MY DOOM WORLD – Hannu Leimu

I am a visual artist from Kokkola and a full member of the Finnish Painters’ Association (born in 1969).

The art exhibition I am presenting at Galleria Poriginal, My Doom World, explores the world of video games through the eyes of a father. I started playing the computer game Doom in my thirties, at the end of the 90s. I had never played electronic games before and initially saw them as a pointless waste of time. However, after being persuaded for a long time by my wife’s brother, I finally gave in and tried playing Doom II, immediately getting hooked. The first playthrough lasted about two hours, with my armpits soaking in sweat. The game’s inherent sense of immorality initially felt a bit unsettling, but it quickly turned into a playful adventure. Worlds that I had never experienced before opened before my eyes, and the emotional charge was overwhelming—like dreams visible while awake.

In the works of this exhibition, which are large oil paintings, I take the everyday characters of my family and have them wander through a Doom-like world. I do not copy the game scenes exactly but instead allow spontaneous creativity to shape the vistas in such a way that it feels like I have dreamt the game myself. The imaginative backgrounds to our everyday characters create an illusion of another reality, like a film. I have aimed for a refined aesthetic in my works to facilitate stepping into the world of Doom.

The exhibition reflects on questions such as: What is the impact of virtual worlds on the human mind? As technology advances rapidly, what can we expect in the future? Can virtual worlds continue to erode the already disappearing sense of community? Do harsh video games diminish our minds’ empathetic side? Or do human minds need the violent behavior offered by games as a kind of safety valve? In other words, is violent behavior simply a survival mechanism shaped by evolution, like the mating battles of animals?

Translated with ChatGPT