Published by Mamax (Margarete Jahrmann and Max Moswitzer)1995, update: 1996
Prolific propagator of personal media art Mamax coined the new magic term "personal archeology" for its third interactive CD-ROM called GAMBLER after having created "the personal CD-ROM" (Golden Frisbee) and "the personal movie" (Tod dem Vernsehen). The subsequent media metaphor (after labyrinth, elevator, tunnel) is the gambler while the data flow that the gambler re-constructs, and re-arranges is the process of excavation of the antique town Ephesos famous of its Artemis-sanctuary and its native citizen Heracleit. The gambler can/should create his/her subjective database by re-organizing and renaming the random documentary fragments of the excavations-endlessly played video clips, photographs, ground-plans-divided in six epochs. This suffocating flow of images coupled with irritating repetitious music represents digital image production and art at which the mission of the gambler is to emancipate himself from the tyranny of images. To tell the truth, this virtual training ground, though more exciting than the subterranean levels of Quake,but it is more difficult to find our way in the theoretic labyrinth of its hieroglyphically encoded navigation.
