Meat Puppet Arcade

Matt Romein experiments with virtual copies of his own body. His is based on the penny-arcade games we know from fairgrounds – machines for pushing coins or grabbing teddy bears. But Romein’s installation goes a step further, allowing us to actually grab the maker by the collar. In his mini-games arcade, we find digital versions of three of these fairground game machines. In Romein’s version, the balls and coins have been replaced by lifelike 3-D scans of the artist’s naked body. In this digital form, he is able to assume the most impossible positions. At the controller, you can do whatever you like: make him jump, fall and tumble. This is a playful glimpse of the future, when not only our words and photos, but also our own endlessly reproducible bodies will roam around cyberspace. For now, every player can download a copy of Romein’s body as a prize – and then do with it as he or she pleases.