I had not set out to create artwork by appropriating the technology of video games. My use of the Gameboy Advance (GBA) as a framework for artistic expression evolved as an almost incidental result of an experience I had with a single-channel video installation I created in 2000 entitled Come Hither. This installation incorporated a short video loop of a beckoning finger displayed on a 3” LCD screen – an intimate format that forced the viewer to come within inches of the screen to experience the work one on one. While the realization of this project accomplished what I had hoped, the technical solution was far from adequate. In order to keep the video loop in constant motion I was required to rig a series of long cables that snaked through walls and over ceilings leading to remote VCR or DVD decks that only ensured a troublesome, laborious and inflexible installation. I came away from that piece with a question: can I create a compact device without any moving parts that can play short loops of video on a relatively small, flat screen? The best case would be a simple, self-contained unit that could be installed consistently and with a minimum of destruction to the gallery. This quest was met with many helpful and inventive suggestions, but it was increasingly obvious at the time that almost all of the solutions would require me to become an engineer to solve.

The answer came months later in an unrelated conversation. A close friend and game developer told me that he was creating custom video games for the GBA without a licensed development kit. Since I have some experience with game development from a professional standpoint, the implications of this were not opaque. As we discussed some of the difficulties of developing for the GBA it became clear that this device could potentially provide an answer to the technical issues raised in Come Hither. Clearly, a pre-existing and professionally engineered solution would be more stable than any device I might create on my own. The widespread availability and relatively inexpensive cost per unit also factored in as strengths in favor of experimenting with the device. Additionally, the fact that home-brew game developers had already reverse-engineered the device and were freely distributing development kits meant that I could begin exploring the artistic capacities in a tangible way in a matter of days, rather than months. I felt that the most difficult barriers that might stop me were out of the way. As with many experiments, this did not turn out to be entirely true, but I had already decided that it was worth pursuing to see what turned up.

At the time, I had several aquariums in my studio where I recorded the creatures with web-cams, listened to the sound of the tanks and generally pondered the world inside the glass. Aquatic creatures have long been a source of inspiration to me: the alien forms, vacant or invisible facial expressions imply internal dialogues, imaginary cultures and mythologies that percolate within my work. From my observations and experiments arose the interest to create virtual fish-tanks. Not simulations of aquariums, but enclosures that housed trapped fish or at least their lingering digital ghosts. The installation that resulted from these explorations became Super Ichthyologist Advance. Drawn to parallels with the collection of Pokemon, I felt that the device itself provided interesting associations – although I have since been looking for ways to distance my ideas from the GBA as purely a game device. In practice, the GBA offers a flexible solution to the technical issues raised in Come Hither, evidenced by Super Ichthyologist Advance, a flexible installation that can be set up in under ten minutes, regardless of venue.

In addition to sparking new areas of personal exploration, creating and exhibiting Super Ichthyologist Advance brought into focus for me several emerging artistic movements utilizing video-game aesthetics, technology and culture as a jumping off point for creative discourse. The Gameboy Advance is just one device in a vast sea of gaming appliances that litter living rooms, dormitories and backpacks. Whether home-consoles or portable devices, these appliances hold an iconic status to a generation of game players. Perhaps for this reason alone, there are a growing number of artists, researchers and experimentalists who are reinventing the conceptual boundaries for which these devices were first envisioned. Many are using the language, aesthetics and technology of video games to critique popular culture. Others have used them to create musical instruments, audio-visual noise generators or used the aesthetics of video game culture as a jumping off point for reflection within completely unrelated media forms.

I myself became interested in the idea of approaching game appliances in a state pre-literate of the aesthetic and cultural baggage of which they are commonly associated. This approach toward the subject matter is not mirrored in the other movements mentioned, where the aesthetics and culture of video games are often critiqued or commented upon. For me, the appropriation of technology is about rethinking its use, creating hybrids that are not so easily contained, explained or pigeonholed. This is precisely what is attractive about working on hybrids to me: they defy classification and must be met on their own terms. Without a lexicon or prior conceptual framework to draw upon, the ideas must hold themselves up all on their own.

There are critical issues raised by this approach toward rethinking the use for a technology so heavily burdened by itself. In contrast to Come Hither, where the device is a neutral vessel for my ideas that implies none of the conceptual baggage from its previous existence, the use of the GBA in Super Ichthyologist Advance is a different story. One idea kicked about involved reducing down to the essential electronics and building custom housing that would not appear to be a GBA at first glance – but the disembodied device would still show the inescapable Nintendo logo when starting up. Therefore I find myself at odds with my own purposes: to approach the game appliance in a state pre-literate of games themselves, using a device that inherently references games.

Intrinsic to any game appliance is the ability to accept and respond to user input, an aspect of the GBA that I had not considered exploring in Super Ichthyologist Advance. After gaining experience working with the GBA for displaying short video loops it became obvious that the inherent interactive aspects of the device were equally accessible on a technical level. What began as a solution for multi-channel video installations has grown into a wellspring of inspiration whereupon I find myself imagining galleries that fit in your pocket, personal handheld theatres, digital Cornell boxes and electronic books imbued with the intimacy of Chinese scroll paintings.