benj gerdes

a portfolio not always in sync with internet time

Terms of Service: When We Pretend, We’re in Control

Single-channel video, 5 minutes, 2005.

Terms of Service explores cordiality and a certain return of forgiveness negatively through a reading of the military-sponsored (and freely distributed) computer game America’s Army. The text is a letter from the CEO of the software company commissioned to create the game, in which he accuses players who hack the game of breaching US Military secrets. In juxtaposing this letter with the game’s content, Terms of Service attempts to demonstrate the proximity of anti-terror and copyright law. This piece is the initial chapter of a project that will deploy awkward juxtapositions to posit a series of reconciliations: between film and video, video game and documentary, and representation and annihilation.

Initial exhibition: “‘I Beg Your Pardon,’ Or the Reestablishing of Cordial Relations” Curated by Andrea Geyer for The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, New York, NY.


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Terms of Service | 2005 | projects