Max Payne Cheats Only (2004) is a double projection video featuring video game cheats — clever, small tricks embedded by the original programmers to assist players when they encounter obstacles. JODI compiled all the cheats from the popular third-person shooter game Max Payne, resulting in a 140-hour game footage that begins as an endurance performance and culminates in an underground art film in the form of machinima

The duo aimed to create something that deviated from their typical aesthetic, avoiding the use of ominous black shapes against white backgrounds. Instead, they sought to achieve the impossible — an abstraction within the pre-existing aesthetic of the game itself. As a result, the original game's action completely disappears, replaced by absurd perspectives and effects that transform the once-realistic game.

In the lecture programme accompanying the exhibition at LI-MA, the work was presented and discussed. During the opening evening on 20 November 2019, Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans, the pioneering Dutch-Belgian duo behind JODI, engaged in a conversation with art historian and curator Sakrowski respectively. Heemskerk initially explained the technical development of JODI's work, while Paesmans provided additional context and personal anecdotes. 

On 18 December 2019, artist Jan Robert Leegte explored the performative foundation of computers from both technical and theoretical perspectives. To illustrate the historical structure, Leegte presented examples ranging from 19th-century computer pioneer Charles Babbage's work to JODI's performance of smashing a computer screen into pieces.

About JODI

JODI is a duo consisting of Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans. The two artists, with a background in video and photography, turned their attention to the web in the 1990s, and have created some of the most subversive Internet artworks since. In line with video art pioneers such as Nam June Paik and Steina and Woody Vasulka, they subject their medium to a critical analysis and dismantle its structures.

Their work uses the widest possible variety of media and techniques, from installations, software and websites to performances and exhibitions. Their pioneering website wwwwwwwww.jodi.org (1995) is a puzzling experience: a well-choreographed chaos. In a pioneering, medium-specific way, they deconstruct and analyse the languages of new media: from visual aesthetics to interface elements, from code to breaking code.

They challenge the relationship between technology and users by subverting our expectations about the functionalities and conventions of the systems that we depend upon every day. (updated as of November 2019)

Events

Exhibition: 18 September - 30 October 2019 | 12:00-23:00 | LI-MA Arie Biemondstraat 111, Amsterdam)

Event (1):Cultural Matter: Jonas Lund - Opening event with Florian Cramer | 18 September 2019 

Event (2): Cultural Matter: Gijs van Oenen on the Fear Of Missing Out | 16 October 2019

Images in descending order:

• Portrait JODI
• JODI, Max Payne Cheats Only, 2004 (installation view)

Photos & portrait by Jose Miguel Biscaya