gamescenes

Game Art: Michiel Van Der Zanden's "Museum Killer" (2008)

Pwned Paintings # 2, 2008, Digital Video, 1:10 min. from Michiel van der Zanden on Vimeo.

"In my work I import the world of digital media into painting and vice versa, which often results in an assembly of ‘low’ and ‘high’ culture. I’m using images of digital entertainment, such as videogames and YouTube videos, or the 3D program Blender. These images are reproduced and reworked on the computer and used as a starting point (sketch) for my paintings.

For years I have been fascinated by the specific language of videogame graphics. For me the videogame is an ideal starting point, because I had already been working with traditional collages and the videogame in its essence, is a rather perspectivistic (photo-)collage.
Before, I used to extract images from existing games, nowadays I mostly use Blender 3D modeling software to build my own game worlds. Within these worlds of videogames, I’m looking for friction with the ‘real’ world: Behind my PC, I’m collecting screenshots (using the Print Screen button), much like a tourist or a reporter. On the other hand am I looking for game-elements in reality, so I make pictures or small notes with ideas derived from reality.
After that, I’ll often create a new setting or space, with one or more characters, events and/or objects. On top of that, I will try to break the videogame’s original intention: I will pause at a diner which is just used as scenery in a racing game…A machinegun from a game is exhibited in a military museum…A clown is closely guarded in a luxurious villa. But I also have a run with traditional painting techniques, such as portraits and landscapes. I will take elements out of a videogame and give them a new function and context. Murals from a videogame, become a 17th century “Trompe l'oeil” (a perspective optical illusion), or a soldier’s face, who’s face in the context of the videogame seems less important, is now portrayed attentively." (Michiel Van Der Zanden, 2009)

Link: Michiel Van Der Zanden (Thanks to Valentina Tanni)

Related: Tobias Bernstrup and Palle Torsson's "Museum Meltdown"

Related: Chris Reilly's "Everything I Do is Art, But Nothing I Do Makes Any Difference, Part II Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Gallery" (2006)

Event: "GaMe!" (DAM Gallery, Berlin, 2/2 - 3/24 2010)

 
Todd Deutsch, a.k.a. KillerJ00, 2005, C-print, 45,7 x 30,5 cm, edition of 15

As a part of Transmediale.10, DAM Gallery in Berlin has organized an exhibition titled “GaMe!” featuring six international artists working with videogames and electronic toys, The line-up includes France Cadet (France), Todd Deutsch (USA), Mark Essen, (USA), Joan Leandre (Spain), Jason Rohrer (USA), and Tale of Tales (Belgium). Todd Deutsch is known for his photos from LAN-parties, Tales and Tales for their existential art games and Joan Leandre for his videos of deconstructed videogames.

Text by Mathias Jansson.

Link: GaMe! (in German)

Related: GameFaces

Call for Machinima: Gallery Maskinen, Sweden (deadline: February 19 2010)

 
"CALL FOR MACHINIMA ENTRIES

GALLERY MASKINEN WOULD LIKE TO INVITE YOU TO SUBMIT YOUR

CONTRIBUTION TO PARTICIPATE IN A MACHINIMA SCREENING 

ON THE 2'ND OF MARCH 2010

Machinima is the use of real-time three-dimensional (3-D) graphics rendering engines to generate computer animation. The term also refers to works that incorporate this animation technique which includes videos recorded in computer games or virtual worlds.

Originally a practice that arose from the animated software introductions of the 1980´s demoscene, machinima is today a powerful artistic tool that promote the relationship between art and new technologies with the ability to reinterpret and re-code content from computer games and virtual worlds.

