{"product_id":"unstable-aesthetics-eddie-lohmeyer-9781501374708","title":"Unstable Aesthetics: Game Engines and the Strangeness of Modding","description":"\u003cp\u003eThroughout the 1990s, artists experimented with game engine technologies to disrupt our habitual relationships to video games. They hacked, glitched, and dismantled popular first-person shooters such as \u003ci\u003eDoom \u003c\/i\u003e(1993) and \u003ci\u003eQuake \u003c\/i\u003e(1996) to engage players in new kinds of embodied activity. In \u003ci\u003eUnstable Aesthetics: Game Engines and the Strangeness of Art Modding\u003c\/i\u003e, Eddie Lohmeyer investigates historical episodes of art modding practices-the alteration of a game system's existing code or hardware to generate abstract spaces-situated around a recent archaeology of the game engine: software for rendering two and three-dimensional gameworlds. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe contemporary artists highlighted throughout this book-Cory Arcangel, JODI, Julian Oliver, Krista Hoefle, and Brent Watanabe, among others -- were attracted to the architectures of engines because they allowed them to explore vital relationships among abstraction, technology, and the body. Artists employed a range of modding techniques-hacking the ROM chips on Nintendo cartridges to produce experimental video, deconstructing source code to generate psychedelic glitch patterns, and collaging together surreal gameworlds-to intentionally dissect the engine's operations and unveil illusions of movement within algorithmic spaces. Through key moments in game engine history, Lohmeyer formulates a rich phenomenology of video games by focusing on the liminal spaces of interaction among system and body, or rather the strangeness of art modding.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Eddie Lohmeyer\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1501374702\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781501374708\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Bloomsbury Academic\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/21\/2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 216\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.64lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.45d","brand":"Eddie Lohmeyer","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44069666324735,"sku":"9781501374708","price":39.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_b2245ea2-e303-40f0-97d5-cde60eceffa4.jpg?v=1685425846","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/unstable-aesthetics-eddie-lohmeyer-9781501374708","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}