I'm having a nostalgic moment after playing artist Natalie Bookchin's video art piece/computer game "Intruder" http://www.calarts.edu/~bookchin/intruder. Bookchin tells a short story by Jorge Luis Borges via a series of nine video games. The games begin with "Pong", and progress up through iterations of "Frogger", "Space Invaders", and other game technologies. Written in 1998, the piece is an unintentional lesson in how far game design has evolved in the last decade (thank you, DVD's).
That is all beside the point of the artist's original questions. Why are we drawn in to shoot down opponents, collect falling objects, and help our hero/heroine vault over obstacles? Why do we continue to aim and shoot when it becomes clear that there is no danger, no score, and we will hear the full story regardless of our lack of game skill? How does it feel to realize that you have become one of the evil protagonists destroying the female lead, and no hero at all? No answers here, but the action makes the questions much more interesting.
Bookchin's art has evolved forward using found video from public security cameras, among other sources. "Intruder" has been widely displayed at art museums and alternative spaces, but rarely with the immediacy you can get playing her piece on your own "set". Pick up a pistol and give it a shot.
