Brothers

Brothers is an electrical installation that stages an encounter between two networked Nintendo Entertainment Systems. When one brother dies, the other one jumps. Asymmetry in the two systems—whether electrical, material, or durational—produces emergent patterns as each plumber leapfrogs according to the thanatopic assistance of the other. The slowly oscillating death drive of two suicidal automata recast Conway’s Game of Life (1970) as a Game of Death. Without the player, there is still play and without life, there is still a game. The rhythm, dynamics, and emergent phenomena of the platform produce forms of nonhuman play.