‘The technology of the ’90s, including innovations in 3D graphics and affordable storage in the form of CD-ROMs, opened doors for a new generation of video game innovators. One of them was Kenji Eno.

‘Eno’s games became known for their singular creativity, though they never managed to land major commercial success. But that was all part of what kept Eno going and inspired his fervent work ethic and indie-first mindset.

‘“Eno’s work serves as a lesson in overcoming hardship,” says John Andersen, a writer and video game historian. “Eno’s point-of-view was: Forget about the societal norms that you believe are blocking you. Bring your creativity out of the shadows and into the world.”

‘I have always found it fascinating that someone can be “ahead of their time.” In his two decades making games, Eno certainly proved to fit the bill. Nowadays, it is common to find walking simulators like Firewatch and What Remains of Edith Finch that position the narrative first—cinematic-driven experiences that zero in on oddity rather than rogue-like difficulty. Eno was first to explore this now accepted game design aesthetic. Still, his best-known game, D, is barely a footnote in video game history. Perhaps if he had been producing D today, the game and his work might have found even wider acceptance.

‘On March 1, 1994, Eno founded Warp, a game studio that would go on to produce his most recognized work. The studio was every bit a startup, with a limited staff and resources that would influence which platforms the studio focused development on. A few years before the original PlayStation launched and quickly dominated the marketplace, Tripp Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts, left to start the 3DO Company. Among its largest feats was the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, a 32-bit gaming console at the cutting edge with its use of CD technology and 3D polygonal graphics. Eno was attracted to how affordable it was to develop for the console. Using the 3DO’s technical capabilities, he aimed to develop an ambitious filmic game experience that would become 1995’s D.

‘At a time when “survival horror” was still months—or, in Resident Evil’s case, a year—away, Warp published the game. The story follows Laura Harris as she investigates a hospital after her father has a psychotic break, resulting in a mass-murdering spree (with a controversial side of cannibalism).

‘The game plays a bit like Myst. Every move the player makes is matched on screen with dramatic cinematic sequences. Coupled with an extremely ominous and moody soundtrack composed by Eno himself, D was a commercial success at the time, selling a million copies in its native Japan and becoming a system seller on the 3DO. In the States, it became a cult classic, launching Eno’s name into the stratosphere of the gaming public.

‘“What I respected most about Eno was that he wanted a better working environment for Japanese game developers,” Andersen says. “He had seen how American game developers operated in the early-to-mid 1990s; he wanted the same environment for Japanese game developers.”

‘While American developers like John Romero and John Carmack of id Software stepped into the spotlight, speaking out for their games openly and with definable charisma, Japanese game companies were highly structured and culturally devoid of interaction with their audience. Japanese developers seldom looked past their current projects and treated each game as work to be done, moving on without any participation in the title’s marketing or publicity. Eno wanted Japanese developers to be more like rockstars. “He was a very outspoken guy, which is why he chose to strike out on his own.” …

‘During his last years, Eno endured a period of creative wanderlust, his artistic drive extending across multiple mediums, including writing a children’s book called Dear Son and the proposed founding of a school dedicated to the arts and entertainment media. Until his death on February 20, 2013, due to heart failure at the age of 42, he never stopped working. Katsutoshi Eguchi, a developer and composer at Warp, told Gamasutra: “He went to America about two days before he died. As soon he touched back down in Japan, he went to his office to work. He didn’t even go home on weekends; he just worked straight through. He never rested.”

‘Eno left a unique mark on gaming, one that is frequently eclipsed by the efforts of more popular game developers, even though his oeuvre is held close and remembered affectionately by a devoted fanbase of hardcore gamers. “He was able to plant seeds in people’s minds, to get them thinking,” Harmon muses. Should you happen to experience one of his games, you too might fathom the full extent of his vision.’ — Michael Seidlinger, Wired (read the entirety)

 

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Stills

 

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Further

Kenji Eno @ Wikipedia
KE @ Giant Bomb
Kenji Eno Broke New Ground for Video Games
Remembering Kenji Eno
Kenji Eno Passed Away, But His Friends Are Making His Last Game
THE NEGLECTED HISTORY OF VIDEOGAMES FOR THE BLIND
Kenji Eno: Reclusive Japanese Game Creator Breaks His Silence
Memories of Kenji Eno
The Elusive Kenji Eno Speaks!
D – Kenji Eno’s Breakthrough Horror-fest
BitSummit’s Tribute To Kenji Eno
The “D Trilogy” Was Weird, Wild, and Truly One-of-a-Kind
Interview with Kenji Eno

