WORLD/GAME

Screenshots

JOHN HADDOCK / 2001 / USA / CORTESÍA DE HOWARD HOUSE GALLERY, SEATTLE

“Screenshots” is a disquieting series of images that depict iconic media events. They picture both real events, such as the image of the “unknown hero” from the Tiananmen Square Protest, and fic- tional scenes drawn from movies such as “Twelve Angry Men.” Haddock's isometric drawings are rendered in the god-like perspective of a video game. These re-tellings of defining moments of twentieth century media culture seem to cast their subjects with new significance. The disorienting mix of familiarity and strangeness brings a new intimacy to the events. Haddock states, “On one level ‘Screenshots' is an attempt to come to terms with experience of violence that has made me who I am.” Despite the title “Screenshots,” a term for still images captured from within a videogame, Haddock's work is carefully drawn in Photoshop software. Where possible he uses documentary information; for example, extruding up from a plan of the Dallas Police Station garage for the design of “Lee and Jack.”