Untitled Street Legal
JODI's Untitled Street Legalis a work of experimental machinima—a gameplay-generated movie—set within the open-world 3D racing game Street Legal. The principle effect is something one might happen upon if sitting on the videogame controller: as player's vehicle sharply turns, accelerates, and brakes at the same time, it creates a theoretically perfect spiral while generating skidmarks upon the virtual terrain. And yet the pattern is interrupted by the appearance of computer-controlled additional traffic with which the vehicle awkwardly collides, interrupting and altering the trajectory of the digital donuts. The result is analogous to the structural tradition of avant-garde film, only one in which the result of perfectly executed instructions is thwarted by the inherent vice of randomly-generated digital incident inscribed within the game's code. In addition to the pure, hypnotic visual pleasure the piece provides (alongside the incessant screech of tires), Untitled offers playful speculation on determination and chance within uncanny virtual worlds.
