Now that Voyager and Inscape have stopped making artsy experiential software, De-Lux'o stands as the last bastion of CD-ROM entertainment for highbrow hipsters. Its latest disc, The Encyclopedia of Clamps, is like a carnival operated by Bill Gaines and B. F. Skinner. Its 38 rooms feature surreal delights such as the commie "pink-o-meter" test.
"Clamps was an opportunity to use the language of television to deliver sociopolitical satire," says Bill Barminksi, the 34-year-old Los Angeles artist who created the CD-ROM along with Scott Arundale, Jerry Hesketh (center), and Webster Lewin (near left). "That appeals to me, because who hasn�t grown up with that language?" De-Lux'o (www.deluxoland.com/) takes an unconventional approach to promotion, advertising in college newspapers, which Lewin calls "the cheapest print-media advertising out there." He could be onto something. After all, what sounds better: finishing a term paper, or poking holes in a virtual nest of whining, spiteful insects?
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