Each of the icons above represent an incarnation of "Taja", one of my online identities, in the different games I have played. Click on the icon to enter the screenshot gallery for each game.

Screenshotting and Photography:
I began documenting my MMORPG experience when playing Star Wars Galaxies using screen captures of the game, more commonly called screenshots. This is an already established in-game tool. By pushing one button, the software automatically saves a still image to a designated folder. This gave me the ability to revisit the places I had traveled to in-game and not have to actually be in the game. New levels or accomplishments, taking pictures of other players, and having a visual record of something unique and interesting were all among the reasons for me to screenshot. When I moved on to EverQuest2, I began to document my experiences again, using the same “snapshot" approach as in Star Wars Galaxies. My first character had over 2,000 screenshots taken in under four months. At the time, I worked at a photo lab and made a habit of saving these images to CD and printing them out just as anyone would do for their regular photos. The similarities of the real-world photos to the screenshot ones were becoming more evident to me. Screenshots became like my own brand of photography, but the association with fine art had not occurred to me yet, and so I explored other ways to express myself before it would evolve into that.
The connection between screenshotting and art struck me when I saw the work of Hasan Elahi. Much like the purpose of my video game screenshots, he documents every aspect of his life to expose the condition of being a Bangladeshi-born American in a post-9/11 world. This caught my attention because it made me realize that the content of a single image did not have to be complex in order to make a statement as long as it is channeled in a clear direction.

Virtual "Happenings"
Being able to justify screenshots as photography was only the first step in coming to terms with the immense potential of how gaming culture bears many parallels to real-world expression. My further immersion into the hardcore raiding environment reinforced the fact that every action within the game was something which could be transformed into art. Traveling to a distant land was no longer necessary for me to be able to create work; everything I needed was in front of me. Making arrangements with my online friends and guildmates, I recorded and photographed their characters. Many were very open to the idea, and I proceeded with the knowledge that this was equivalent to portraiture, performance art, and even fashion in the real world. This went beyond photography. "Logging in" or starting up a video game could be comparable to stepping onto the stage of a theater. One assumes the role of fighter, healer, scout, bard, or any other class that is offered within the world he or she chooses to be a part of. Everyone works together to accomplish a shared goal just as actors do in their performances. As my guildmates and I prepared to battle each monster, I made mental references to the Happenings art movement in the late 1950s and thought about how raiding was not so different from that. The art space was virtual instead of physical. Attendees were human beings scattered around the globe instead of localized participants and onlookers in crowded cities gathered in the real world. Just as with the artists in the 1950s, there were planned elements; we all had the same in-game goal: to kill the same virtual monster, but how it happened and other aspects were improvised. We would kill the same monster every week, but no two raids were ever the same. Occasionally, crowds would form within the game to watch us take down a difficult monster in their world.
The virtual environment I used in my screenshots was not one I had created, but the art and theories of Marcel Duchamp and Richard Prince had paved the way for reappropriation long before me. Actions and decisions made by players in a game are entirely up to them as long as it falls within the constraints of the software coding. Even though I was appropriating the virtual architecture and character models, the choices I made in appearance, armor, and actions were all mine and those of my subjects. It was no different than photographing a person in a real-world environment wearing clothing that the photographer did not create. In essence, we were all co-inhabitants of a virtual environment with both real humans and programmed robots in virtual bodies. A world that was only accessible through my own robot: my computer.

Exerpt from Dimensions of Identity by Alice F. Kramer