ISEA2008 Juried Exhibition
Civilisation V
Eastwood – Real Time Strategy Group: Kristian Lukic & Vladan Joler (Serbia)
Collaborating with: G3 Lab
In Eastwood’s earlier ‘modification’ of Sid Meier’s seminal computer strategy game Civilization, Civilization IV players took the role of corporate IT workers. For ISEA2008 they will continue their project of subverting the hyper-aggressive military-capitalist tendencies of ‘real-time’ strategy and war games. Civilization V is a game that self-reflexively addresses the competition for dominance between new media companies working with so-called Web 2.0 technologies, such as Facebook, YouTube, and persistently online games such as Second Life and World of Warcraft. In order to advance through the game, companies will have to use tactics like ‘Emotional blackmail’, ‘Tribal marketing’ and ‘Love bombing’. In addition, the artists have created a promotional film about the ‘making of’ Civilization V, showing how its creation is a global enterprise, involving programmers, designers and artists from Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. Breaking free from the industrial constraints of the multi-million dollar videogame industry, the project ironically comments on the ways games are developed and marketed, while revealing how digital art can intersect with the wider world.
Eastwood – Real Time Strategy Group (Serbia) was founded by Kristian Lukic and Vladan Joler in 2002. In their collaborative projects they create and use computer games as a tool for new visions of art and cultural practice.
