[Event] Eight Doom mods take over Onassis ONX on Nov. 10

The question at Onassis ONX on Tuesday, Nov. 10 is not "what is the best possible Doom" but "what can Doom be?" Sean Kennedy and Brian Droitcour have curated a one-night arcade of eight Doom II mods that subvert, examine and criticize the 1994 shooter, per the announcement. It runs 6 to 8 p.m. at 390 Broadway, and reservations are open.

The lineup reads like a syllabus for 30 years of modding as an art practice: Going Down by Cyriak Harris, the animator whose looping grotesques amount to a one-person genre; myHouse by Veddge, the 2023 map that turned a suburban interior into one of the decade's strangest ghost stories; Mr. Friendly by JP LeBreton, which takes the killing out entirely; The Doom Gallery by Chariot Rider; VAGRANCY by Simon Strider; ARLINGTON and Mindsweeper, both by Wallh4x; and Action Doom 2: Urban Brawl by Stephen Browning, Mike Watson and James Bauer.

The curators' framing treats Doom modding as what it is, one of the oldest continuous creative communities on the internet, passed from BBS uploads and FTP servers to a scene now making, in their words, "larger artistic gestures of meaning."

This is the second public Outland Game Night, the series Droitcour and Kennedy run on the idea that artists sharing games socially is itself a curatorial form, after October's night with Cosmo D.