Reinterpretation of Columbine as a Computer Game by John Haddock

by phil on Wednesday Mar 31, 2004 8:10 PM

44 year old, Arizona avant-garde artist John Haddock has created faux computer game screenshots of historic scenes. Click here to view twenty samples from Screenshots.

John Haddock says, "On one level, Screenshots is an attempt to come to terms with the experience of violence that has made me who I am." (WIRED interview)

These shots are amazing to see live, which I did at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, as part of the Bang the Machine exhibit (produced in part by my friend Zach Pogue). For me, Screenshots captures our increasing virtualization and our dependence on the image as a proxy for experience. More primitively, the gallery also reawakened my childhood, which is filled with thousands of hours staring at isometric video games like Diablo.

Links:
Cafeteria-cam Shot from an Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold page. (Eric is on the left)

Haddock's resume, his site, and his blog.

A portrait of John Haddock pixelized by Carlo Zanni.

(Permission to use Haddock's work granted by the artist)

Creative Commons License