By Mathew Kumar

There is a beautiful quote about Myfawny Ashmore’s art installation, Mario Battle No. 1. You may or may not be familiar with the piece. The first level of Super Mario Brothers is hacked to remove all game objects other than Mario, leaving nothing but the ground he walks on. You, as the player, are left to interact with his almost completely featureless world and take Mario for a walk. The beauty lies here -
“Near the beginning of the level, Myfanwy intentionally left a single prize block embedded into the ground, making it inaccessible. She told me she had seen several people become obsessed with this block. These people would stand on the gold, flashy treasure until they died.”- Ludonauts
However, unsettling observations on materialism in the face of impending death and the pointlessness of our existence are not the only possible ruminations on offer at Controller: Artists Crack the Game Code, InterAccess’ exhibition of the works of artists currently working in the field of video game modification.
Other artists include RSG (Alexander Galloway), whose work features heavily glitching copies of Tony Hawk’s Underground 2, and Anita Fontaine and Yumi-co’s CuteXdoom, which ‘explores modern cultures’ addiction to cuteness’. The show starts 7pm tonight at the InterAccess Media Arts Centre (9 Ossington) and runs until March 25th.