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Authors: Michael Olson
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serious injuries. The fire was all just special effects. He’d hired some guys from the Madagascar Institute to teach him how to rig them.” Madagascar is a Brooklyn-based collective known for staging wild bashes involving flamethrowers, pyrotechnics, and rocket-powered carnival rides. “But needless to say, that was the one and only performance of Billy’s hell house.”
“Not afraid to set fire to a crowded theater.”
“Yeah, he has a pretty aggressive attitude toward your First Amendment. Toward his audiences too. The guy goes around saying, ‘Art, like games, must have something at stake.’ You can see why, even here, people find him hard to take. But I have to credit the little blighter. He set himself the task of creating real fear in the most contrived setting. People come to a haunted house knowing that you’re going to try to scare them. It’s easy to get a yelp when you have someone in a funny wig jump out at them. But then they’re laughing about it the next second.”
“But no one was laughing after this.”
“More like hyperventilating. Billy was really able to jar us out of our role as ‘fake’ victims. The way he’d built the context helped. Prominent fire code warnings posted at the building’s entrance. He search-optimized a news story to appear just under the links to our ticketing website so almost everyone would read the headline ‘Ninety-six die in Rhode Island concert blaze,’ before they came to the show.” She shakes her head in admiration.
“With all that in our subconscious, his artificial fire shattered our superficial suspension of disbelief and made us actually believe we were about to die. That, for him, is the Bleed, the moment when the imaginary becomes shockingly real. When you and your persona fuse.”
“People must have gone crazy.”
“Across the board. One critic wrote that it was the most transformative artistic experience he’s had in years. Another coined the term ‘terrartist.’An audience member filed a suit asking ten million in damages for giving her PTSD.”
“Do all of his projects end in lawsuits?”
“I think he’d be disappointed otherwise. He believes litigation is America’s only authentic form of public discourse. If no one is suing you, you’re obviously not very interesting. He indemnified GAME against that little stunt, and we actually saw a marked increase in donations when news broke about the legal action. Seems supporting the arts is tedious, but defending them stirs the blood.”
Xan smiles at me and then steps back toward the hall. “Come along then. I’ll show you around.”
I’m impressed by the building’s size and scope. Along with the main gallery on the first floor is a performance space fit for an audience of over two hundred. The next three levels house studios, increasingly industrial in nature. There’s a state-of-the-art computer lab and a full-service metal shop bedecked with warning signs emphasizing the dangers of welding while under the influence of controlled substances. The fifth floor is divided into “collaborative spaces” that all seem to be padlocked, and the last two floors, Xan informs me, consist of garrets for those residents who need “accommodations suitable for alternative lifestyles.”
She adds, “But I’ll spare you the zoo tour. I’m sure the beasts are still asleep.”
Xan then takes me to find an office. Given the sort of work I need to do, I ask for one that’s fairly out of the way.
She says, “A cave dweller, are you? Well, we can give you one of the PODs, but—”
“PODs?”
“The work spaces in the Pit of Despair. Here, follow me.” We walk toward a small antique elevator. It descends creakily after Xan hits the button for the basement.
“I have to warn you,” she says, “your associates down here are a different breed. POD people, we call them. Not the most gregarious.”
We step out into an area that looks like the set of a grindhouse feature. It’s a
“Not afraid to set fire to a crowded theater.”
“Yeah, he has a pretty aggressive attitude toward your First Amendment. Toward his audiences too. The guy goes around saying, ‘Art, like games, must have something at stake.’ You can see why, even here, people find him hard to take. But I have to credit the little blighter. He set himself the task of creating real fear in the most contrived setting. People come to a haunted house knowing that you’re going to try to scare them. It’s easy to get a yelp when you have someone in a funny wig jump out at them. But then they’re laughing about it the next second.”
“But no one was laughing after this.”
“More like hyperventilating. Billy was really able to jar us out of our role as ‘fake’ victims. The way he’d built the context helped. Prominent fire code warnings posted at the building’s entrance. He search-optimized a news story to appear just under the links to our ticketing website so almost everyone would read the headline ‘Ninety-six die in Rhode Island concert blaze,’ before they came to the show.” She shakes her head in admiration.
“With all that in our subconscious, his artificial fire shattered our superficial suspension of disbelief and made us actually believe we were about to die. That, for him, is the Bleed, the moment when the imaginary becomes shockingly real. When you and your persona fuse.”
“People must have gone crazy.”
“Across the board. One critic wrote that it was the most transformative artistic experience he’s had in years. Another coined the term ‘terrartist.’An audience member filed a suit asking ten million in damages for giving her PTSD.”
“Do all of his projects end in lawsuits?”
“I think he’d be disappointed otherwise. He believes litigation is America’s only authentic form of public discourse. If no one is suing you, you’re obviously not very interesting. He indemnified GAME against that little stunt, and we actually saw a marked increase in donations when news broke about the legal action. Seems supporting the arts is tedious, but defending them stirs the blood.”
Xan smiles at me and then steps back toward the hall. “Come along then. I’ll show you around.”
I’m impressed by the building’s size and scope. Along with the main gallery on the first floor is a performance space fit for an audience of over two hundred. The next three levels house studios, increasingly industrial in nature. There’s a state-of-the-art computer lab and a full-service metal shop bedecked with warning signs emphasizing the dangers of welding while under the influence of controlled substances. The fifth floor is divided into “collaborative spaces” that all seem to be padlocked, and the last two floors, Xan informs me, consist of garrets for those residents who need “accommodations suitable for alternative lifestyles.”
She adds, “But I’ll spare you the zoo tour. I’m sure the beasts are still asleep.”
Xan then takes me to find an office. Given the sort of work I need to do, I ask for one that’s fairly out of the way.
She says, “A cave dweller, are you? Well, we can give you one of the PODs, but—”
“PODs?”
“The work spaces in the Pit of Despair. Here, follow me.” We walk toward a small antique elevator. It descends creakily after Xan hits the button for the basement.
“I have to warn you,” she says, “your associates down here are a different breed. POD people, we call them. Not the most gregarious.”
We step out into an area that looks like the set of a grindhouse feature. It’s a
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