Andreas Angelidakis, Natalie Bookchin, Maureen Boucher, Kathy Brew, Dawnja Burris, Ted Byfield, Michael Century, Robert Chang, Vuk Cosic, Chris Csiksentmihalyi, Stephanie Davenport, Sara Diamond, Ricardo Dominguez, Jane Farver, Alexander R. Galloway, Blake Goble, Kathy Goncharov, Carl Goodman, Amanda Gould, Marc Greene, Nathon Gunn, Mark Hansen, Peter Haratonick, Tana Hargest, Richie Hawtin, Meg Hourihan, Institute for Applied Autonomy, Lem Jay Ignacio, Tom Jennings, Natalie Jeremijenko, Stephanie Kaye, Jaimie King, Matt Locke, Jamie Love, Colleen Macklin, Lev Manovich, Kevin McHugh, Terry Naini, David Nottingham, Anne Pasternak, Scott Paterson, Mark Pesce, Mark Podlaseck, Greg Pomerantz, Timothy Quigley, Kurt Ralske, Michael Randazzo, Robert Ransick, Ben Rubin, Katie Salen, Kass Schmitt, Joan Shigekawa, Clay Shirky, John Simon, Jr., Wolfgang Staehle, Carol Stakenas, Josephine Starrs, James Stevens, Rachel Stevens, Lisa Strausfeld, Leila Sujir, Stefanie Syman, Clive Thompson, Alan Toner, Mara Traumane, Sven Travis, McKenzie Wark, Lebbeus Woods, David Zicarelli, Eric Zimmerman, Marina Zurkow, and others

April 11-12, 2002
The New School, 66 West 12th Street
Photo courtesy of Creative Time

By 2002, the Blur series had distinguished itself as a critical forum for new media innovators, ranging from multidisciplinary artists to technologists to theorists. Blur 02: Power at Play in Digital Art and Culture was a series of two evening discussions featuring presentations and performances by new media innovators. Open Play, the first of the two evening discussions, included a demonstration of entertainment genres such as computer games, electronic music, and animation. The second evening’s discussion, The Network Moment, featured a presentation of playful tactical media responses to mainstream media culture that particularly embraced emergent forms of public space.

Presented by Creative Time, The New School, and Parsons School of Design

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Action Tank (Natalie Bookchin with Jin Lee)

April, 2002; relaunched May, 2003
Citywide via Internet
Image courtesy of Creative Time

Metapet, a virtual game developed by Action Tank, a collaborative between Natalie Bookchin and Jin Lee, explored the complex social and political issues surrounding genetic engineering and corporate practice via an online medium. The Internet game playfully confronted three cultural behemoths: the biotechnology industry, the electronic gaming industry, and corporate culture at large. The player’s task was to act as a manager to a genetically-engineered human being (a cross between a domestic dog and a corporate employee) called the worker-pet. As a worker-pet manager, the player’s challenge consisted in convincing his employee to work productively, mainting his or her health and happiness, and generally micromanaging his or her behavior throughout the course of a working day. As the manager the player could manipulate the physical and psychological characteristics of the worker-pet by offering promotions or vacations which in turn motivated it to work harder and more efficiently. By the same token, the player could determine the fate of the worker-pet by withholding bonuses or firing him or her. The player was placed in the center of an intricate matrix of corporate biotech culture and was thus able to vicariously experience a complicit role as manager of the worker-pet.

Metapet also featured ancillary games by guest artists, including Plagiarist (Amy Alexander), Davis & Davis, Carmin Karasic, Jeff Knowlton, Anne-Marie Schleiner, Naomi Spellman, Karl Mihail and Tran, T. Kim-Trang of the Gene Genies, and Paul Vanouse.

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