gamescenes

Art Game & Interview: Anne Fontaine's mobile Art Games

How it is, Tate Modern from Champagne Valentine on Vimeo.

Anita Fontaine's early Game Art experiments, the CuteXDoom series, left a mark in the history of this artform. Her project, developed in co-operation with Geoff Lillemon, is a mobile application that features a hidden game for the iPhone. The art game was designed for Miroslaw Balkas' exhibition “How it is” at the Turbine Hall at Tate Gallery in London. GameScenes discussed the project with Anita Fontaine [previously on GameScenes]:

GameScenes: These days, Game Art is going mobile... Can you describe your art game?

Anita Fontaine: We developed an app (and an online component) to complement the installation by Miroslaw Balka at the Tate Modern's turbine hall. Using a custom made "thumbpad" style joystick on the interface, app users can explore the 3d Balka world and tap to further investigate and trigger audio and visual content.  
 
GameScenes: There is also a secret game in the app which the user can unlock by visiting the exhibition...

Anita Fontaine: Yes, if you visit the installation at the Tate Modern additional game content is unlocked. We are really interested in exploring location based cinema and gameplay with apps.  
 
GameScenes: Are museums finally willing to embrace "new" technologies and tools such as mobile phones and videogames to augment and enhance their exhibitions?

Anita Fontaine: I think adding other digital layers to exhibitions and museum displays is a really good idea, either with apps, installations or engaging the audience with interactive elements like augmented reality. I think it allows an audience to delve deeper into the subject matter in a really fun way. Aside from our app for the Tate Modern I haven't seen a tonne of apps which are engaging the museum audience with mobile and gps technology. We are really interested in pioneering this. 
 
GameScenes: Nowadays, more and more artists are developing games and apps for mobile platforms. One recent example that comes to mind is Vanitas, created by the Belgian duo Tales of Tales. “Vanitas” was inspired by Flanders' still-life paintings from the sixteenth century. Is this just a trend or is it a brand new day for Game Art?
 
Anita Fontaine: I haven't played the Vanitas project but apps and game apps with an artistic edge are definately appealing. I am currently really enjoying, and trying to understand at the same time the surreal japanese game Noby Noby boy. I like these kind of conceptually challenging experiences the best. Hi how are you, a game inspired by Daniel Johnston is another cool example. Our project Ghostgarden is really exciting in this way as it gets people exploring real garden spaces seeking out cinematic content using a map on their iPhone. For each space we work with we develop a unique story and series of content.  

GameScenes: What about CuteXDoom?  
 
Anita Fontaine: The CuteXDoom series is a game mod and installation which we create for galleries as there are tactile elements to the install like wallpaper and sculpture. We are actually considering making an iPhone app version though for level 3 of the game, as soon as we have time!

“CuteXdoom II is a game- modification and installation which is the second installment in the artists' CuteXdoom videogame series. The modification hijacks the traditionally violent Unreal Tournament 3 technology to create a luscious and surreal gaming experience. CuteXdoom II continues to explore the themes of obsession and fanatical adherence to ideologies, but is a stand-alone narrative with a new mission. In the explanatory animation that starts the game, Sally Sanrio wakes up from her paroxysm to find herself in a familiar, yet changed, environment. Upon drinking a liquid nearby, she notices that the cute environment she once sought to enter is becoming increasingly strange and distorted. She realises that she has been poisoned. Once sweet characters now appear malevolent, predatory; the landscape becomes surreal and sinister, graphic forms are elegant, and almost cruel. In this altered state of perception she realises that the cult of CuteXDoom was not what she thought it would be, and that she must fight the effects of the poison to find the antidote and escape.” (Anita Fontaine)

CuteXDoom II has recently been exhibited  @ the Space Invaders exhibition at FACT gallery in Liverpool, UK.

text by Mathias Jansson

CuteXDoom II at Vimeo embeded 

Cutexdoom II from Anita Fontaine on Vimeo.

