artist talk

this past week i went to a lecture given by artist Brody Condin. condin is an artist from L.A, who is currently working in the Netherlands. when i was first introduced to condin, i must admit that i was not initially intrigued by his work. it was not until after he showed many of his pieces that i found it interesting. brody condin is most widely known for his game modifications. a game modification is taking an existing computer, or video game, and modifying it to do what you want. the first modification condin did was of the game "half life". he created a character that was his best friend, and filled an infinite room with the character. the piece was an instillation video of condin playing the game by killing his friends character over and over for 6 hours. another game modification that stuck out to me was a compilation of many violence oriented games. condin recorded a screen shot video of him playing each game while executing different ways to commit suicide. while he did not talk about his concepts or motives very much, i feel that they can be interpreted in many different ways. i think his work is sort of a social commentary on the violence that kids are exposed to on an everyday basis.