PROJECTS > My Life as a Sim (2005 - 2007)

It's Raining on Me
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
My Head in the Stars
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2011
Standing in My Stomach
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
Making Love to Spike
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
Two Moons
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
Waking Up Transparent
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
Headache
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
Making Love to Myself
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
Inside My Head
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
The Space Between Us
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
There's Nothing There to Get
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
Balancing Act
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
Infestation
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
The Golden Years
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
Watching Buffy Kill Her First Love
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
Trying Desperately to be Happy
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
Between the Pink Flamingos
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
Bonfire
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
Floating
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
Forgetting Randy
Inkjet print and screencapture from The Sims™
27" x 36"
2006
I'm a Fashionista (IRL, I Wear the Same Pants Everyday)
Video Loop
30 second clip of 5 minutes
2006
Life isn't bliss. Life is just this. It's living.
Video Loop
2:47 of 23:13 minutes
2007

My Life as a Sim (2005 - 2007)
This transmedia project uses the simulated-reality computer game The Sims 2™ as a medium in making art. In playing the game, I explore the multiplicity of meanings that can be made from a single cultural product. Each piece in the project is a work unto itself and also refers to the lived performance of playing the game.

My initial interest stemmed from the nature of the game, in which players pursue their own purposes and perform their own subjectivity by using their avatars (Sims) as an extensions of themselves. Gameplay becomes an ongoing negotiation of the self. There's no way to win the game, unless you perceive that you've won. Players don't all play for the same reasons or make the same meanings from the practice of playing.

Work from this project is contained in MP3: Volume II, the second installment of the Midwest Photographers Publication Project.