In Solitaire Alone Together, Nolen Royalty (eieio.games) transforms the beloved computer game that shipped with the 90s Windows operating system into a multi-player experience. Upon entering the website, visitors can play a game of Solitaire and watch strangers play in real time, but no interaction is possible. The work creates a tension that juxtaposes 90s-era optimism about a networked world with the reality of today’s isolating online experience. Behind Solitaire Alone Together’s ludic and nostalgic interface, Nolen Royalty comments upon the loss of the internet’s initial promise, and materializes our current state of social life online: everyone is superficially connected, but behind the screen, we are alone.
Nolen Royalty is a Brooklyn based internet artist and experimental game designer working under the name eieio.games. His playful, massively multiplayer websites, among them One Million Checkboxes, the Global Capslock Key, and Every UUID Dot Com, have drawn millions of strangers into shared experiments in collective behavior. His practice is driven by a simple conviction that the internet can still be fun.