I assume that server will be full nearly 24/7 with hundreds of people set to the "join when a spot is free" option. Not even worth bothering with. Very cool, though.

Okay, uh...

..why?

Consider mind = blown. This is an awesome project.

creepy...

"physical manifestation of nebulous kills"

Ah, artists.

Art students... :(

They should provide a live web-feed of the thing so if you're on it you can put the game in a window and watch blood spurt whenever you kill.

Urge to fire up Steam rising....

@enspik: seriously? You can't figure out what he's getting at?

epic fail......well their artists they must not have something better to do i guess. i don't need some art shit to show me what real blood looks like and besides it wouldn't work for my cs i have the extreme blood mods on LOL.

Being an art student who loves videogames thats pretty wicked... wish they had a live feed though to see it in live action as it bleeds while gamers play.

@vicmasterinc: you are the most impressive troll I have seen all day. congratulations.

um, that thing would run out of blood pretty quick.

His gallery will be flooded by tomorrow...

That's an awesome idea for a piece of art! Major kudos to whoever devised the concept!

I really dislike modern "art." The ability to bullshit well does not make you an artist (a lawyer yes, an artist no). Even Dali had skill, this is only "worthwhile" because of the explanation that the "artist" gave it.

On the other hand, that wall is going to run red with blood now that Kotaku picked up the story.

@vicmasterinc: Yea, to hell with people expressing themselves using (abstract) art. Who needs 'em.

Asshole.

"shoot a stream of blood"?????
according to the pic - more like a dribble...

A little pink liquid dribbling down a wall is hardly the same as "it shoots a stream of 'blood' across the wall."

I was hoping for an entire wall completely coated in red within the first hour.

Totaly great! i love it, if i weren't at work i'd be trying to get on the server right now. although now that it's on kotaku that server will probably be full 24/7

@Seanchaen: Uhg. I dont personally get anything from modern art, but you cant classify what is and isn't art. Seems like alot of you are quickly bashing artists but will also freak out when someone says games are not art. It's all perspective people.

Sigh internet hypocrisy is killing me.

i love interactive art.

also they need to set this up on a Ban Monday.

I've always had this had this running stereotype that artsy people are weird... this just confirmed it.

So basically, all the fake blood will be empty in... say...

3 hrs?

@Brine: I think that's a press shot. But dunno.

thanks riley harmon!!! your exhibit gave me aids!!!1!1

@Brine: Haha, that was my hope as well. This still looks pretty cool though. Also a very interesting concept. I love weird approaches to art that show actual thought and work are put into them. I'm glad it's not some shallow political statement like a cage with the word "freedom" on it or something like that. Well done.

@vicmasterinc: Wow. I suppose it was a waste of half my college career to study Art History then. Good thing I have another major as back-up.

Where is Roger Ebert's opinion when we need it?

@Seanchaen: "Even" Dali? C'mon now... his moustache alone is art at it's finest! :D

I was really hoping, when I read the title, that this was going to be a biofeedback mod compatible with CS. Now I see that it's just a crappy "installation" exhibit.

Here are some tips to make this exhibit cool:

1) Make the thing squirt blood on passers-by
2) Set up a kiosk in front of the thing that is connected to the server. The "art" could then spray the player with blood.
3) set up multiple "instances" of this thing each with a kiosk detailed in #2 and then have a LAN party.

hey hey, no dissing on art students. I'm one myself. I think the idea is great. Although I'm not a fan of the whole "non violence" move people are trying to get out of games. But it's a great idea as a art piece. If I had CS, I'd join up on the server for sure.

liquid_kore wins.

@Candlejack: Well, you look for inspiration where ever you find it. As long as you create works that move emotions, that's fine. I just can't stomach urinals as art and shit like that.

This just in: After this news post, the wall has official been completely painted red. The artist contemplates refilling it with fake green blood, for a more festive fragfest.

@Edge of Blade: Yes but I can't understand how someone can bash art in general. You don't need to love or even understand it to realize the importance it has for many people's lives.

I don't get it. Maybe I'm just not "artistic" enough.

Still, interesting concept...

Okay, so... um, can anyone actually get connected? I'm not getting any response from the IP.

@Mark Wilson: Watch the video on the linked site.

If u guys didn't notice there is a video of this thing in action...look [rileyharmon.com]

Oh man, this looks really neat. It's a shame his artist's statement just gets across the basic idea and not a whole lot more.

hmm this is kind of interesting if you think of it as an archive or database. i'm a bit torn on the content; i like how the actual mechanism is so aesthetically removed from the action of shooting someone in the game, but not so sure about the overt medical references the bloodletting mechanism seems to take on. it's sort of begging the question.

