people’s heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don’t you forget it.”
The world view promoted by the ”war against terror,” simplistically formulated by President Bush after 9/11: ”You are either with us or with the terrorists,” sweepingly divides the world into good and evil without middle tones. The map of the world is divided into ”friend” areas which should be strengthened and ”enemy” zones which should be taken over. The rules are clear, and so is the mission. Just as in war games. At times it seems as though the excessive use of digital simulators, for training and in various war games, has totally distorted the ability to read and analyze reality. Objection to the policy now led by the United States strives to unearth the simplicity of the dichotomous view and the blindness it spawns, thus presenting it as bankrupt, unfit to confront global terror. The continuous failures in Afghanistan, Iraq, and, as of the writing of these lines – Lebanon, only reinforce the feeling that there is room for a different way of thinking and a more intricate world view.
The exhibition ”Forbidden Games” features video games written and distributed independent of the entertainment industry by activist media, academies and ideological groups, as a tool for addressing political and social issues. The alternative introduced by the games in the exhibition is embodied in the political and ideological content, but also in their suggestion for reconsideration of the potential inherent in the medium, the language, and the open code for creating a single package, combining values with hours of pleasure and suspense. The games are divided into war games that present antithetical narratives and opposed views to those presented today in the Western media; web games ranging from swift ”gut responses” to topical issues, such as the Lebanon war, the Gulf war, etc., through games by activists criticizing the ideology currently dominating global politics, to performance games which require participation of the gamer’s entire body.
As part of the ”war against terror” and the polar world view it generates, media identities and images fostering it are also created. When you live in the Middle East, you cannot avoid the image ascribed to you by Western media. The conceivers of the games in Arab countries try to reinstate themselves with the responsibility for creating their own image which, to their mind, has been distorted by the Western media. They strive to recount the story behind the conflict with Israel and guide the youth playing computer games in constituting their knowledge of the world.
Galit Eilat
Eyal Danon
The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis
