including fame and e.t....

unburying e.t....

E.T.: Uncovering the Legendary Buried Atari Games of New Mexico's Chihuahuan Desert

E.T. and other abandoned Atari games in New Mexico landfill

For years, everyone thought it was an urban legend. It sounds like one, after all; a company ashamed of their biggest failure yet, taking every copy left of the Atari game based on ET, driving into the New Mexico desert and burying them beneath the sand and concrete. There were even specifics: it all happened on September 22, 1983, and there were 13 truckloads of the game buried in a landfill in Alamogordo. A few people claimed to have found some scattered cartridges, swearing that it was true… But those unconfirmed reports are what makes for a great urban legend, aren't they?

The internet labelled ET the worst video game ever made, and it's been blamed for the fall of Atari. Steven Spielberg was unimpressed (although he'd given it his approval), and it came on the heels of another computer game from the same programmer, which was universally lauded: Raiders of the Lost Ark.

the buried Atari games became something of an urban legend

It wasn't until April of 2014 that curiosity seekers and fans alike finally uncovered the truth: the urban legend arising from E.T. was at least partially real. While it was claimed that millions of cartridges were buried in the desert landfill, only about 1,300 were ever found. A former Atari manager confirmed that in total, around 728,000 copies of various games that had been deposited there in the days before the original company was split up.

until the abandoned video games were rediscovered in 2014

The E.T. cartridges would later sell on eBay for $108,000. Others were kept in an archive, sent to various museums, and distributed to the film company that made the documentary Atari: Game Over, about tracking down the reality behind the urban legend. The money was divvied up between a local historical society and the City of Alamogordo… but what about the man behind one of the most notorious video games in history?

a trashed copy of Defender seen in the landfill

Howard Scott Warshaw was one of Atari's best programmers, which is why he was assigned the almost impossible task of creating E.T. in only five weeks. At 24-years-old, he was hand-picked for the job after Spielberg himself had proclaimed him to be nothing less than a genius. And so he was, but completing what was normally an eight-month project in five weeks was clearly asking the impossible.

E.T. and other buried Atari games sold for thousands on eBay

Despite the pressure, Warshaw did it, but, by Christmas, the bugs in the game were so evident that E.T. clearly wasn't going to be the hit Atari needed. The company declared losses of $310 million. Warshaw, who had been thrilled by the fact that he'd even been able to meet Atari's insane timetable, left the industry and went into real estate.

Disliking the property industry, he drifted back to the gaming industry and TV production. But eventually, in 2008, he went back to school to retrain as a psychotherapist, working with those in the industry that he'd started out in.

Warshaw was there when the desert finally gave up its valuable stockpile of retro video games. According to an interview he later gave to the BBC, he was thrilled to see the game he'd laboured on for five weeks generating so much excitement.

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e.t. pez dispenser...

e.t. pumping iron action figure...

Eating E.T. - Mock Alien BBQ...

What

Eating E.T. is a hands-on exploration of our intimate relations to other species, real and fictional. A life-size, gluten replica of E.T. The Extraterrestial, roasted whole on a spit and eaten together at festive social events, provokes discussions and questions on what is a stake in our practices of eating.

When

The first public barbecue took place May 26, 2014 at the Exploring the Animal Turn Symposium at the Pufendorf Institute in Lund, Sweden. The second barbecue happened at Foodycle, 5-6 September 2014 in Helsinki, where we also hosted a Mock Everything workshop in which the participants created their own mock meat creatures.

Why

Food and eating puts into play many levels of our human (and non-human) conditions, ranging from the geo-political, economical, and ecological to the social and intimately personal. From international horse-meat scandals to the vegan's alienation and disgust at the family Christmas dinner table. We all, experientially, relate to food and eating. We all need to feed. What would it feel like to eat an alien? How can we dearly love and grieve some non-human species while accepting the industrialised slaughter of others? How can we cater to the needs of eaters who seek a surrogate for the sacrificial and ritual aspects of convivial, meat-based, barbecues? What are our ethical responsibilities towards fictional organisms? This project is our headlong exploration of these questions - and other questions that we haven't thought of yet. Some of our reflections turned into a chapter in Exploring the Animal Turn.

How

The Barbecue at Pufendorf Institute Here are some more photos from the barbecue at Pufendorf Institute and preparations. The Barbecue and workshop at Foodycle More photos from the barbecue at Foodycle, behind the scenes, and Mock Everything workshop.

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ATARI E.T. as a virus

Mr. ET

painting e.t.

alien vs. predator

President Biafra