With the spatial memory game ‘levelHead’ Julian Oliver has combined gaming, art and architecture in a tangible computer game. The game consists of a cube with an image on each of its six sides. By using the technology of Sony eyeToy web camera the images on the cube are captured and generated onto a computer screen. When the cube is placed in front of the web camera you can on the computer screen look into a 3D graphic environment. A room of stairs and hallways appears inside the cub. There are six different rooms in one cube connected to each other by doors. By tilting and rotating the cube you lead the player around in the rooms, walking up and down stairways, around corners and through doors. The ways you tilt the cube decide the walking direction of the player. The aim of the game is to remember which doors connect to the different rooms so you can lead the player quickly to exit and pass on to the next level. There are five levels, which increase in difficulty and there is only 120 seconds available to find the way through each of the levels.

The cube is the only interface in ‘levelHead. With the cube in your hand you can navigate spatially inside the cube and physically control the player. As an object the cube becomes a physical interface.

As an artwork ‘levelHead’ raises several questions. ‘levelHead’ consists of many different types of date like graphic design, scripts, sound files, textures etc. In creating the game Julian Oliver is manipulating with a great amount of various data all made by other people. In the artistic game practice hacking and modding (slang for modify) has a strong impact. To quote the artist: “…to hack, is to make.” As an art object Levelhead is questioning the original and the copy by being a remediated work. Refering to Jay D. Bolter the term remediation describes today’s media by defining it by its content and use of previous media.

In ‘levelHead’ the relationship between the artist and audience is blurred. The audience, or more correctly “the users” are performing the work in the interaction with the game. The appearance and meaning of the work is generated through the users. Roy Ascott describes the new role of the media artist as the one who creates the frame of the work and controls its context and content. However it is the users who create the meaning of the work by interacting with it.

The development of the game began in July 2007 at Media Lab Prado, Madrid under the project Unprepared Architecture in corporation with Simone Jones. The demonstration video for ‘levelHead’ was launched in October this year however the game is still under development. When ‘levelHead’ is finished it will be released as an open-source project meaning that there will be no copy-right on the game and it will be free to download. The game will be released as printable “paper cut-outs” so everyone can make their own ‘levelHead’ cube and start playing.

Oliver, Julian, The game is Not the Medium…or “How to Ignore the Shiny Box”, 2006