The machinima screening will take place the 2 March 2010 in HUMlab at the Umeå University in the northern part of Sweden. We are interested in any forms of machinima based work and you can contribute with as many works as you like. We prefer that you send the works, for example, via www.sendthisfile.com or www.yousendit.com to galleri.maskinen@gmail.com. If this is not possible DVD´s can be sent to:

Rasmus Albertsen

Glädjens Gränd 2, 0102

90363 Umeå

Sweden

DEADLINE FOR WORK(S) 19 February 2010

NOTIFICATION OF ACCEPTANCE OF WORK(S) 24 February 2010

The event will take place at the 2 March 2010 between 5 pm and 8 pm

Maskinen is an artist-run, non-profit gallery. Our ambition is to run an nontraditional gallery that doesn’t necessarily work inside ”The White Cube” and give place to lesser-exposed trends in the different forms of contemporary art. Established, as well as un-established artists are represented in Maskinen.

HUMlab at Umeå University is a vibrant meeting place for the humanities and information technology. A large and diverse studio environment serves as the most important manifestation of this basic idea which involves bringing people together, looking at information technology as tool, medium, study object, and activist venue, and doing things that have never been done before. 

HUMlab is localized at the very center of the campus, and attracts people from the whole university and from the outside. Many international visitors come to HUMlab, and there is often a number of simultaneous activities going on in the space. More info: http://www.humlab.umu.se/

The development of HUMlab has been supported by the Kempe Foundations, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation and others."

Thanks to Mathias Jansson

Link: Maskinen Gallery

Game Art: Benjamin Nuel's “Hotel” (2009)

HOTEL EPISODE UN from Benjamin Nuel on Vimeo.

French artist Benjamin Nuel's (b. 1981) new work is titled “Hotel”, a new machinima series inspired by the mechanics and aesthetics of first-person shooters. As Nuel explains on his website, the plot focuses on the so-called war on terror: “Terrorist and anti-terrorist - those archetypal figures of the current video war game - are both segregated in the bucolic and relaxing backdrop of a magnificent hotel. They are standing by, more or less idle.” (Nuel). The pilot shows a group of terrorists and armed forces sitting on the same parkbench doing basically nothing. There is no violence or blood: both the "good guys" and the "bad guys" are just waiting, relaxing and chilling out in the park. The first episode is available on Vimeo with more to come in the next few months. "Hotel" was presented at the New Cinema festival of Montreal and at the recent exhibition Gamerz 05.

Text by Mathias Jansson 

Link: Benjamin Nuel

Game Art: Caleb Larsen's "Simulacrum" (2005)

 
 
 

Caleb Larsen, "Simulacrum" (2005) - images courtesy of the artist

"The Sims is an off-the-shelf video game simulating life in all of its mundane glory. The player is required to micromanage the lives of his virtual people, or "Sims". He must instruct them to find jobs, eat, brush their teeth, watch television, use the rest room, and go through all of the real life banalities. The Sims are also able to form relationships with each other, fall in love, have babies, and die. Not only does the game alllow one to voyeuristically watch the lives and experiences of the simulated people, but also to control them.

Serious and playful at the same time, this project uses computers and consumer electronics as both the subject and the media. It relates not only to work done by Joseph Beuys, Alan Kaprow, and Tehching Hsieh in which they were exploring the art/life relationship, but it also looks at artificial intelligence, technological simulacrum, time usage, and personal endurance.
For this project I replicate, in the game, elements of my life, family, apartment, and neighborhood as closely as the game will allow. I create a character with a virtual life not unlike my own, and while my Sim advances his career, maintains his home, and develops personal relationships, mine all but stand still. Both the life of my Sim and my own life are put on display.
---
In June of 2005 this project was installed/performed in the Tjaden Gallery at Cornell University. For one week I played The Sims in the gallery from 9:00am to 4:30pm. The video was projected 16'x11' on the largest wall and I sat at a desk in the center of the gallery. During the exhibition I maintained a weblog of my Sim, documenting his life by posting screenshots and captions. The weblog serves to record the exhibition as well as provide a dimension of the piece that exists outside of the gallery." (Caleb Larsen)

Link: Caleb Larsen's "Simulacrum" (2005)

 

video: Gamerz 05

Courtesy of Eric Douglas Stanley.