 

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Extras

Kenji Eno Who Dreamed in 3-D

Trolling Sony, Tricking the ESRB, and Horror Games: A Kenji Eno Story

One Man & His Machine

Kenji Eno promote D2 for SEGA Dreamcast on TGS ’99

 

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Interview

 

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Games

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Time Zone, 1991

 

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Panic Restaurant, 1992
‘Known in Japan as Wanpaku Kokkun no Gourmet World (“Panic Kokkun’s Gourmet World”), Panic Restaurant is the brainchild of the late Kenji Eno, the eccentric musician/game designer behind the D survival horror series. Don’t expect anything so avant-garde here, though. Panic Restaurant is about as basic as 8-bit side-scrollers get, relying almost entirely on its quirky theme and vivid cartoon graphics to make an impression. The player controls an elderly chef named Cookie on a quest to reclaim his stolen restaurant from scheming rival Ohdove (an unfortunate mangling of “hors d’oeuvre”). Cookie’s expressive sprite art and animations make him a likable protagonist. I appreciate Ohdove, too. He’s a scrawny weirdo with that manic Waluigi energy.’ — collaxx

 

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Sunman, 1992
‘EIM would also be contracted by Sunsoft to create a Superman video game for the NES. However, due to conflicts with design, the game was cancelled. Sunsoft then asked the company to create another superhero based gamed entitled Sun Man. While the game was never officially released, a seemingly complete version would resurface on the Internet many years later.’ — collaxxx

 

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Flopon: The Space Mutant, 1994
”The First game Kenji Eno made for the 3DO was a puzzle game called “Flopon The Space Mutant”. It was a huge hit in Japan and as a promo for the Playstation version ( Flopon P ) there was even a TV game show where contestants played the game against each other for prizes. There was a rap song based on the game ( The Flopon Rap ) and dolls, t-shirts, pillow cases, bed sheets….you name it. At the time, you probably couldn’t go anywhere in Japan without seeing the mascot Flopon (the character with the bat wings) on billboards, store windows etc.’ — LightningBoy

 

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Trip’d, 1995
‘Unlike “Tetris”, “Columns” and other similar puzzle games, “Trip’D” has a unique twist in which you form 4 eggs in a square and create a alien creature. You then need to get 4 or more of the same egg to make contact with each other to get rid of the alien. In doing so, you get a bonus of extra points or the removal of 1 or more layers of eggs that start forming at the bottom of the screen. As with all games of this type, if the eggs get to the top of the screen, it’s GAME OVER!. This makes for some interesting strategy espeacially when playing against another person. You can make layers of eggs drop down on your enemy or make aliens drop down on your enemy. When your enemy gets rid of the aliens that you drop, it makes more eggs drop down on him/her. This might sound simple, but it’s not.’ — LightningBoy

 

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Oyaji Hunter Mahjong, 1995
‘Our story begins as a high school girl walks home alone at night, only to be assaulted by a pervert who flashes her with his camera and begs for her underwear. Then he flashes himself, revealing he’s wearing nothing but pink teddy bear panties. Clearly in a pinch, she calls for the Oyaji Hunter! Alright, so to get this in the right order: the pervert is tazed, then Hunter flies in from miles away and punches him to the ground. I’m not sure how he shocked him from a mile away, but I have to admit he’s good at stopping an attack in progress. The best part of all these scenes is the obviously forced segue into mahjong.’ — kusoge.cafe

 

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D, 1995
‘D‘s premise is very simple. The player is given two hours real time to navigate the castle, solve puzzles, and locate Richter. Much like the classic Dragon’s Lair, you’re simply pressing directional buttons to move Laura around, and hitting a button to make her interact with the environment or examine her inventory. If you get to a puzzle that has you stumped, Laura can consult her mystical compact for clues. However, you can only do this three times before the compact mirror shatters and becomes useless for the rest of the game.

‘While dated by today’s standards, D earned a great deal of attention back in the 90’s for it’s slick pre-rendered presentation, moody and omniprescent atmosphere, and it’s somewhat gory subject matter for the time. Indeed, Kenji was concerned that the game wouldn’t be published in the US as a result, and came up with a rather devious scheme to ensure it would see the light of day Stateside. During it’s initial development, there was no narrative attached to the project. The story was created in secret, and most of the WARP staff wasn’t even aware it existed. When everything was finished, Eno submitted this ‘clean’ version of the game for approval. Since he had submitted the master discs late, he would have to hand deliver the final product to the US manufacturers if he wanted it published. This was all part of Kenji’s plan. While on the plane bound for America, Kenji channeled the spirit of Folger’s coffee commercials, and switched out the ‘clean’ version with the complete copy. As a result, Kenji was able to completely bypass the censors. Clever girl.

