Janne Schimmel: *Phantasmic Gateways and their Housings*, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Super Dakota, Brussels.

To a 67 year-old non-participant, the scale and impact of the gaming industry is striking. Two and a half billion people around the world regularly use a device to play games, and recent report reveals that the value of the gaming industry – some $185bn annually – overwhelms the combined values of the music ($29bn) and film industries ($34bn). Moreover, e-sports are growing fast, and likely to increase the differentials. Nonetheless, it isn’t often that gaming and its associated technologies feature in the programmes of art galleries. Janne Schimmel believes it is important to use the medium of art in this area, and a recent example is his exhibition ‘But Can It Run Doom’, described by Super Dakota, Brussels, as ‘an in-depth exploration of the intersections between digital culture, the material conditions of gaming hardware, and the evolving role of technology in our lives.’ Visitors were able to play on various consoles with games designed, tweaked or deconstructed by the Dutch artist, allowing them to appreciate the evolution of the relevant technologies and some of the cultural issues associated with the industry.

Here I discuss the development of gaming technology and two questionable aspects of that recent highly successful history, as explored in the show: the limitations in practice on what one might expect to be the complete freedom to act in virtual worlds; and the parallel restrictions and pressures on how the technology can be used.

The last fifty years has seen gaming develop relentlessly. The simply-controlled Magnavox Odyssey, 1972, was the first commercial home video game console. Five years later the Atari 2600 popularized micro-processor based hardware and introduced the storage of games on a cartridge that slotted into the top of the console. Home computers like the Commodore 64 and the Omega 500 became popular in the 1980’s, allowing for more complex games with graphics and sound – the era of floppy discs. By the time the Nintendo Entertainment System was released in 1985, controllers had become more sophisticated with a user directional pad and face buttons for playing games. Soon after CD ROMs were being used, enabling more immersive 3D games to be played on consoles such as the Sony PlayStation, a smaller, slimmer design with most of the control features still typical today.

The 2000’s saw the emergence of online gaming, connecting users through such services as Xbox; the standardisation of internal storage; and introduction of wireless controllers and motion controllers. Virtual Reality (VR) headsets and Augmented Reality (AR) applications arrived from 2012 onwards. The latter – which superimposes digital images onto the physical world, typically through smartphones or special glasses – broke out onto the gaming scene in 2016 with the success of Pokémon Go. The interplay between digital characters and physical locations has made AR more attractive than VR, allowing people to interact with reality rather than removing themselves from it.

Not only has that sequence of developments has been transformative for gaming experience, it has spilled into the broader fields of entertainment, communication and education. Many games incorporate elements of problem-solving, critical thinking, and strategic planning, making them effective tools for learning. Educational games, such as ‘Minecraft: Education Edition’ are designed to help students engage with complex concepts in a fun and interactive manner. More formal courses, like ‘Gamer Math’, use games to engage students in traditional school subjects. Virtual simulations and serious games been applied in medical training, military strategy, and disaster preparedness, providing a safe environment to practice skills and develop expertise.

The drive to enhance gaming experience has also accelerated the progress of computer graphics, processor capabilities, and storage capacities. The complex algorithms and artificial intelligence systems developed for video games have found applications in such fields as healthcare, engineering, and data analysis. And ‘gamification’ – the process of applying game elements to non-game contexts – has been adopted by industries to enhance user engagement and motivation in employee training, fitness programs, and educational platforms.

There is no sign of the pace slowing. Machine Learning will be increasingly employed to improve performance, using specific algorithms and mathematical models for in-game development – such as procedural generation allowing developers to create worlds without having to hand-create every detail. AR and VR will continue to be refined, with VR likely to move towards social models to offset the isolating nature of the typical experience with a headset. Cloud gaming will enable people to play without needing to download punishing amounts of data onto their mobile devices. In the long term, AI might generate complete games as well as contributing components such as artwork.

