Leathal weapon on Counter-Strike. © Chloé Desmoineaux
Being glam, badass and fanning the flames of the Gamergate is possible! Chloé Desmoineaux shows us how to fire in a very feminine way in “Counter-Strike” with a lipstick joystick.
At 24, Chloé Desmoineaux, student at the Aix-en-Provence school of fine arts isn’t used to interviews but already has several under her belt. Her latest creation, the Lipstrike, has indeed shed turmoil in the world of video games and pop culture. From Motherboard (Vice) to Konbini including the most independent Shake That Button, everyone is having fun with her strange and playful project.
“Lipstrike”, Chloé Desmoineaux, 2016:
The principle, simple, is most symbolic: in the violent and rather butch universe of the shooting game Counter-Strike, her weapon is a lipstick. Each time the girl paints her mouth, an opponent is killed. Literally. An absurd and funny way of responding to a debate, the famous Gamergate, that she found absurd (and not funny)…
“In the beginning, I wanted to push the performance to its limits by putting red everywhere to highlight the ridicule”, explains the young artist and gamer who broadcasts her gaming sessions on the Twitch game streaming platform. In the end, sobriety will suffice. Nonchalant and fierce, she knocks out her opponents one by one using her lipstick as the supreme lethal weapon.
Because of Gamergate, the comments under her Youtube video (more than 130,000 views since March 21, 2016) are far from all being pleasant. “I was totally expecting it, admits Chloé Desmoineaux. In fact, I took it into account in my work process.” She is incidentally preparing a web page that lists all the hateful comments. “It seems like I have closed the loop. I made myself an easy target and it worked.”
And since at Makery we are not priggish, we asked her about her beauty secret. Follow the guide if you also want to play the femme fatale by disturbing trolls.
Equipment
– a tube of lipstick ;
– electric wire;
– modeling dough;
– a Makey Makey kit (Go, preferably) (as a reminder, this little module allows you to turn any object into a control interface) for €22;
Fabrication
– Strip the electric wire;
– Drill a hole in the lipstick tube;
– Pass the wire through the lipstick;
– Wind the stripped end of the wire in conductive dough;
– Leave a little bit of the dough out of the lipstick tube so that it comes into contact with the lips;
– Connect the wire to the Makey Makey space key;
– If you are on a classic Makey Makey, connect another wire to the ground;
– Play, stream…