I’ve made a new game. It’s called Solitaire Alone Together. It’s Windows 98 solitaire, but you can play with everyone else on the internet.
It looks something like this.
solitaire is so much harder than I remembered.
I made Solitaire Alone Together for Rhizome’s 30th anniversary. It’s going to be displayed in a physical gallery, which is a first for me! It’ll be shown with the work of a bunch of other internet artists that I admire. I’m very excited about it.
The exhibition opens September 21st and runs for one week - see websites websites websites for details.
Why’d I make this
A quick heads up: I’m about to do the worst AND most vulnerable thing in the world, which is to make a statement about why I made this piece instead of letting you bring your own meaning to it. I’m so, so sorry. Feel free to close this tab.
Since Rhizome is celebrating its 30th anniversary, I wanted to make a piece that captured something about the web that existed back when Rhizome was founded and also the web that exists now. I’d describe the early web as optimistic and messy and the current web as exciting, lonely, and omnipresent.
So: on Solitaire Alone Together you can watch other people play and move their mouse around and make mistakes. But you can’t talk to those players or otherwise interact with them. It’s more social than solitaire was 30 years ago, but it’s also a little lonely.
Anyway. I hope you enjoy it.