So that’s the positive story, but it’s a partial one. By reactivating older technologies, examining the design of our digital tools, and investigating new possibilities for digital expression, Schimmel challenges the conventional narratives around intimacy, creativity, and resilience that go along with that technology-driven account. He himself is a gamer, but that doesn’t stop him being sensitive to the conventions that tend to be built in. He recalls playing GTA: San Andreas as a child. At one point, his mother suggested he give a woman flowers in the game, but the mechanics only allowed him to hit her with them. This moment sparked a reflection: if the logic of a game dictates that picking up flowers can only result in violence, what does this imply about our collective notion of ‘freedom’ in virtual worlds?

Janne Schimmel: *Homebrew Baby 2.* Cast aluminium, cast tin, 3D printed resin, Gameboy hardware, various hardware, 28 x 31 x 108 cm. Photo © Adriaan Hauwaert. Courtesy of the artist and Super Dakota, Brussels

Consistent with that, the works in ‘But Can It Run Doom’ explore the interplay between physical devices and digital spaces, reflecting on the lack of emotional resonance in the design and marketing of computer hardware –particularly gaming devices, which often prioritize speed, efficiency, and power over softer, tactile qualities. Schimmel highlights the emotional range that has largely been neglected in commercial gaming culture, raising deeper questions about how software design reflects broader societal values.

So, for example, Schimmel made Dr Abbey with four other people during a ‘game jam’ – you meet up for 48 hours and create a video game. Pokémon games feature a variety of species with special powers in combat. But in their remake, explains Schimmel, ‘you play from the perspective of a doctor attending to an injured Pokémon … And you have to choose if you want to make the Pokémon passive and not fight the others any more; or whether you want to make him stronger and beat up the others. Your choices lead to different endings – if the former, he will at some point form a Union of all the Pokémon, leading to peace; whereas if you make him stronger, he will at some point die because he took too many steroids.’ In Phantasmic Gateways and their Housings you can control a character in an apartment, and they then sit around and, for example, watch YouTube videos. If that sounds rather downbeat, that’s making a point, as they haven’t been programmed to show any emotions.

Exhibition view with *Saying Yes*, 2024 - Cast aluminium, wooden stick, various stones, second hand desk chair, second hand desk chair, 3D printed resin, keyboard switches, various hardware. Photo © Adriaan Hauwaert. Courtesy of the artist and Super Dakota, Brussels

Other games imagine alternative genres where players hug, listen, or converse with digital characters. This approach underscores the potential of empathy as an interactive mechanism, contrasting with big-budget games that leave little room for kindness in their intricate combat systems. In Saying Yes, 2024, two people sit opposite and one side asks questions, to which the other side answers ‘Yes I do’. The questions must be formulated from just the letters in the question ‘Do You Love Me?’ – foregrounding the limitations imposed by the edited keyboard, and making something of a mockery of the sincerity of the replies. ‘Do you love doom?’, for example. ‘Yes I Do’ … The game is presented in a set-up with desk chairs partly-replaced by aluminium casts, inspired by the temporary substitute Schimmel once improvised when his armrest broke – he liked that, and ran with it.

Schimmel’s sculptural series Strange Loop (Disgust, Fear, Happy, Sad, Snarl) examines the process of transferring emotions between the physical and digital realms. If you don’t look at the title, it makes for an entertaining guessing game. Schimmel explains that it consists of sculptural busts made from a pack of 3D-scanned faces of an actor, on each of which the actor portrays different emotions. Dots are painted on the face so that you can ‘read’ the emotions and transfer them to a digital character. ‘I wanted to paint them’, he says, ‘so I took the colour information off the 3D model and put it through a paint-by-numbers generator’. The result showcases how emotions are transformed during their digital re-creation – from an originating pretence, of course, as the emotions were created by an actor.

Schimmel explains that the exhibition title ‘But Can It Run Doom’ references a popular tech community challenge inspired by the 1993 first-person shooter game Doom. The game’s source code and level editor tools were made accessible, inviting players to create their own levels, textures, and modifications. This openness led to an explosion of user-created content and established Doom as a model for community-driven game development. The phrase gained popularity in 2006 when Doom was ported to the widely used Texas Instruments TI-83 educational calculator.

