Figure 3. Another screenshot of (t)Error

I always felt that at least for me there is a lack of meaning in a lot of media pieces. I decided to express my feelings about the war in Iraq with a protest computer game and tried to use this genre as a protest medium. In former times a revolution started with a song, in our time console kiddies play games, it's as easy as that. I see a transition in how information and protest works for the younger generation. Fakes, Adbusting und Semiotic Sniping are the ways to express your feelings in a world ruled by global players. The logos and signs of this companies can be found everywhere. Resistance is futile ? Not if you undermine their symbolic system, fight with their weapons and use corporate disinformation. That’s what I try to do with my art. I’ll define this kind of work as Media Pop Art. It takes well known objects, structures, medias, etc. and sets it in a different and sometimes funny context. For me that’s more interesting than to make a serious art work, which in the end doesn’t reach anyone, except some specialists [6].

2.1 (t)Error criticizes the Iraq war

„Art is the cry of distress uttered by those who experience at first hand the fate of mankind.“ [12]
This interactive video installation was my reaction on the Afghanistan campaign and the following Iraq war. It is a political persiflage on world politics, a mixed-reality game, which playfully tempts - through the whole body interaction - to participate, but at the same time the not very playful content of (t)Error wants to provoke reflection and self-reflection.
This play with the aspects of fun and seriousness or game and reality forms the basis of my work and media analysis.
Laughter lures the visitors, and not only an elitist gallery audience, but also the people from the street, who do not know too much about contemporary art. Fun, games and interaction cause motion, it is then much easier to get involved in the game, and so the change from laughter to sadness is more powerful and obvious.

2.2 (t)Error criticizes the gaming industry

To transform this combination of laughing and crying into the world of computer games, and so into the world of our children, was my main aim.
“Fifty percent of all Americans age six and older play computer and video games.” [14]
„In 1998, over one in four American youngsters reported playing games between seven and 30 hours a week. More than one in four homes has a game console.” [4]
This is one of the reasons why I like to show my installation at parties and clubs or in public space (see Figure 4) [10]. This year at the beginning of april, for example, (t)Error was exhibited in Berlin, in the “Club zur Möbelfabrik”. The young audience of this venue participated with enthusiasm. The reflection hit them a couple of minutes later, when the youngsters squatted down besides the installation, tired after the exhausting movements.

Figure 4. (t)Error as public space intervention

“I just played Osama Bin Laden in the game. I was killing people. Was that fun?” And this is what makes the artistic examination of computer games so precious and powerful: The sudden liberation, which is triggered by the dramaturgy of computer games, the role games par excellence. Nowhere else it is as simple and as easy to slip into the role of authorities, to play with the overthrow of established social systems and experience the dynamism of action and reaction without any danger. At the same time, (t)Error provides its players with a strange closeness and directness: It’s not a joystick that helps our avatars to jump hundred meters high, but everyone is actively playing him/herself.
(t)Error is an attempt to dismantle the gaming industry and the stereotype roles and behavior patterns taught by it. All these are the semiotics our children are confronted with since birth. We need to analyze them to get to know our children’s world.
The simple, pixel graphics of my game was developed following early, famous computer games like for example Space Invaders or Defender.
(t)Error creates a manageable (art) space, a system of signs and symbols, which are well known by the followers of computer games, who always associate these sign systems with fun and leisure time. Society codes and conventions which everyone takes for granted, can now be seen from a different perspective and open up new possibilities for dialogue and debate.