Mark Essen

• • Name: Mark Essen

  • Notable creations and work: Randy Balmas: Municipal Abortionist, Punishment, The Thrill of Combat, Flywrench, Scrap Collector

  • Born: 1988 ( 22 )

  • Died: Not Quite Yet

Biographical Summary

While not a game concept artist in the typical sense, Mark Essen is placing a direct assertation on the "art world" with the games he has been creating. He works as a solo artist, using games in a sense as the choice medium to deliver his art. Essen himself is a young artist, graduating from Bard College in 2008. He resided in New York, originally wanting to purchase and fix bikes to sell on Craigslist in the Hudson Valley area in New York City. The plan fell through quickly due to a lack of any productive work, and prior to being laid off from his tech job Essen found himself back with his parents in L.A. Quickly following again, Essen returned to New York in search of a second chance persay, living out of his backpack and hospitality of friends. For Essen this would all change upon his entrance into the New Museums "The Generational: Younger than Jesus" exhibition featuring fifty artist all under the age of 33. This momentous step took him from the grungy spaces of New York like the Light Industry and placed him in a position of momentous influence. This show not only would lay the pathway for Essen to achieve brevity with his work but would also shake the whole "art world" by introducing games as a higher form of art with relevance to trends within the ever progressive, and yet still transgressive, comteporary art scene. With the show in 2009, Essen is fresh and relevant, and by all means will be setting the foundations for transgressive media in the arts.

Work

Essens work is extreme in low fi quality with its visuals, something that is stunning, provacative, and beautiful in its own right. Essen would obtain a film and video degree from Bard, being surrounded by a multitude of experimental artist. This direct influence incroporated with his skill sets formed in low tech programming for cames would come together harmoniously to create the multitude of games he now has under his belt ranging from his pre college era to his present day situation. Essen in an interview with ArtCat goes on to say that it wasnt until a studio art class taken at Bard that he found the pertinance of games being that of a form of art, something that can evoke an experience, often unpleasent, in his audience. Much as Bacon controled his paint to envoke the viewers nervous system or of how the musician carefully crafts his music to reach a desired experience, Essen carefully constructs "cunningly frustrating game-play" that leaves his players with something they did not originally posses upon entrance into his crafted space. In an interview on his Younger than Jesus show at the New Museum, Essen spoke on the intrinsic negative aura of Randy Balma. He went on to say this about the first level, “You can play World of Warcraft for days, and you don’t leave with anything. Play mine, and you’ll leave with horrible memories, maybe.” Essen begins to look into the concepts of using game play to push forward visceral, image based narrative, while using the gallery as the settings of his experience. Time can only present the degree of sucess and the future that transgressive media has in the realm of "art" and the gallery setting.

Project

Scrap Collector:

"You collect scraps, build planes, shoot planes, and store scraps"

Randy Balma: Municipal Abortionist

"A surreal adventure. Contains flashing images which may cause photosensitive epileptic seizures."

You Found the Grappling Hook!:

"Trapped in a Cave."

Flywrench:

"Each manuever your ship performs changes its color. Match an obstacles color to pass through it."

Punishment:

"Try to climb to the top of the screen."

Bool:

"Translate Text."

The Thrill of Combat:

"You have quotas to meet. Use your helicopter to seek out donors and incapacitate them with your laser, then drop down and remove their organs."

Cowboyana:

"A two player simulation of the lives of cowboys."

References

• • Bulleted list. Be sure to make these links if they are to websites "You collect scrap, build planes, shoot planes, and store scraps," as Essen states so upfrontly.