‘While D made little impact in the States (much in part to the 3DO’s low user base at the time,) it was well received in Japan. So much that WARP would produce a “Director’s Cut” of the game in 1998, featuring new footage, interviews, and all kinds of neat goodies. However, Acclaim took a liking to WARP’s little creation, and offered to publish the game for Sony and Sega’s 32-bit systems, as well as PC’s running Microsoft Windows and DOS. This helped D gain more exposure in the US and Europe, and led to even more sales for Eno and his crew. However, this move would result in Eno having a huge fallout with Sony and it’s Playstation brand.’ — The Pigeon Coop

 

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Short Warp, 1996
‘Another Japan only WARP release was one of their most bizarre yet. Short WARP was a series of eight crazy mini games. And I do mean crazy. Take a look at the vid above if you don’t believe me. And get this: inside every copy of the 10,000 hand numbered units produced, Kenji Eno was gracious enough to include a very special WARP condom. Yep…a condom. No dumb art books or soundtracks. Just pure protected sexual bliss. What a guy!’ — The Pigeon Coop

 

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Real Sound: Kaze no Regret, 1997
‘Real Sound: Kaze no Regret (“The Wind’s Regret”) is an audio game released for the Sega Saturn by Japanese studio WARP, Inc. and directed and produced by the company’s founder Kenji Eno. The game was released on June 15, 1997. The game was re-released for the Dreamcast in 1999 with a visual mode that included pictures and photos to accompany the story, but this version of the game also relies entirely upon sound and audio cues for gameplay.

‘The game came as a result of contact that Eno had with blind and visually impaired fans of WARP games. Eno was fascinated that the visually impaired would be fans of his games. He thought his games were very visually rich. He even went so far as to contact some of these fans to find out how they played his games if they could not see the games. As a result Eno decided to make a game that would be audio only, with no graphics at all.

‘Real Sound: Kaze no Regret was a very large influence on further games from Kenji Eno and WARP, Inc. Games that came afterward from the company would take gameplay elements from Real Sound. Enemy Zero featured invisible enemies that could only be through sound. D2, also from WARP, included parts of the game where the player’s character was rendered blind and the player must rely on sound, following a voice to get through the game. D2 also featured a sequence where the character was rendered deaf.’ — Giant Bomb

 

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Enemy Zero, 1998
‘Enemy Zero was originally planned to be a PlayStation-exclusive game, however designer and founder of Warp, Kenji Eno took a strong dislike to Sony’s manufacturing process, failing to prioritise copies of his previous game, D. Though Acclaim, D had amassed roughly 100,000 pre-orders, however Sony only produced 28,000 copies of the game in time for release.

‘This friction led to one of the most interesting headlines of 1996, in which during a backroom conference at the 1996 PlayStation Expo promoting a game with strong public backing from Sony, a PlayStation logo at the end of an Enemy Zero morphed into a Sega Saturn one, with Eno proceeding to jump on a stuffed MuuMuu from the Sony-published PlayStation Jumping Flash!.

‘Following this incident, all Warp-published games became Sega exclusives, starting with this game and continuing with both the Saturn and Dreamcast versions of Real Sound: Kaze no Regret and finally D-2 (the studio being closed shortly afterwards).’ — segaretro

 

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D2, 1999
‘D2 is arguably the weirdest game in Eno’s exceptionally strange trilogy and only takes the series to more insane places. This is a title where during one boss fight a giant pigeon will swoop in to momentarily eat your enemy’s entrails. There’s also lots of validation for tentacle porn fetishists in this game and it really earns its MA rating, so proceed with the proper amount of caution.

‘D2 was originally planned to take the series back to its roots at Panasonic for their new M2 console, the cancelled follow-up to the 3DO. D2 drastically changed when it headed over to the Dreamcast (although a trailer for the original game for the M2 version was still shown at 1997’s Tokyo Game Show and can be found hidden away in the Japanese release of D2). Eno also continued his streak with weird marketing in order to publicize the game, like when he simply held a celebration for the arrival of the cherry blossom rather than feature any game demos.