‘Porting’ refers to adapting software, such as a game, to run on a different hardware platform or operating system than it was originally designed for. This sparked a challenge to run the game on as many devices as possible: noteworthy examples include microwaves, ATMs, and even pregnancy tests. In 2022, hacker Sick Codes ported Doom to a John Deere tractor, highlighting restrictive practices by manufacturers like John Deere, which use software locks to limit user repairs. This demonstration revealed the broader need for user agency and accessible repair options. The exhibition draws parallels between such cases and how Schimmel mods older consoles like the Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS to run custom games, echoing themes of accessibility and creative freedom.

User-generated games and modifications offer a lens through which to examine gaming as a participatory and emancipatory culture. In the gallery’s words: ‘Despite the commercial video gaming industry’s pressures to render older consoles obsolete, devoted communities continue to create and refine new content for systems released over three decades ago. Operating within a landscape where contemporary myths are often controlled by corporations, these ‘home-brew’ networks reclaim agency by building their own narratives and question notions of authorship through open-source sharing. This ethos resonates with other communities – such as 3D printing and freeware circles – and informs how Schimmel sources virtual material and knowledge, fostering a culture of collective reinvention. In turn, this is why he uploads his own work back to the internet to be used by others.’

Schimmel’s works fit in with the broader principles of recycling. Some of his games are shown on an unmodified Nintendo DS game console from more than 20 years ago, the one on which he grew up playing games. There’s an element of nostalgia, then, but also a refusal to participate in contemporary culture’s lightning-fast cycle of technological turnover.

I particularly enjoyed Simple Mario, because I was victorious. In Super Mario Clouds, 2002, Cory Arcangel famously ‘hacked’ the original mid-80’s Super Mario Brothers Nintendo video game by tweaking the game’s code to erase all of the sound and visual elements except the iconic scrolling clouds. Nodding to that, Schimmel’s Simple Mario presents a version that anyone can finish without any problem. As in the real game, you must reach the end of a course - but in this case there are no enemies or obstacles, making it pretty-much impossible for even me not to progress to the next level. Two other games illustrate Schimmel’s unconventional approach. To The Shop and Back Again is a very simple game about him being thirsty in studio and walking to the shop to get a drink. And in Becoming 2, players can turn into anything they see in the game, for example you become a candle and talk to all the other candles. There are different story lines depending what you turn into …

Janne Schimmel: *Wall Flower*, 2024 - Cast aluminium, cast tin, 3D printed resin, various computer hardware, LCD screen, 28 x 31 x 108 cm. Photo © Adriaan Hauwaert. Courtesy of the artist and Super Dakota, Brussels

Schimmel turns his consoles into sculptural objects, as illustrated here by Homebrew Baby 2 and Wall Flower. He also, in a further facet of openness, exposes what was hidden behind the casing in the older consoles, so that the hardware storage, video card and audio file are separately viewable. That actually reflects a trend in gaming (LAN) parties, whereby attendees started to cut away the side panels so that others could see in, and so appreciate that they had the latest set-up. That became sufficiently prevalent that manufacturers have started to design consoles with glass screens over the hardware components.

One wasteful aspect of perpetual upgrades is that you don’t need high end graphics to make imaginative new games. Schimmel isn’t the only one making new games for old consoles. Recognising that, he has also run new games by other people on his consoles. All of which acts, he feels, as a critique of the planned obsolescence that is common in every system within capitalism.

Schimmel’s version of games within the gallery, then, applies a well-established art strategy to both the hardware and the software of the gaming industry. He takes viewers informatively into a particular world, revealing what lies behind it, then sets up alternatives to point out how things might be different.

Janne Schimmel’s ‘But Can It Run Doom’ ran at Super Dakota, Brussels, 11 January - 21 February, 2025. More details of Schimmel’s designs are here.

Endnotes:

i See the ‘State of Gaming’ report by global consumer research company GWI.

ii Article largely based on gallery materials and a conversation with Janne Schimmel.

iii Likely trends summarised from ‘The five tech trends driving video games’, Gamesbeat, 2024 and Hal Cross: ‘What Does the Future of Gaming Look Like?’ in Built In, 2024.

iv Draws on ‘How Video Games Have Changed the World’ Master Coding blog, 2023.

v Stephan van der Woerd, Jonas Westendorp, Bart Hassink and Rein van der Woerd.

JANNE SCHIMMEL: GAMING IN THE GALLERY