Artist Plans To Ship Self Cross Country With Only LotRO For Company

A performance artist wants to only play Lord of the Rings Online as he’s being shipped across the country in a crate.

Lord of the Rings Online is certainly a popular MMO, but is it a good enough game to help an artist study how people suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder deal with the world? One man believes it is, and he’s planning ship himself across the United States with the game as his latest piece of performance/video art.

Jordan Long is having himself shipped – in a crate (pictured here), no less – from Bald Knob, AR to Portland, OR. His only contact with the outside world during this time will be via Lord of the Rings Online. According to Long, this art project is to study “trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and claims that he has found that many who are confined to their homes due to such trauma tend to find their escape in the form of online games such as LotRO where they can ‘enter and exit whenever they choose, be whoever they want to be and feel like functioning members of society again.'”

I’m not sure I entirely buy the idea behind this project. That said, Long’s catalogue of work definitely sits on the farther side of the abstract spectrum, so such endeavors probably aren’t going to resonate with everyone. What about you? Do you think this is a serious piece of artistic exploration, a pretentious exercise in absurdity, or something that falls somewhere in between?

Source: Jordan Wayne Long via Massively