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14.07.03 Nybble-engine, network as a game.
The rules controlling a network can be seen as the rules of a game where each action changes the state of the network itself. This clever mix of technique and game strategy is called Nybble-engine, a work by Max Moswitzer and Margarete Jahrmann made using the Unreal Tournament game engine (Oldschool-UT). In the 'mod' culture (arbitrary modifications of a videogame), this work represents a conceptual hack that subverts the usual destructive logic. By linking each action to a procedure, the attack turns into a collaboration over the network, the act of shooting someone turns into a communication using the network and the very act of playing involves a modification of the code. The real-time generated environments take complex shapes, and the authors have also made three-dimensional prototypes which concretely represent the abstractions generated by the machine's computations. Presented at the Transmediale 02 and the Deaf 03 festivals, Nybble-engine has already received an 'Award of Distinction' at the Ars Electronica 2003 Golden Nica Awards.