Labyrinth: Surrey Condos Edition (with Vinyl Village Expansion Pack)

Labyrinth: Surrey Condos Edition (with Vinyl Village Expansion Pack), 2015 (expanded in 2017), video game installation.

Having learned from my previous failure creating my own abitous artist-made video games, I decided to make a game attuned to my level of programming skill. I decided to make an anti-game. A game without points, without an objective, and without end. I felt as I imagined an abstract expressionist painter must have felt, stripping away everything until I was left with a pure expression of the media. What would the subject of a game about nothing be?

My suburb, of course! In re-imagining the suburban landscape in Labyrinth: Surrey Condos Edition, I  emphasize qualities of homogeneity, lack of agency and frustration (symbolized by the cul-de-sac/dead end), while also engaging in contradictory and playful aspects of the suburb. Video games and suburbs can exclude some people – some people find it difficult or unappealing to use a joystick. I chose to use a pressure mat, which is not quite the same as walking…

I used water colour painting, a largely dismissed and ignored artistic medium to render the game environment. Walter-colour implies a romanticism that counterpoints the stereotypes both of the suburbs as bland and manufactured and video games as soulless technology, while share in a low-brow reputation with video games and suburban architecture.

I didn’t want to represent the suburbs as an evil nexus of capitalist conformity, though it may be. I peppered the wanderings through the deserted streets with strange items I happened upon during my walks. I also considered the labyrinth as more than a minotaur’s maze/prison, but as a structure for meditation. The suburbs, I posit, can also be a site for aspirations, romantic escapism and meandering contemplation. An activity without a goal, a meandering walk, deflects the pressures of expectations and results, and is thus gratifying. The game is nearly silent, leaves rustle with the sound of crinkling paper when a player approaches and footfalls make the sound of one pages slipping against another.

The suburb, and thus the video game representation, can also be a site for aspirations, romantic escapism and meandering contemplation. An activity without a goal, a meandering walk, deflects the pressures of expectations and results, and is thus gratifying.

In 2017, I created a new level based on the complex where my in-laws live in Kamloops, BC, for the game's exhibition at Arnica Artist-Run Centre in Kamloops.