VRAL is currently showcasing Chris Kerich’s latest project Three Impossible Worlds. To accompany the exhibition, we’ll be discussing several artworks that comprise his oeuvre. Today, we examine his twin projects Katamari Dreams and The Midday Channel.
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In twin projects The Midday Channel (2017) and Katamari Dreams (2016), Chris Kerich leverages live memory disassembling software to remix and reimagine two classic PlayStation 2 titles, Persona 4 (Atlus, 2008) and Katamari Damacy (Namco, 2004). Despite using the same core technique on both games, the resulting aesthetic experiences differ markedly, demonstrating how memory hacking can both reveal and recast the intrinsic software and artistic qualities of the source games.
Kerich’s innovative use of an emulator and disassemblers to manipulate games while running represents an emblematic example of game-based contemporary art for several reasons. First, it allows creative intervention into the original games, remixing assets and code to generate novel audiovisual spaces. By altering the game maps, assets, and code while the game runs, Kerich is able to reconfigure the “raw materials” of the original game worlds. This remixing and reimagining of game environments is a signature of artistic game modification.
Second, his process reveals and comments on the underlying software processes that power the games. By directly viewing and editing compiled game code, Kerich provides rare insight into the internal logic governing gameplay – peering “behind the curtain”, in a way that investigates games as software systems, not just entertainment experiences. This interrogative uncovering of obscured technical architectures is a key theme in Kerich’s practice and game-based art more broadly…
Matteo Bittanti
Works cited
Chris Kerich
Katamari Dreams
Screenshots, gifs produced with live memory disassembling software to hack Katamari Damacy (Namco, 2004), 2016
The Midday Channel
Screenshots, gifs produced with live memory disassembling software to hack Persona 4 (Atlus, 2008), 2017
All images courtesy of Chris Kerich
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