Related

Event: Joseph Delappe' "gg hootenanny!

Media Artist Joseph DeLappe is launching the first ever internet-wide global gaming voicechat singalong, the gg hootenanny!, a day long festival featuring songs of freedom and protest in celebration of the release of his avatar, MGandhi Chakrabarti, from his nine-month imprisonment/durational reenactment in Second Life. This is a call for participation for all gamers and residents of online communities come together and sing!

Delappe writes:

"Plans for the big event are moving forward! I've decided to add two additional performances on the 26th of January. In order to allow Second Life residents in different time zones (Europe, Asia, etc.) there will be three performances over the course of the day - 10am, 6pm and 11pm SLT (Second Life Time which is the same as Pacific Daylight time).

I am also making arrangements for live streaming of video and sound from within Second Life for all three performances. Stay tuned to this blog for an eventual link and further information.

Scheduled performers so far include: The Beatles, Amy Winehouse, Pope Benedict XVI, Hello Kitty, Jim Morrison, Prince Charles, Spongebob Squarepants, Robert Smith (of the Cure), Wonder Woman and many more!" (Joseph Delappe)

Link: GG Hootenanny 

Game Art: GameBoyOne's 8-bit graffiti (2009)

 
 
 GameBoyOne's PhotoStream (2009) 

Link: GameBoyOne

Game Art: Federico Solmi's "Douche Bag City" (2009)

"Douche Bag City is the new video installation composed by 24 drawing animated videos. The main character Dick Richman is a greedy, dishonest, and selfish Wall Street employee who has been banished to live in Douche Bag City. Douche Bag City is a hopeless place, where the greedy villains of society are imprisoned for their atrocities committed against the community. There is neither hope nor escape from Douche Bag City; there are no exits and there is no chance for salvation, only punishment and torture. Douche Bag City prisoners are defenseless against the increasingly barbaric creatures and demons. Money, stocks, and wealth are meaningless. Federico Solmi's complex technique combines traditional hand drawn animation with digital models, utilizing computer gaming engines. The result is an absolutely unique hand-made texture within a real-time 3D framework, created in collaboration with his long time New Zealand collaborator, 3D artist Russell Lowe. Russell Lowe is a senior lecturer at New South Wales University in Sidney Australia."

Additional video here.

 
 
 
 
 
All images courtesy of the artist 

Link: Federico Solmi

Link: Blanca De La Torre on "Douce bag City" (essay)

Event: Tobias Bernstrup “Almost Human” (01/09 - 02/14, Andréhn-Schiptjenko gallery, Stockholm)

 Tobias Bernstrup, one of the early pioneers of  Game Art, is showing “Almost Human” at galleryAndréhn-Schiptjenko in Stockholm, Sweden, between January 9 - February 14.  Since the early Nineties Bernstrup has created artworks inspired by videogames such as “Museum Meltdown”, “Potsdamer Platz” and “XSEED 4000”. In the last few years. he has pushed the boundaries between the virtual and the real, mixing his real persona with virtual characters. “Almost Human” is an exhibition about our split persona daily shifting between human and avatar, between reality and virtuality.

“Tobias Bernstrup is one of Sweden’s most important performance and new media based artists being internationally active for more than a decade. He has constructed his own unmistakable performance persona in elaborate costumes in glossy latex and heavy make up during these years.  Almost Human will be his 2nd solo exhibition at the gallery. Through re-medialization Bernstrup addresses questions about identity and gender and the blurred border between the virtual and the real. He mixes classicism, gothic noir with video game aesthetics.” (Andréhn-Schiptjenko)

Text by Mathias Jansson

Link: "Almost Human"

Link: Tobias Bernstrup

Related: Interview with Palle Torsson, Tobias Bernstrup on Museum Meltdown