'q3apd' (Quake 3 Arena, Pure Data) was a project developed in 2003 by Steven Pickles (pix) and Julian Oliver (delire) to expose the events in a game of Quake3 Arena, whether multiplayer or otherwise, to external programs used by artists to the ends of making music, graphical art or controlling mechanical events.

q3apd has now been used by many artists and researchers in the creation of artwork and has been toured from Europe to America and Japan in game-based performances by Oliver. It was exhibited in an installation context at the LoveBytes Festival 2006, Sheffield, U.K for one month. Documented here is that version.

In the installation the movement, position, health, viewangle and item status of 4 software agents in combat was sent to the synthesis environment Pure Data and used to make an auralisation of activity in the arena: a musical re-presentation of the flows and gestures of artifical life in combat.