‘There are echoes of both of Eno’s first two games in this title (Kimberly from Enemy Zero even sticks around), even though this game once again tells a totally new story with a new version of Laura. If Enemy Zero is Kenji Eno riffing on the Alien franchise, then D2 is his tribute to The Thing and fellow body horror classics.’ — Bloody Disgusting

 

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You, Me, and the Cubes, 2009
‘A little background info- the concept, design, and music of You, Me and the Cubes are all by Kenji Eno, the creator of the some of the most interesting games on the Dreamcast and Sega Saturn. He’s also a well renowned Sony-hater, is rumored to suffer from mental illness, and hasn’t released a game on a home console in over nine years. You, Me and the Cubes marks Eno’s triumphant return to the gaming scene, and what a weird triumph it is.

‘The game can be enjoyed on many levels. Some will see it as just a 1 or 2 player puzzle game, others will see it as a creepy take on the afterlife, still others will view it as a opportunity for run-of-the-mill sadism on a big cloudy cube. Personally, I see it as a game about parenting, and how scary and awful that responsibility can be. Regardless of what you make of the game, it is unquestionably unique and well made. It’s not all greatness. There are a few parts of the game that are downright ugly, but for the most part, You, Me and the Cubes is an elegant work of art.’ — Destructoid

 

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Kakexun, ?
‘Kenji Eno, the famed Japanese developer behind such esoteric titles as D, D2, Enemy Zero, and You, Me and the Cubes may have passed away in February 2013 at age 42, but the brilliant and eccentric game designer wasn’t going to let that stop his final project, Kakexun, from seeing the light of day.

‘Instead, his developer colleagues decided to carry on his work to the best of their abilities. Kakexun launched a crowdfunding campaign earlier this year where it raised ¥5,486,300 (about £30K / $47K) for an alpha, and now it’s launched an Indiegogo campaign in the west to see the the game through to its beta.

‘The Kakexun project was initially launched by chief director Kazutoshi Iida, creative director Naoya Sato, and the producer Katsutoshi Eguchi. As one would expect of Eno’s work, Kakexun sounds weird. Really weird.’ — Eurogamer

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David, Hi. Huh, the Ken Russell thing, wow. I avoid dentists like the plague until I’m, like, screaming in pain. But then it’s like no big deal. ‘Vivarium’, no, I don’t know it. But of course I’ll investigate. I don’t think I’ve ever screamed in my whole life. I’ve always thought screaming is one of those things that nobody ever actually does. ** Misanthrope, I’ve never owned gun either, duh. Oh, wait, when my dad died he left me a bunch of stuff including some ceremonial gun he was given when he was the President of the Junior Chamber of Commerce. I don’t know if it works. It doesn’t look like it does, but then … Alex Baldwin. Bowling! I love bowling. Haven’t gone bowling in ages. Do you know (or care) that there’s a bowling alley right underneath the Arc de Triomphe? Zac accidentally discovered that recently. It has a semi-secret entrance. I think we’re gonna bowl there. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Me too, big time! Yes, my yesterday love had a good soul. I don’t know where it came from, ha ha. Oh, hm, I guess I would ask your love to give me that Candy Machine gun, and thank you in theory. Speaking of yesterday, here’s today’s love who has found himself alone in a room with the cutest, most heterosexual boy he has ever seen, G. ** Sypha, ‘Darjeeling Limited’ would be in the lower rungs of my Anderson list. If the movie rights to your brother’s novel are ever purchased, the intended movie would need to have a 300 million dollar budget, I reckon. ** _Black_Acrylic, I shot a rifle at a shooting range as a teenager once. Otherwise, the only other times I’ve seen a real gun is twice, once pointed at my face when I accidentally wandered into a robbery at a 7-11, and the other time pointed at my head again as a teenager when a guy I picked up hitchhiking kidnapped me and my parents’ car and forced me to take him and his friends on a 10 hour, drug-fuelled joyride. Irvine wrote a TV series? Oh, the hellish doomed ARTE TV series thing … it got adapted (by Zac and me) into a film script which Gisele is supposedly shopping around. ** L@rst, Cool that you’re on board about ‘Fargo’. Like the Coens films too. I don’t I’ve ever disliked one, and several are killer. Man, do try to stick to the no smoking thing if you can. Well, I mean duh. Quitting is so fucking hard. I don’t even want to try again. But, man, huge, huge boon if you can do it. ** David Ehrenstein, Ah, excellent add. Everyone, Mr. E added to the guns post yesterday by linking us all up to a film by the great Jonas Mekas called ‘Guns of the Trees’ (1961). I similarly recommend its excellence. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. I really don’t anticipate writing non-fiction again. And writing about Bresson would be the last thing that would tempt me back. That’s way, way too hard an assignment for me. Everyone, Steve has a new song that you can hear: ‘Altamira’. ** Brian, Hey, Brian. Ghosting is one of the worst weapons people can use, up there with guns in a weird way. Like committing suicide out of spite for someone but without the death part. Or something. Anyway, you’ll live and well. Gotcha on the leaving so soon thing. And, yeah, no doubt it’ll all crystallise when it’s memory/fodder. I like ‘Trial of Joan of Arc’, obviously, but, yeah, it’s not one you would point Bresson novices at. ‘American Psycho’ is a great novel. It gets a lot of uncalled for poop, as do Bret’s other books, but it’s really something. I’ll watch ‘Titane’ this weekend for sure. It’s on deck, and I’ll let you know. Cookies and cake sound splendid, thank you. Maybe I’ll actually nudge your wished for Friday into being on my own. I hope your Friday sings ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ to you until you tell it, ‘Thank you but please stop now.’ ** Okay. I came across the article I use at the top of this post by Michael Seidlinger the other day, and it reminded me of what a wacky video game auteur and pioneer Kenji Eno was, and I thought I would plant his work in front of you and see what happened. See you tomorrow.

