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Vice Blog

MIAMI - ADULT GAMES

Some arty people named Elisa Harkins and Thorne Brandt and a thing called Pizza Dog are off in Miami acting like loons. Apparently they've been hosting games on Thursdays for about a month, which is today,
and we know that "Miami" and "art" in the same sentence is code for "tons of partying and miscellaneous hanky panky" so we asked them what the deal is.

Vice: What's going on over there?
Elisa Harkins: We are doing an artist residency at the Fountainhead. Yes, it is named after Ayn Rand's Fountainhead, and no, I don't know why. We're doing screenings on Wednesdays, art games nights on Thursdays, and last Saturday we did a performance at a non-commercial gallery called Locust Projects.

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What is this art games business?
Thorne asks everyone to create a game together and then see if it works. Sometimes there is a competitive aspect to it, creating a winner which is typically taboo in art, but accepted in gaming.

Thorne Brandt: For a few years in art school, I was heavily involved in a project called Art-Poker that basically allowed players to bet on and "win" an art critique. There would be a challenging and specific assignment like "You have three days to make a documentary about somebody else in this room. Go." Then it would be judged by a panel of [school] faculty. It was a positive experience, in that it essentially "forced inspiration" (out of greed), and created a new environment in which to talk about work with new demographics. I saw some ground-breaking work created during rounds of Art-Poker, including a video piece where a guy shit on his own face. But it was as a negative experience in that it was fueled by egoism and sensationalism. It was misinterpreted as a social darwinist project and I received death threats, so I moved on.

Death threats, really? Over an art game? I honestly think all art students need to get their asses beat once, like at least get one good punch in the face to have a sense of reality and mortality beyond something all conceptual.
With Art-Poker and a sister project, "Win Thorne Brandt's Money," in which I accepted any competitive challenge for any amount of money, I was trying to merge different demographics together and get them excited about talking about/making Art. Instead, I became increasingly aware that I was being labeled an elitist, social darwinist, neo-nazi. One of my teachers compared my Art Statement with Mein Kampf. My in-box was filling up with messages like "Let's Play this game: You gonna get murdered, first one to die loses."

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That sounds more like it. But isn't the stuff you're doing here for kids? Why keep revisiting childhood?
I would like to simplify and liberate "games" with a new definition that demands more respect. Art happens because we use our free will. Whenever we decide that we want to manipulate our natural environment, this is Play, and the product is Art. This is why a urinal is Art, and this is why free jazz is Art, and why games are absolutely Art. Anything that comes naturally, without free will, is *not Art; like consumption, for example. Pop music * Corporate design is Art, but if it is created by a market research survey, it is less likely to be Art, because after a while, you stop *deciding* that you want to make as much money as possible. I could talk about this all day.

That's OK. Moving on, what kind of name is Thorne?
My father created a computer game that generated random syllables based on variables, like a birthday. The day I was born, Thorne came out. It also named my sister, Kira.

That's kind of cool. What is Pizza Dog?
Pizza Dog is a small dog that can't stop ordering pizzas. He lives with an old man who likes to keep his house clean. Pizza Dog thinks that nobody will notice if he orders 100 pizzas on credit and leaves them around the house. Pizza Dog is also comics, musical performances, DJ sets, animations, web art, and art games.

Um. All right. What's one of the games you're playing?
Elisa: "Fax-Machine," the drawing version of the schoolyard "Telephone."

Sounds very wholesome. I was imagining something else entirely.

PAULETTE ODALISQUE