'Duke Nukem 3D' and leaked Yahoo passwords pass for art at this gallery
It wasn't all that long ago that the biggest argument surrounding video games was whether or not they should be considered art -- something that's given way to more distressing topics as of late. A German gallery has an opinion on the former, however, and with the "Hurt Me Plenty" exhibit, it examines the intersection of gaming and technology and their effects on the real-world. In the video below, artist Aram Bartholl gives a guided, first-person (naturally) tour of the exhibit, explaining the reasoning behind pieces based on the idle hands animation and that of the pistol firing from Duke Nukem 3D. As Make notes, the installation melds the pixely digital imagery with physical media like wood and halftone printing to pretty great effect.
The showcase isn't just limited to developer 3D Realms' legendary shooter, either: there are pieces dedicated to the fetishization of GPUs and their uses beyond graphics rendering -- like bitcoin mining and security cracking -- too. Perhaps most interesting of all, though, are roughly 40,000 plotter-printed Yahoo passwords that were made vulnerable in 2012. Hurt Me Plenty runs through November 1st at Berlin's DAM, but if you can't make it in person there's a Flickr gallery that's just begging you to come get some.
[Image credit: agoasi / Flickr]