I couldn't see very well in the video, but the paint on that wall looks like its about to give. Whoever was playing that day must've scored pretty high.

I don't really get how this is "expressing" anything. My farts are more expressive than this. All he's succeeding in doing is pissing off the downstairs neighbors.

It's not that it's unimpressive; in fact, it's very cool. But I'm not sure as I'd hold it in high enough regard to consider it "expressive art".

I don't know...maybe someone should explain this to me.

That's cool! I'm going after class with my laptop to see it work.

You want fries with that?

... O______O That makes me feel... paranoid.

This was going to be my excuse to play some source while it's slow at work. Waah

Some people here bemoan "modern art" but it's been this bad for centuries. It's formal or high art that's the culprit if you ask me. It becomes an abstract "weirder than thou" exclusive club for artists and art critics - I guess a bit like video gaming to someone who doesn't play or plays casually.

I think "art" is something designed to elicit emotional response, which encompasses probably most artifacts mankind makes at some level. This one on the other hand is a slightly intriguing idea that ultimately leaves me going "pfft." I guess that emotion would be cynicism? It doesn't say anything, it just takes elements that have been contextually conditioned into us as shocking and places them in a place where they'll be seen. OMG! Video games are spilling (fake) real blood! ...because someone built a weird apparatus to do so.

If I did this, maybe I'd set up a little LAN party room, make it mist the shooter's face when they get a kill, then show video feeds of their reactions as they progress. This alone feels like 5% neat idea and 95% wasted effort and materials though.

@JohnnytheFuture: "I suppose it was a waste of half my college career to study Art History then."

Nah, I'm sure you can get a great job as an Art History teacher.

If I suicide on the server over and over, does that skew the results of the project by disconnecting the correlation between the amount of blood and the number of "kills"?

Now if only you could paint a picture with your kills on a server. I'd love a painting of my failure in playing a fps.

I could call this random work of win as art and become famous with skinny model chicks to hang on both arms as champagne falls from the sky and money flows like water.

Wondered when this would get wide-notice.

I've seen the setup in person, and it's pretty twisted. Certainly a different sort of message than the standard Video Game violence is bad fodder.

To those who don't "get it": Data visualization is a big trend in current art. It takes the idea that art can help us view life from a different perspective and applies it to the massive amounts of data we can have streaming at us thanks to current technology. We can measure, quantify and extrapolate all kinds of information that wasn't possible even 10 years ago. Finding creative and interactive ways to display this data is hot right now.

I like this piece. It takes the notion that killing people in video games is abstract and meaningless because it takes place in a virtual environment and grounds the experience in the real world. It takes the data from a game and realizes it in the physical world. I like how the blood runs down the wall and on to the floor. You can imagine the pool getting larger and larger, causing people to have to walk around it or even through it. Clever concept, pretty good execution.

"Players who would like to participate in the exhibit can do so by using the command "connect 129.15.76.103:27015" in CS."

Um, maybe I'm missing the point, but isn't this just encouraging people to participate in the very action this art piece is ostensibly speaking out against?

Thank god this is a CS tie in, and not a hentai game.

Blood I can handle. BLOOD ONLY.

Awesome idea, watch the video, it makes more sense. The only thing that would have made it cooler is if it used real blood from Iraqi insurgents or even dead GIs, although that would that might be a little over the top.

@RickBarrs: You just gave me a great idea...

What's the point of this?

I'm pretty sure if that was a gungame server the place would be flash flooded by now..

omfg that so cool :D make me want to kill more >:}

@Tybee: I personally think it intensifies the point the piece. The point that people WANT to see the blood.

@fuchikoma: I do think it could be a bit more like what you said with the "blood" or kool-aid misting onto a player as he/she sits down to kill. *Boom* player kills the other side and gets a face full of red... or have patrons wear a white t-shirt and the spray goes into the shirt

Instead of the blood trickling straight down the wall, maybe it should've been divided into two and going at an angle with a monitor that is showing the action in the middle:
Team 1 = / / / / .[MONITOR]. Team 2 = \ \ \ \
so it squirts more blood on the side that looses and at an angle to create something a bit more visually appealing.

This would show the connection between the two worlds and not just the audio and blood. Not everyone will be able to tell what's going on with sound effects alone.