Best Flame War Ever - Eddo Stern
“Best Flamewar Ever” is a two-channel CG animated video by Eddo Stern that reacts a particularly vitriolic online forum conversation between two fans of the groundbreaking fantasy online massive multiplayer role-playing game (MMORPG) video game Everquest. Dual shifting, cluttered, faces made from an accretion of digital images of fantasy tropes recreate a mashup of the trash talk between the two men anonymously arguing with each other. As these two wall-sized mounds of flaming swords, cartoon dragons, dungeon doors, and poorly rendered scantily clad women try to one-up each other with insults and threats, they also start to reveal both pieces of their real lives outside of the online fantasy kingdoms, but also expose the tropes that bound and reinforce the sorts of toxic hyper-masculine behaviors that are increasingly propagated online; but the work also resonates with the broader tensions that come of the interface of digital worlds, online communications systems, and our personal relationships.
Artist: Eddo Stern
Link: https://eddostern.com/works/best-flamewar-ever/
References:
Salvador Dali - “Dark Game”
Laurel Halo - Dust