WACO
RESURRECTION (2004)
Computer
Game/Installation/hardware/mixed media
(Eddo Stern, Peter Brinson, Brody Condon, Michael Wilson, Mark Allen,
Jessica Hutchins)
Revisiting the 1993 Waco, Texas episode, gamers enter the mind
and form of a “resurrected” David Koresh through a specially
designed voice activated, surround sound enabled, hard plastic 3D skin.
In an attempt to defend the Branch Davidian compound against internal
intrigue, skeptical civilians, rival theologians and the inexorable advance
of government agents, each player on the network plays as a ”Koresh”.
Ensnared in the custom "Koresh skin", players are bombarded
with sounds of government psy-ops, internal voices and the clamor of battle,
and empowered to voice messianic texts from Koresh's exegesis of the book
of revelation, wield a variety of weapons from the Mount Carmel cache
and influence the behavior of both followers and opponents by “radiating”
charisma. Waco Resurrection draws on the rhetoric of conspiracy theory,
cult activity and apocalypticism to investigate the Waco siege as a cultural
milestone. It addresses the multi-layered dynamics of a 51-day media-event
that served to mobilize the militia movement, radicalize Timothy McVeigh
and cause a re-evaluation of the role of religion in society.
VIDEO:
Waco Intstall Video
+ Game footage (6MB QT)
LINKS:
Waco Resurrection trailer
INSTALLATION HISTORY:
Gamezone Festival, De Singal, Antwerpen, Brussels
Slamdance Film Festival, Park City, Utah
Ars Electronica, Linz, Austra
Australian Center of the Moving Image(ACMI), Melbourne, Australia
Grand Arts, Kansas City, MI
Next Wave Festival, Melbourne, Australia
Rotterdam Film Festival, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
The Kitchen. New York, NY