GVA: When did you begin using video games in your practice? Why did you specifically choose a video game to make art? What do you find especially fascinating about this medium? Its interactivity? Agency? Aesthetics? Theatricality? Would you consider yourself a “gamer” as well?
Wai Keung-Hui: I was once an avid gamer, playing extensively as an adolescent — especially immersive MMORPGs. Back then I also believed virtual spaces like Second Life presaged humanity’s eventual migration online, our consciousness transcending physical limits through networked community. Keen to precipitate this new mode of being, I turned to art as transcendental conduit. Early internet artists like Eva and Franco Mattes provided initial inspiration for works seeking philosophical insight within natively digital media, though my Second Life performances lacked their mastery. Still committed to mining the ontology of virtuality, I danced endlessly amidst combat in Anarchy Online — pacifist foil to surrounding bloodlust.
In time my faith in online utopias faded, drawing me to other genres. Yet fascination with gaming and digital spaces has reignited from an analytic perspective. Rather than manifesting imaginative futures, I now anatomize video games scientifically and archeologically, reverse-engineering their construction through studying computer graphics — vertexes, polygons etc — then investigating attached logics and constraints. Still early in the learning process, I let the medium guide me, marveling at each layer revealed through meticulous dissection.
GVA: When/where did you first encounter machinima? What did/do you find interesting/fascinating about this artform? What is, in your opinion, the most significant machinima of all time, and why?
Wai Keung-Hui: Unfortunately I have limited exposure to machinima, so cannot adequately assess the form.