About the work
Game algorithms are designed to capture players’ attention and offer them an illusion of power. As the game unfolds, they may gradually invite players to watch advertisements or spend money. Both mechanisms reveal a form of savage capitalism, reducing the player to a consumer who serves those with the greatest economic power and media influence.
Hacking a game’s algorithm can become a form of resistance. There are many ways to do so. In my case, I continue playing mainstream games, looking for a passage beyond their algorithms, into a non-consumerist territory, a poetic space rather than an informational one. Sometimes, the passage appears. Whenever I question what might lie beyond a game’s profit-driven logic, an error or an accident seems to transform it into a poetic and experimental experience.
It first happened in Hungry Shark Evolution on 10 April 2015. Then, on 7 January 2021, it happened again in Galaxy Attack, a war game.
Beyond the Algorithm – Galaxy Attack’s Poetic Bug, 2021
I slipped beyond the mainstream algorithm of Galaxy Attack. Almost everything in the game’s interface disappeared, leaving only my warship surfing through endless clouds. I documented this unexpected state in a video. The game was never designed to produce it. The ship travels through the clouds towards the limitless horizon of a question, beyond the game’s functional objectives and original design. The scene evokes Avalon, a promised land, perhaps, or a place that can only be approached by losing one’s way.
Beyond the Algorithm – Hungry Shark Evolution’s Poetic Bug, 2015
I slipped beyond the mainstream algorithm of Hungry Shark Evolution and found what seemed to be a secret level, one that was never meant to exist. It allowed my character, the shark, to escape the map and step into the shape of the algorithm, beginning an endless escape from the game’s paid spaces.
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