Max Payne Cheats Only is a compilation of ten video loops of JODI playing the computer game Max Payne (2001).

The artists do not play to win but instead to break the illusion of reality by revealing a series of absurd perspectives and effects. The videos start with the entry of a cheat code, and then focus on the points in the game where the logic and/or visuals break down.

Max Payne is a third-person shooter in which the protagonist is a policeman seeking revenge for the deaths of his wife and daughter. Game play revolves around 'bullet-time', in which time is slowed down to the extent that bullets can be watched as they travel through space.

'Cheats' are official or unofficial codes that can be entered into a computer game to alter its behaviour. In general these codes are designed to help players complete the game. The 'cheats' performed by JODI in Max Payne Cheats Only do not further the game's narrative, but rather offer pleasure in revealing the ludicrous, fragile way in which reality is constructed and cheated in this virtual environment.

Internet provocateurs JODI pioneered Web art in the mid-1990s.

Based in The Netherlands, JODI (Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans) were among the fi rst artists to investigate and subvert conventions of the internet, computer programs, and video and computer games.

Radically disrupting the very language of these systems, including interfaces, commands, errors and code, JODI stages extreme digital interventions that destabilise the relationship between computer technology and its users. Their controversial performances have been discussed in The New York Times, El Pais, Britannica, Wired, Berliner Zeitung, Le Monde, Haaretz, Flash Art and in numerous other newspapers, magazines, television and radio shows around the world.

Their work has been shown at the Lentos Museum of Modern Art, Linz; ICC, Tokyo; Postmasters Gallery, New York; Manifesta, Frankfurt; Austrian Cultural Forum, New York; Valencia Biennial; and the Generali Foundation, Vienna. They received the Jerome Commission from the Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis and an Honorary Mention from Ars Electronica, Linz.

They are among the youngest artists to ever participate in the Venice Biennial. (Bio courtesy of Rhizome.org -http:// rhizome.org/object.rhiz?32877)