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Jessica Fenlon Ungun (2013)
‘6:36 animation, which is built of 4,000+ broken / glitch images of handguns, an observation of how gun talk “devolves into shouting matches that shatter social relationships.”’

 

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Andrew Ellis Johnson Rehearsal (2014)
‘Human ears, cast in marble, are plugged with live bullets that have not yet punctured the absence they flank, a silent emptiness that may represent incomprehension or denial, or those departed – whether by suicide or homicide. It consists of metal bookends, cast cultured marble, and live bullets, 5 x 5 x 4.625 inches.’

 

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Skylar Fein Kurt Cobong (2014)
Mossberg 500 shotgun, bong, tape

 

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Mel Chin Cross for the Unforgiven (2012)
‘A Maltese cross of the Crusades, made from eight AK-47s, the international symbol of resistance to the West.’

Arthur (2014)
‘This is a Looking (down the barrel) Portrait of infamous killer mobster, Arthur Flegenheimer, AKA “Dutch Schultz”. Historical criminals like him, with their guns and larger than life notorious behavior, contribute much to the American fascination with guns, violence, and gangster attitude. The barrels of two .38 Caliber Colt “Specials” form the empty deadly eyes while the grips of the guns emerge from the back of the head. The guns are locked in this portrait of concrete, a commentary how guns are embedded deep and dense in the head of our own culture.’

 

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Adam Zaretsky Gene Gun (2007)
‘In the Transgenic Orange Pheasant project, Adam Zaretsky proposes in a letter to His Royal Highness Prince Willem-Alexander to create a “Royal Dutch Transgenic Breeding Facility at the Gorleaus Laboratory in the University of Leiden. These orange pheasants could be intended for the royal hunt. In this installation, four images of transgenic pheasants are shown, alongside a genegun, shotgun, the letter to His Royal Highness Prince Willem-Alexander and two videos.’

 

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Daniel Joseph Martinez George and Daniel in an insane world … (2012)
‘It’ is an anonymous hand that fires a gun to the head of visual artist Daniel Joseph Martinez (Los Angeles, 1957). It’s a huge hyper-realistic photo which carries the viewer to a stereotyped violent world: Colombia, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan … However it’s none of these places. It’s anywhere. Maybe Los Angeles, maybe Tijuana…’

 

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Nikki Luna Play Ground (2016)
‘Philippines-based artist and activist Nikki Luna presents a series of cast resin lace sculptures, shaped from actual guns in past violent incidences. Their ghostly appearances act as shadows of the history, trauma, and prevailing issues surrounding culture and gender.’

 

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Liu Bolin Gun Rack (2013)
‘World renowned performance artist Liu Bolin, aka the Invisible Man, is back doing what he does best: disappearing into his environment. This time, the artist lends his body to be covered in paint in front of a wall mounted with artillery. The Gun Rack performance took place at Eli Klein Fine Art in New York, where Bolin was assisted by a team of four painters, camouflaging him into the background.’

 

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Jonathan Ferrara Excalibur No More (2014)
Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun, Colorado river rock.

