The Escapist has an article about a new art game called Lose/Lose, that attempts to add a sense of permanence and consequence to the standard shmup formula by deleting a random file from your hard drive every time you shoot down an enemy alien. Although it probably won’t be a huge hit for obvious reasons, as an art piece it makes an interesting statement, and is worth a look.

However, I found this part of the artist’s statement to be kind of funny:

By way of exploring what it means to kill in a video-game, Lose/Lose broaches bigger questions. As technology grows, our understanding of it diminishes, yet, at the same time, it becomes increasingly important in our lives. At what point does our virtual data become as important to us as physical possessions? If we have reached that point already, what real objects do we value less than our data? What implications does trusting something so important to something we understand so poorly have?

Putting value in totally abstract commodities that are managed by systems we don’t understand well? Obviously, he hasn’t been paying much attention to the recent financial crisis. We’ve been off the gold standard for a while now. Going back even further (MUCH further), consider all the abstract commodities like love, companionship, esteem, and sense of belonging that we routinely put in the hands of other people - probably the most incomprehensible machines on the planet.

I just love it when people act like we were living in a totally concrete world until about 30 years ago when computers suddenly introduced the idea of abstraction. Not True.

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