Link: Anita Fontaine

Exhibition Review: Game Over III @ Giant Robot, San Francisco (WIRED)

 
Silvio Porretta, "Play With Me" (2010) [WIRED]

Related: Game Over III

Exhibition Review: GaMe! at the [DAM] gallery in Berlin (We Make Money Not Art)

 

Todd Deutsch, a.k.a. KillerJ00, 2005

Related: GaMe!

Game Art: Tim Devine & "Onur Sonmez' "The Mexican Standoff" (2010) [update]

The Mexican Standoff - Medialab Prado Madrid workshop part 2 from onurson on Vimeo.

Link: Onur Sonmez

Link: Previous post 

Review: "Rez" by Cristiano Poian (NextGame.it)

 "Per leggere questo libro - si precisa nell'introduzione - occorre un iPod ben imbottito. La playlist da spararsi in cuffia chiama all'appello qualsiasi cosa di DJ Krush, del primo DJ Shadow, di Coldcut o Underworld. La raccomandazione non è un vezzo, ma stretta necessità: serve per comprendere più a fondo il concetto di dispositivo sinestetico in riferimento a Rez e la poetica tutta di Tezuya Mizuguchi. Per leggere questo libro, inoltre, non bisogna neppure possedere il gioco di UGA (United Game Artists) o dichiarare di averci giocato almeno una volta nella vita. "Posto di fronte a un videogame particolarmente avvincente, un giocatore viene colto da una voglia irrefrenabile, da un'urgenza insopprimibile, da una desiderio animale: strappare il controller dalle mani del malcapitato utente pehttp://www.typepad.com/site/blogs/6a00d83451ba1e69e2011570ffbafd970b/post/composer interagire in prima persona. […] Per un gamer, giocare in prima persona è una esigenza, non un'opzione. Giocare vuol dire porsi delle domande, pretendere delle risposte, leggere il testo che si sta dipanando sullo schermo. […] Rez è uno dei rari casi in cui ci può ritrovare a fissare uno schermo senza un controller tra le dita e senza porsi domande. A me è capitato". Il gameplay, in un videogioco come Rez, non conta proprio un beneamato: è sufficiente anche solo vederlo giocare da altri. È puramente una questione di spazio e cyberspazio, di tempo e di groove, di trance e neuroni, di arte visiva, di Kandisky (secondo i comunicati ufficiali di Sega – Il progetto originario portava il nome di Project K) e di spiritualità digitale applicata al viaggio più onirico possa esserci al mondo. Rez, in buona sostanza, come potentissima droga sintetica, mirabolante e innocua." (Lorenzo Antonelli, NetxGame.it)

Leggi: "Art is Rez-sistance" di Lorenzo Antonelli 

Acquista: Rez di Cristiano Poian

Event: "Game Play" Art & Videogames (Tate Britain, London, Friday 5 March 2010)

 
 Gaming culture takes over Tate Britain. From low-tech parlour games Charades and Werewolf, to performance and interactive media art with Blast Theory's Can You See Me Now? Plus talks from presenters of Resonance FM’s One Life Left Ste Curran and Simon Byron, and experimental music from David Toop and Unknown Devices: The Laptop Orchestra - it's all to play for.

A few highlights: 

Game Play: Can You See me Now? (Friday 5 March 2010, 18.30–21.30)

Artists' company Blast Theory has created a game happening simultaneously online and in the streets surrounding Tate Britain and Chelsea College of Art and Design. Players online and on the Manton Foyer computer terminals are chased by the Blast Theory runners, tracked by satellites on a virtual map. The audio stream from their walkie talkies allows you to eavesdrop on your pursuers: getting lost, cold and out of breath on the city streets.

Link: Can You See Me Now? @ Tate

Can You See Me Now? Tokyo from Blast Theory on Vimeo.

