Game Art: foci + loci's "200 Keyholes v2" (2012)
foci + loci is Tamara Yadao and Chris Burke, a Brooklyn based game art duo. They have performed/exhibited at Babycastles, Diapason Gallery, Handmade Music at Culture Fix, Front Room Gallery, Secret Project Robot, The Stone, Game Play Festival 2011 at the Brick Theater, Postmasters Gallery and the Snug Harbor Cultural Center on Staten Island.
What do they do exactly? This is where it gets very, very interesting:
"Treating the map editors in video games as virtual sound stages, foci + loci create immersive electro-acoustic spaces with virtual instruments and timed audiovisual events. Saving and replaying digital game data, camera movement in space can be disassociated from time, changing traditional filmic relationships. We are interested in exploring the topological treatment of time and space afforded by game engines." (foci + loci, 2011, source)
The result is phenomenal. Their latest project, "200 Keyholes v2", is a machinima piece based on Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet. As Michael Nitsche wrote on Free Pixel (August 30 2012), foci + loci,
"[Use Little Big Planet 2 like a programming environment, coding bots, behaviors, objects, and sounds for their live performances. Those performances evolve from the pre-programmed LBP landscapes and whatever they add to them (either as player or – it seems – live editor)"
The hybrid nature of "200 Keyholes v2" - a game performance presented as a cinematic spectacle that is visually and acoustically plastic - is reinforced by the quotes used to describe/introduce the project. The first, about key holes, if from Michelangelo Antonioni. And the second, about the essence of simulation, is from Gonzalo Frasca. In a sense, these choices reflect the artists' own backgrounds and interests:
"Tamaraʼs experimentation with sculptural forms of sound-making in electroacoustic improvisation inform our construction of virtual instruments. Chrisʼs background in filmmaking and film theory lend context to the visual mediation of the environments we create." (foci + loci, 2011, source)
More samples of their work can be seen here:
I have not seen their live performances yet, but from what I heard from friends, they are quite stunning.foci + loci's interventions are not only unique, but aesthetically and conceptually different.
Is this the new Game Art avant-garde?
GameSetWatch certainly thought so.
LINKrelated: Game Play Festival
Submitted by Matteo Bittanti (via Michael Nitsche)