 

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Renee Stout Baby’s First Gun (1998)
‘“Baby’s First Gun” by Renee Stout juxtaposes an archaic tin gun toy against a cookie-cut-out effigy of a smiling black girl in a pink dress, inside a white-washed wooden box. “Society prepares the crime, the criminal commits it,” reads a fortune cookie missive at the girl’s feet, its somber proclamation flanked by two little graphic smiley faces, whose expressions match that of the main figure.’

 

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Sander Leemans Shooting Gallery (2007)
‘The visitor shoots with a carnival rifle at the target in a container. Meanwhile the visitor is filmed from the other side and projected on a big screen above his/her head. The projection differs from the actual situation, it seems you’re shooting from behind a military roadblock. When shooting and hitting one of the targets the projection on the screen changes from the shooting visitor behind a roadblock to a short movie. The short movie corresponds with the target one hits. For instance, the helicopter target corresponds with a short movie of an exploding helicopter in Afghanistan, the farmer corresponds with a short sample of the infamous The Apache Killing Video, Buddha corresponds with the exploding Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan.’

 

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Luke Dubois Take a Bullet for the City (2014)
‘Dubois’ Take a Bullet for the City was an installation which incorporated elements of sound, sculpture, and data visualization. The installation consists of a Walther PPk 9mm hand gun, a steel plate, an engineered mechanism to operate the trigger of the gun, and a minicomputer to pull data from New Orleans Police Department. Over the course of the month the piece was installed, the gun would fire a blank on approximately a week delay every time the NOPD received a report of a firearm discharge.’

 

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Adam Mysock Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun (Last Judgment) After: Hans Memling’s “The Last Judgment” Triptych (c. late 1460s), Bambi’s mother from Disney’s ‘Bambi’ (2014)
‘Looking Down the Barrel of the Gun forces viewers to do just that (normally quite unadvisable) to see tiny paintings of heaven and hell by Hans Memling, and a drawing of Bambi’s mother, in reference to the artist’s first realization of the dangers of guns.’

The Last Six, Under Six, Murdered by a Gun in the Sixth (2014)
‘It is comprised of six bullet holes, within which there are six miniature portraits of the last six children under six killed by gun violence in the sixth police district of New Orleans, Louisiana.’

 

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Caroline Brisset Guns (2018)
steel, Corten steel

 

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Nicholas Varney Onegin (2014)
‘Onegin is named after the Alexander Pushkin book “Eugene Onegin,” which tells of a man whose life was led in the great glamour of the time in palace parties and languid to torrid love affairs. Onegin killed his best friend in an incident over a woman. The gun of cause transformed his life and gave birth to Tchaikovsky’s greatest opera. Juxtaposition is the key element to punctuating any precious stone. Set a diamond in wood and watch it become more striking as a result of the wood serving as its foil. The stone seems brighter and gains importance and a new dialogue begins.’

 

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Neil Alexander Growing Up in a Gun Culture, My Son (1996-2014)
‘I’ve been making portraits of my son Calder since the very moment he came into this world. Lifted from his mother’s womb and placed on the scale, his pediatric nurse took a measuring tape to him. Click went the shutter. The two images in this exhibition, taken eighteen years apart, are the only formal images I’ve ever made of him naked and the only two of him holding a gun.’

 

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Roy Lichtenstein Smoking Gun (1968)
‘A revamped version of an earlier work titled Pistol. It even features the exact same hand and gun. Lichtenstein replaced the print’s original red background with a blue background to create the perfect patriotic picture within the bright red borders of “TIME.” The positioning of gun to be aimed at the viewer is supposed to mimic Uncle Sam’s pointing finger in the famous WWI recruitment poster. “I Want You to Own a Gun!”’

 

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Papas Fritas Ladrillo Angular (2014)
‘Francisco Papas Fritas, the Chilean artist behind a controversial installation in which the dictator Augusto Pinochet dies “machine-gunned” by a hooded student, told Efe today that all his works “are a called to civil disobedience ”, but not to violence. “I think this is the only mechanism that can make rulers understand that citizens are the owners of their power and that they are where they are to manage our goods and our wealth,” said the artist.’

 

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Claes Oldenburg The Ray Gun Wing (1978)
‘The Ray Gun Wing has the shape of a ‘ray gun’, a laser weapon with its origins in science fiction. Visitors move through the space like a laser beam: The Ray Gun Wing is entered through an opening in the handle and can be exited through the barrel.’