Video Games: design, narrative, gameplay (Friday 5 March 2010, 19.30–20.30)

How do game design, narrative and gameplay interact to make a successful video game? Ste Curran, game designer and Creative Director at Zoe Mode chairs a panel including, creator, writer and artist Charles Cecil, game critic Kieron Gillen and co-creator of Watchmen, Dave Gibbons

Link: Video Games: design, narrative, gameplay @ Tate

David Toop and Unknown Devices: The Laptop Orchestra (Friday 5 March 2010, 19.30–20.00; Friday 5 March 2010, 20.45–21.15)

David Toop and Unknown Devices: The Laptop Orchestra (London College of Communication) explore the dynamics, technical and interpersonal demands of group collaborations using digital audio tools and ‘unknown devices’, creating an improvisation using an unusual variety of instruments, noisemakers and gaming equipment.

Link: David Toop and Unknown Devices: The Laptop Orchestra @ Tate

Interview: Tobias Bernstrup and Palle Torsson by Jon Cates (2007)

"Make your own exhibitions. Examine it, rip it apart and learn from it and do copy it. Don´t forget that stealing is everything." from the Museum Meltdown arken.map README by Palle Torsson and Tobias Bernstrup (1996)

Tobias Bernstrup and Palle Torsson collaboratively created a series of Art Games in the form of Art Mods called Museum Meltdown from 1996 to 1999. these Art Mods are among the first of their kind, New Media Art interventions into the site of their own exhibition which utilize the possibilities presented by the First Person Shooter as a genre of games. i interviewed Bernstrup and Torsson in 2007 to discuss these Media Art Histories for an essay of mine called Running and Gunning in the Gallery: Art Mods, Art Institutions and the Artists that Destroy Them, which will appear in From Diversion to Subversion: Games, Play, and Twentieth-Century Art, edited by David Getsy. our discussion is both technical and conceptual, involving questions of Institutional Critique, site specificity and personal reflections of the often self-relfexive process of making museums meltdown... 

jonCates 
Chicago
2010

Q: how did you arrive @ the idea of developing the first instance of MUSEUM MELTDOWN in 1996 @ Arken Museum of Modern Art?
were there any previous works (artworks, levels, mods, etc) that particularly inspired or influenced you then in making the first MUSEUM MELTDOWN?

A: "At that time I was collaborating a lot with artist Palle Torsson. We met in art college and shared an interested for video computers performance and Internet. We did an early web based project 'Join Hands' in 1995. We both played a lot of computer games and was fascinated by the revolutionary game Doom and the possibilities of modifying the actual game. The initial idea of MM came while planning a new piece for a show at Arken MoMA, we went to see the museum space and were struck by similarities between the museum and a 3D shooter game. The museum interior had a lot of game like texture details such as fake metal panels and big sliding metal doors. So we came up with the idea of designing a game map based on the plan drawings and textures of the space. The in game artworks were to be reduced to low res pixelated images, working as recognizable symbols. The game engine we used was Duke Nukem 3D. Museum Meltdown 1 was followed by two more museum project until 1999 when Palle we did the a version of the Modern Museum in Stockholm based on the Half-Life graphical engine." - /tobias" (Jon Cates)

From "Running and Gunning in the Gallery: Art Mods, Art Institutions and the Artists that Destroy Them", included in From Diversion to Subversion: Games, Play, and Twentieth-Century Art, edited by David Getsy, in 2011. 

Read the full text here

Related

Event: Wafaa Bilal “Agent Intellect” (Jan 21 - April 5, 2010, The Helen Day Art Center, Stowe, Vermont).

"Wafaa Bilal: Agent Intellect" is the title of a new exhibition organized by The Helen Day Art Center located in Stowe, Vermont. The event focuses on Iraqi-American artist Wafaa Bilal ouevre. Among the artworks on display are “Domestic Tension” and “Virtual Jihad”, the most explicitly game-based pieces. For “Domestic Tension” Bilal locked himself up at FlatFile Gallery in Chicago and acted as a human target in a bizarre paintball game. Visitors on Bilal's homepage used a webcam mounted on a paintballand shot him for days. This performance was meant to draw attention to the ongoing troubles in Iraq, a country shattered by mass killings, terrorist attacks, snipers, and suicide bombers.

