PAUL JOHNSON's show of networked games at Postmasters

for immediate release:

PAUL JOHNSON
"SCORE"
april 3 - may 1, 2004
reception, Saturday, April 3, 6-8 pm


Postmasters Gallery is pleased to announce "Score" - an exhibition of
new works Paul Johnson. The show will open on Saturday, April 3 and
will be on view until May 1, 2004.

New York artist Paul Johnson creates sculptural computer
consoles which are autonomous networked video game systems. Although
conceived as games, they cannot be played or won. Instead, these
games are "self playing" via computer software. They acquire
resources from one another mutually affecting their respective
worlds. Without the audience interaction, the networked games
generate unpredictable narratives unfolding in real time.
Usually, when developing games such as these, the shared
universe is consistent and synchronized. Johnson's pieces go another
direction: games from different genres are interacting with one
another, combat game may be networked with household simulator,
racing contest with urban puzzle of micro-management, and so on.
Although information is shared between worlds, how each game
understands and uses that information varies. Within each piece there
is a back and forth between worlds which influence but do not see
each other. In worlds which are both determined and played out by the
computer, the idea of "winning" is irrelevant. Scoring is about the
development of combined indexes which indicate the state of the
entire piece.


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Trauma links a battlefield and household simulator games which
participate in a common emotional universe. Battlefield trauma is
overlaid on a domestic floor plan and gradually moves through it like
a contagion. The "drive" of the games is toward minimum energy as
trauma mounts. The games are both generators and barometers of trauma.

Maiden Flight, on the other hand, is concerned with construction. The
client game assembles a space station, whose destruction and
expansion is influenced by the metabolism of a snacking couch potato.
Balanced consumption facilitates the steady growth of the space
station, too much exercise destroys it by launching a volley of
cruise missiles.

Prisoner is a multi-tiered penal simulation. Each game console
occupies a place on vertically arranged platforms. Within the games,
prisoners are moved from holding, isolation, and interrogation in an
effort to reveal information. Different prisoners respond to
different pressures. Once a story is obtained it can be checked
against others. These factors are manipulated with various
interventions to further open the prisoner network. Nonetheless, the
very existence of the plot is never certain. Patterns emerge as
discrepancies are revealed throughout the interrogation process. The
pattern is endless, as is the detention, with uncertain results.

Crossings places two different games in the same universe. The first
one is a racing game with an SUV that winds through a countryside
track. The second exists in the same world but from the perspective
of the wildlife. Deer populations are balanced and maintained within
the forest. The first game is about achieving a good race time, the
second game has the pace of a nature show. At various "deer
crossings" the game worlds intersect, sometimes with tragic
consequences. Simulation of animal populations are subsequently
modified by race times.

Dark Network contains the most divergent game models in the show. It
consists of two games: "Cruzaders" and "M." Cruzaders is a game of
skateboard tricks and conquest . Characters compete for dominance
through combat and skate boarding. The terrain and city of the
Cruzaders world (which facilitates the range of skate board tricks)
is built up, transformed, and leveled by the shifting of goods within
M. M is a puzzle that is won by balancing orbiting commodities around
the earth. M manages Cruzaders on a macro level. As goods are knocked
from orbit to orbit, the Cruzader's tricks, terrain, and objectives
change.

Finally, the exhibition includes Budaechigae, a collaborative video
game project of Paul Johnson and Sunny Kim.
"Budaechigae" or "army soup" is a spicy dish popularized during the
famine conditions of the 1950-53 Korean War. The ingredients, which
include C-ration leftovers, were traditionally gleaned from the
garbage outside American bases. The soup is a cultural hybrid and a
marker of disparity, which evokes both sentimental feelings and
disturbing memories.
Kim and Johnson have each developed autonomous video game characters
which function as self-portraits. Kim portrays herself as a Korean
schoolgirl and Johnson as a young soldier. Without consulting one
another both artists have designed the appearance, role, and behavior
of their respective avatars, and the relationship between their
characters evolves in time. Throughout this process, some of the
control of the artist is surrendered to the game system. The changing
dynamics may fundamentally alter the roles, dress, and prosperity of
each avatar for better or worse.

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Sunny Kim is based in Seoul. Her work explores South Korean school
uniforms as image, symbol, and historical memory.

Paul Johnson's works were most recently included in Media City Seoul
2002 in Seoul Museum of Art in South Korea, and in Future Cinema
(2002-2003) in ZKM Center for Media Art in Karlsruhe, Germany later
traveling to Kiasma Museum in Helsinki, Finland.
He has participated in Animations shows at PS 1, New York and Kunst
Werke Berlin (2002-2003), as well as Killer Instinct exhibition at
the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2003) and Game Scenes
at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco (2004).
In September 2004 Johnson will present new works at Vilette
Numerique in Paris, in an exhibition Zones de Confluences, curated by
Benjamin Weil.

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Postmasters Gallery, located in Chelsea at 459 West 19th Street
(corner of 10th Avenue), is open Tuesday through Saturday 11am to 6
pm. Please contact Magdalena Sawon with any questions or image
requests
http://www.postmastersart.com