If you think about a prototypical set for a talk show, you would probably imagine a static situation where the host and his guests are all comfortably seated and the conversation doesn't face any risks other than those connected to the violation of the turns of speech. However this imaginary is changed by This Spartan Life, a talk show, created by Chris Burke, staged inside the virtual Halo 2 game world. The host Damian Lacedaemonion and his guests try to develop a discourse on multimedia, from digital publishing to video editing, from videogames to experimental music, while running around trying not to get shot by interlopers. This is the problem with chatting in a first-person shooter videogame, where the other online players, connected to Xbox Live Mulptiplayer, don't understand the easy going behavior of this couple of characters and are ready to attack them. The host defends his confused guests with arms, but when the fight ends, as for every show, the entertainment begins: the Solid Golde Elite Dancers dance, choreographing the chiptune played by DJ Halo, that is 8bits collective musical contribution. If the typical adjustment of the scenes to the voices matches with the talk show, a format held by the rules of conversation, the science fiction setting clashes, making TSL an ironic and surreal visual experience, an interesting application of machinima technique.
Valentina Culatti