 

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Peter Sarkisian Recoil (2014)
‘Referencing both Film Noir and still-life composition, Peter Sarkisian’s Recoil begins as a 1940’s surreal tableau, in which a gun rests with other objects on a floral pattern tablecloth. A cinematic element is revealed, as embroidered flowers on the tablecloth appear to flutter gently, then pull free and tumble into the gun barrel. More surface detail soon becomes caught in the suction and is drawn toward the gun; the figure of a man struggles while being dragged from the frame of a photograph; text is ripped from the pages of a book; an egg drains from a ceramic plate. Each element in turn disappears into the muzzle, leaving behind a blank diorama of lifeless grey props.’

 

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Thomas Lelu What’s up Doc? (2019)

 

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Tsuyoshi Ozawa Vegetable Weapon (2011)
‘”Vegetable Weapons” is a series of photographic portraits of young women holding weapons made from the vegetables needed to create recipes typical of their culture. The ingredients are then prepared as a meal to be shared between the artist and participants.’

 

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Pedro Reyes Return to Sender (2020)
‘“Return to Sender” presents three music boxes for which he has repurposed gun parts: Disarm Music Box (Glock/Mozart), Disarm Music Box (Beretta/Vivaldi), and Disarm Music Box (Karabiner/Matter). These new works perform fragments of tunes from composers from the countries where the guns were produced.’

 

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Gavin Turk Double Gold Pop Gun (2013)
Silkscreen and gold leaf on paper

 

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Emory Douglas Black Panther, June 27, 1970 (1970)
‘Emory Douglas was the Revolutionary Artist of the Black Panther Party and subsequently became its Minister of Culture, part of the national leadership. He created the overall design of the Black Panther, the Party’s weekly newspaper, and oversaw its layout and production until the Black Panthers disbanded in 1979–80. Throughout the ’60s and ’70s, Douglas made countless artworks, illustrations, and cartoons, which were reproduced in the paper and distributed as prints, posters, cards, and even sculptures. All of them utilized a straightforward graphic style and a vocabulary of images that would become synonymous with the Party and the issues it fought for.’

 

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David Cotterrell Prototype II (1998)
‘Sharing more in common with Maillardet’s Automaton than Apple’s G4, Cotterrell’s Prototype II is a mechanical device of finely honed gears, cogs and wheels made by the artist in the London workshops of the Society of Model and Experimental Engineers. Driving a crank at painfully slow speed, the machine cocks the guns, the muzzles of which face directly into one another. The machine’s slipping pulleys continuously spin the chambers until the cocking mechanism traps the chamber in preparation for firing. A complete cycle involving the cocking and subsequent firing of one blank round into the partnered revolver takes 5 minutes. The visual impact of two revolvers staring down their barrels at one another is both chilling and humorous: there is a certain sense of glee in watching a gun shoot one of its own. Essential to the piece is the time it requires of its audience. As the minutes creep past, we begin to feel jumpy. What will happen? Will the whole apparatus come crashing to the ground? Will it blow up and take us along with it? In order to know first hand, we must wait and while waiting, we are forced to look. The machinery is displayed on the exterior of its plinth, inviting study from its audience. Like the internal workings of a clock, Prototype II fascinates with its process: it becomes easy to focus on the movement of individual parts, forgetting that, somehow, these movements will all culminate in an act which is potentially lethal.’

 

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Lutz Bacher Firearms (2019)
‘The last completed artwork by the American artist Lutz Bacher (1943-2019), FIREARMS is a single work comprised of 58 framed pigment prints, each depicting a different model of gun taken from pages of a manual on gun repair and maintenance. Like a typology of arms, the prints show a direct profile portrait of each gun, together with its name, country of origin, manufacturer, cartridge size, magazine capacity, overall length, height, barrel length, and weight. A paragraph of text describes each gun’s design origin, key features, and history of use. Many guns were developed for the armies and police forces active in and around the First and Second World Wars; certain models are older and historical, others are descendants that evolved from earlier designs, and some are new, state-of-the-art models. They come from around the world-Italy, Great Britain, Austria, Japan, Switzerland, various parts of the Unites States, etc. Hung alphabetically by model name in a line-up around the gallery, the 58 plates reveal the conditions of these violent objects from the 20th Century, explaining in direct, matter-of-fact language the technology, craftsmanship, and use of these weapons in the contexts of warfare, police forces, sporting, self-defense, and as goods designed and proffered for international trade and personal collection.’

 

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Catharina van de Ven BRT-CFM (2016)
high polished bronze

 

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Robert Longo Body Hammer (1993)
‘large charcoal portraits of the most popular handguns at the time.’