The installation also raises questions about the blurring between virtual and real violence. How far would users go on the internet? If they had stood face to face with Bilal in the gallery, would have they behaved in the same way? Domestic Tension was described by the author as a peculiar First-Person Shooter where virtual actions have real life consequences. The performance centered on suffering not through the display of emotions, but engaged people via a playful interactive video game.

The other piece in the “Agent Intellect” exhibition is “The Night of Bush Capturing: A Virtual Jihadi” (2008), based on the videogame “Quest for Saddam” (2004), which first was hacked by Al Qaeda supporters. Here, Saddam Hussein's virtual face was replaced President George W. Bush, but in Bilal’s third modification the artist himself played the role of a suicide bomber in the game.

His goal was to address the...

“...Vulnerability of Iraqi civilians to the travesties of the current war and racist generalizations and stereotypes as exhibited in games such as Quest for Saddam, along with vulnerability to recruitment by violent groups like Al Qaeda because of the U.S.'s failed strategy in securing Iraq. The work also aims to shed light on groups that traffic in crass and hateful stereotypes of Arab culture with games like Quest for Saddam and other media.” (Wafaa Bilal).

Link: Wafaa Bilal

Link: The Helen Day Art Center

Text by Mathias Jansson

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

Event: The Art History of Games conference (Atlanta, Feb. 4-6 2010)

 

"The Savannah College of Art and Design and the Georgia Institute of Technology Digital Media Program will host the first Art History of Games conference Feb. 4-6. The three-day public symposium will bring together experts in game studies, art history and related areas of cultural studies to investigate games as an art form. The conference will be held at the Woodruff Arts Center’s Rich Auditorium in midtown Atlanta, courtesy of the High Museum of Art.

Matthew Maloney, digital animator and associate dean for the SCAD School of Film, Digital Media and Performing Arts, described the Art History of Games conference as timely. “Games and art have connections going back to the early 20th century, but the subject is not very well explored," he said. "While there is much discussion on whether games are art, it is often limited to comparisons to Hollywood cinema rather than contemporary art. This symposium will provide a venue for artists, scholars and game developers to expand on games as a form of art as well as set the path for conversations going forward.” 

The conference offers attendees access to leading artists and academics in the gaming industry with panel discussions, presentations and Q&A sessions. Prominent game designers scheduled to speak include John Romero, a creator of iconic titles such as “Wolfenstein 3D” and “Doom”; Brenda Brathwaite, who recently received the Vanguard Award for her game “Train” at IndieCade; and Ian Bogost, associate professor at Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts and founding partner of the award-winning independent video game studio Persuasive Games.  

“Games are a part of human culture. They have been for millennia, and we can study them for many reasons: to make better ones and to learn to plumb their depths as players, for example. But perhaps the most important and least common reason is this: to understand their role in our lives,” said Bogost. 

In addition to speaking at the conference, Jason Rohrer, creator of the critically acclaimed “Passage”; Tales of Tales, the dynamic duo behind “Path”; and Eric Zimmerman, co-founder of gameLab, also will premiere newly commissioned art games. 

Other notable speakers are Christiane Paul, adjunct curator of new media arts at the Whitney Museum of American Art; Henry Lowood, Stanford University’s curator for the history of science and technology collections and film and media collections; Michael Nitsche, digital media scholar and assistant professor at Georgia Tech; and John Sharp, SCAD interactive design and game development and art history professor. Jesper Juul and Frank Lantz also plan to participate in the conference.  

The conference is organized and chaired by Bogost, Nitsche and Sharp."

Link: The Art History of Games