Everyone needs a little place to
go. Dracula¹s coffin, the turtle¹s shell, the Bat
Cave, the dugout, the backyard bomb shelter, the confessional,
the back seat of a Maybach, the driver¹s seat of an Aston
Martin V12 Vanquish , the orgasmatron, the deprivation chamber,
the discrete apartment you¹ve rented for your mistress.
On the one hand, Delinquency Chamber
is simply another precision-engineered, soundproofed, air-filtered,
fully customized place to go ¬ with state-of-the art media
and video game components, a fridge of Stolly and Bud, a bong
and full safety features from first aid to oxygen mask to
fire extinguisher to shotgun.
But like so many other private
spaces, DC is also a temple of art, a fully-loaded personal
chapel. And it has one purpose: to afford its owner the opportunity
to commune with the greatest artwork on the open market ¬
Grand Theft Auto.
GTA is Tolstoy¹s ³War
and Peace² to the National Enquirer of any other game
out there. Whether judged simply by the length and required
skill of gameplay or by deeper aesthetics: the possibilities
to fatten up your character by eating hamburgers, the narrative
freedom to go on a cop killing rampage, the stellar range
of licensed music from Hank Williams to James brown, or the
pitch-perfect balance of fantasy and violence, humor and realism
such as picking up a prostitute, being serviced by her to
up your health level, then beating her to death and taking
back your money. The irrefutable fact is that no other game
creates a world of such imaginary power for the player.
Whether you¹re on foot, in
a pick-up, a taxi or a helicopter, you¹re transported,
blown away, given an out of body experience when you play
GTA. How much art today can even pretend to that?
But because it¹s a game, because
it¹s only 50 bucks, because it¹s hands-on, because
it¹s controversial to people who don¹t know how
to play it and don¹t understand it, GTA needed something
to show the deep reverence I and millions of other players
have for it.
The awesome complexity of GTA required
a place of contemplation, reverence and isolation to do it
justice. And in just the way the Greeks and the Aztecs used
their temples for narcotic frenzy, I wanted to give the person
who steps into Delinquency Chamber the necessary resources
for altered states.
In another era, Sylvester Stallone
said ³Rambo isn¹t violent. Rambo is a philanthropist.²
It¹s a perfect expression of how the dumb and the profound
always sit side by side. The philanthropist, the patron, the
collector, the person who pays for the temple, understands
that it is a mistake to trivialize or try to ban the urges,
instincts, skills and fantasies that are part of human nature.
The real danger today comes from
a lack of generosity, from people who refuse to accept that
21st century American male delinquency needs its own temples.
I¹ve just made a small place for that delinquency to
go.
Tom Sachs, December 2004