 

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Constantine Zlatev The Candy Machine (2013 – 2016)
‘The Candy Machine was made by disabling a Winchester Model 94 rifle and taking advantage of its ingenious, once revolutionary, lever-action reloading mechanism. The idea for this art installation originates from the popular commodity vending machines, drawing a parallel between the accessibility & ubiquity of weapons today to the ease of procuring candy from a street side vending machine. The installation uses a crankshaft system with a small stepper motor to automate the Winchester ’94 receiver mechanism, which has been modified to work with specially designed candy capsules. The gun magazine can store 7 ‘candies’ and each time a token is dropped in, the mechanical receiver dispenses a candy in lieu of a bullet shell.’

 

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David Hess Gun Show (2019)
‘Four years ago, amid the daily headlines of mass shootings and gun violence, I began building an arsenal of 100 mock assault rifles. The pieces are placed on canvas tarps in rows and viewers are encouraged to walk between them. My mission is to integrate this arsenal into the mainstream public consciousness as a springboard for political and social dialogue.’

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David, I’ll check my local listings. Sounds great, nice. The Italian interview is kind of good, but, you know, there are a lot of English interviews with out there and more coming. The bank thing/mess seems to be over, amazingly. I’m free, I think. Yes, my sister is very nice. Our relationship is fraught, of course, but, yes, she’s nice for sure. You have sisters. What’s their scoop? You could offer that Nilsen victim’s body on one of the slave sites I search, and I think you’d get a lot of takers. Hope your post-bed stint was a charmer. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Well, the bank mess seems to be over! Hard to believe, but it seems so. Whoop! Ha ha, yeah, the covid wedding guy was the brother of my sister’s husband even. She’s okay. She was vaxed, so it was one of those mild-ish if actual bouts. It was a sneaky love, wasn’t it? I don’t remember why I felt so sneaky yesterday. Ha ha, aw, your innocent love was much sweeter. Love coming across your love’s sleeping date and having a dark night of the soul before somewhat reluctantly calling him an Uber and helping him into the back seat, G. ** Sypha, Well, there should be no ‘shoulds’ in this world, but I think you’d be A-okay with more Millhauser under your belt. Hoping for a story “better than the original” seems like an act of self-sabotage. That is a lot of story in your bro’s novel. My head is spinning just trying to keep track of the twists and turns, which could be a good thing. I like the Fenway Park turn. It’s so random. I like randomness. ** Bill, I think the letter did the trick, and thank you for being so thoughtful through this whole thing. Sci-fi art porn is definitely tricky to pull off. I can’ think of one. Back in the 80s, I co-wrote a sci-fi porn movie with a big gay porn director of the time called ‘Boys from Outer Space’ that never got made, which seems a blessing in retrospect, although it did have the makings of an inadvertent camp classic. Factrix! Very nice! ** David Ehrenstein, He is, yes, indeed! ** l@rst, Hey, big L! ‘Rushmore’ is a perfect movie, I agree. Another perfect movie that some friends and I were talking about last night is ‘Fargo’, at least by my reckoning. Millhauser’s great. I’d start with ‘Edwin Mullhouse’ if you haven’t read it. Big up via-a-vis Thursday. ** Misanthrope, Yep, l@rst came back, how cool is that? Unbelievably the Tax Board thing seems to have been completely resolved, I’m shocked. And waiting for the other shoe to fall, as my grandma used to say. Or maybe it was my mom. ** Brian, Howdy, Brian. Millhauser is wonderful. If you don’t mind tackling a whole novel, his ‘Edwin Mullhouse’ is a fucking classic. So sorry about the ghosting. What’s with people? His loss, not that that helps much. Oh, wow, you’re already almost heading the door? That was short, or, wow, it feels short, but time is … mysterious. I’m glad it’s mostly been fruitful. I bet there’s all kind of payoff you don’t even feel yet. ‘Lancelot’ was the first Bresson I saw, and it made my head and, well, the rest of me, explode on site. I’m so extremely happy to read you speak so passionately about Bresson. Objectively speaking, which isn’t possible, I know, I do think it’s possible that ‘Mouchette’ is his best film. It’s pretty unbelievable. I think I’m out of the Tax Board-destructed woods as of today. We’ll see, but I think so. Man oh man. I’m very curious about what I’ll think of ‘Titane’ too. It’s so divisive. I don’t know anyone who loved it. I know people who liked it pretty well. I do know people who really hated it. Yeah, curious. It would be a boon if you commenting here more often fits happily into your schedule, needless to say. But it’s all good. I hope you have an amazing today. ** Okay. I found some more guns and ‘guns’ for you. See you tomorrow.