WYHIWYS 5: Super Mario Hack
Damien Bourniquel is an artist, glitcher, creative hacker and member of Blackboxe hackerspace in Paris. For Makery, he created WYHIWYS (What You Hear Is What You See), referencing the famous WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), where sound becomes visual and images resound.
Mario the plumber, icon of the video game world, is like all people worthy of the name—his appearance and existence no longer belong to him. Whether in Klu Klux Klan mode, rescued by Princess Peach, stuffing himself with hamburgers, transforming himself into a sexual appendice or a straightforward prostitute, the debonnair man with a mustache has seen all manner of possible and imaginable interventions from the hacker gamer community.
Needless to say, video games have experienced their share of hacking. Bootlegs (pirated copies), mods (extension of a game or new game created from another one), transposition of characters from one title to another, artistic or simply sarcastic reappropriations abound on YouTube. Damien Bourniquel searched for Mario everywhere, as far as augmented reality and new media control interfaces (Kinect, Leap Motion, Oculus…).
Damien Bourniquel is showing “Les Portraits Audacieux” and Radio-Ciné Spectrale at Les Ekluz, May 25-29 (3pm to 8pm, free)