Reflecting on Ancient Blood Feud Traditions in a Contemporary Ego-Shooter Game.
Games have been traditionally considered a form of entertainment, although often they have been used as vehicles for cultural or political expression. Corridos, modeled on the US/Mexican frontier drug wars is one example. It has been presented in two New York neighborhoods as an open source game in 2005. In August 2004, Anne Marie Schleiner and her partner performed Velvet Strike, a military simulation game also in downtown New York. The following story, while it is also based on a socio-cultural idiom is grounded in an actual situation. A couple years ago in Albania our game stimulation workshop ‘Medieval Unreality’ has been aimed to alleviate the circumstances of real-life participants.
Being preoccupied with the present and perhaps the future, we tend to overlook the intersections between historical technologies and their use in distinct (frequently distant) cultures. The impact of some of this confluence is evident to this day in specific areas of the world such as northern Albania, where ancient customs and the fatal use of handguns lead to the deadly cycles of blood feuds. In the ‘Medieval Unreality’ workshop the ancient Albanian law of blood feud met with the contemporary form of the Ego-Shooter game ‘Unreal Tournament’. The game was used as a means for reflection within the larger project “E-mail from the Medieval Ages” initiated by a group of Albanian Activists.
Steeped in history, in Northern Albania, a picturesque yet extremely poor land, the practice of blood feud remains a considerable problem. Blood feuds are not unique to the barely accessible mountain towns and villages of northern Albania. Similar tribal practices have been recorded in other isolated societies of the Mediterranean or in the Northern Caucuses. The stories of vengeance relate to the historical Kanun of Lak Dukaghini (also known as Canon of Lek Dukagjin). The “Kanun”, a body of tribal laws practiced over thousands of years in the mountains of Albania and Kosovo, has been codified by Lak Dukaghini (1410-1481). Unwritten till the 19th century, the essential rules of every day existence in Albania, relating to property, marriage, criminal acts etc, were based on these traditional codes of law, transmitted from memory to memory until the nineteenth century when it was finally documented in writing. The Kanun is most significantly based on the code of personal honour, its importance is of overwhelming prominence to this day.
The communists claimed the elimination of the Kanun as one of the great achievements of their administration.
After the collapse of communism in 1989 the consequent loss of governmentally imposed structures and the emergence of market economy made many Albanians turn to their old covenants.
As a consequence the vendettas have re-appeared. These days, under the terror of death waiting outside, about 1500 families (including 800 children) have confined themselves within the four walls of their houses. In this confinement their experience lacks any future, which in turn generates feelings of hatred and revenge. A group of activists in Albania, including artists, lawyers, writers, and psychologists, seek to address this issue by finding ways to reach the families involved and assisting them to get out of the vicious circle of vengeance. They developed a project, which aims to build new communication channels through art via images, written and visual materials. The “E-mail from the Medieval Ages” project is considered to be a travel into the past, allowing the activist group to provide the affected families with new technology, to amend their present situation and to secure their future, side by side with the more developed parts of the country. Furthermore the use of these tools will clearly demonstrate how contemporary technology re-writes traditional culture.
Our workshop at the Cultural Center Lindart served to initiate the process of a media-supported reflection and exploration of the multifaceted implications of Albania’s blood feud problem.
The Cultural Center Lindart, has been established in 2001 by Eleni Laperi. From its very beginning, the Center has been noted for initiating first time, pioneering events, workshops and collaborative projects in Albania and beyond. “Dare to be different” the first comprehensive art exhibition by Balkan women artists in Fier (2001) and the digital story-telling workshop “Windows and Curtains”(2002) are two examples of Lindarts’s early activities. According to the Center’s mandate: The goals of all these projects are to initiate women artists from Albania for critical thinking, for confrontation with reality, tradition, rules, old fashion art, and to prepare them for direct discussion and direct activity in the private and public space, in the media of performance, situationistic performance, and other forms of public art activities.
In our workshop, the development of the game levels and the discourse on the blood feud happened simultaneously. The process of developing individual project concepts initially seemed to be traumatic for the participants and it became evident that Albanians, even distant from the feuds, remain very disturbed by these historical issues. The strategy of the workshop was to give good starting points and provide a sound learning approach to the Unreal Tournament editor, so that utmost effort can be devoted to the creative expression of thoughts. The initial level was a white platform; numerous bots could be loaded to demonstrate violent fights. On the platform there were a number of no-kill zones. These islands, where the player could not be killed, were abstract interpretations of the houses where the people affected by blood feud are hiding.
Four game maps were developed by the participants, each one of them reflecting the reality of blood feuds from a specifically chosen perspective. ‘Go with the hearth’ mapped the deadly endless cycles to the blood streams through the hearth. The combination of the external events and with the heart—our most important inner organ and center of the soul, that responds with pain to loss of family and close friends— resulted in an emotionally very touching game world, which was enhanced with beautiful images of the mountains in Northern Albania, the location of the blood feuds, and images of the some of the affected boys and mothers with kids. ‘Did you choose the right way?’ contrasts rational with emotional decisions and includes a third option that balances emotional and rational decisions.
The third option is presented as the way leading to heaven, but also this way through heaven is part of the vicious circle inherent in the game as well as the reality of blood feuds. The message created by this level relates to the fact that no instant relief of the whole situation is possible, but personal choices may lead to personal relief. The setting of ‘Fight for Freedom’ has the look of a medieval castle; stonewalls surround the different parts of this level, where the player gets confronted with the image of Lak Dukaghini, finds weapons, encounters massive numbers of malicious bots, and also finds health packs, but only to heal him- or herself to be able to start the game over again. ‘Face to Face’ uses pictures from Albania to make the houses and surroundings realistic looking night scenes. The visual realism is juxtaposed with a play on safety.
Some areas are safe, others are not safe at all and some are partially safe; it is up to the player to learn to navigate through the different zones. The map allows the experience of a true condition of men and boys affected by blood feud.
“Email from the Medieval Ages” is a long-term project. In the spring of 2004, representing the first stage of creative expression by the affected families, ninety-six disposable cameras were supplied to fifty-nine children, ranging from 6 to17 years of age, living in the North. When the children were asked to take photos of their everyday lives, they recorded images in their homes, gardens, animals, schools and themselves. Seeing the photos, one can realize that the children felt different about their lives when given the opportunity to use the cameras. Instead of others taking pictures of them or other subjects, they are the authors of their own images.
From the processed photographs, 165 and fifteen texts such as short stories, letters or poems were exhibited at Lindart in June of the same year, with plans of touring the show abroad and exhibit is first in Paris. The future of this project may take many forms in the years to come. Once computers and internet accesslines are secured, the project can continue again in the hope that technology will positively inscribe and change the culture of blood feud in Northern Albania.
