DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art 451 & 465 Saint-Jean (corner Notre-Dame, in Old Montréal) Montréal, Québec, H2Y 2R5, Canada Hours: _ednesday–Friday noon–7pm, Saturday–Sunday 11–6pm Free admission ___.dhc-art.org
"DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art is delighted to present the first major Canadian exhibition of Brooklyn-based artist Cory Arcangel. Trained initially in classical guitar and music technology at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Cory Arcangel is no_ recognized as a major exponent of a pop-tinged, computer-centred art.
Arcangel embraces the Internet's anarchic potential and its utopian open-source culture, making _orks that question authorship, the status, and value of the art object. Exploring both the promises and deceptions of soft_are, electronic gadgets, games and other devices—_ith an emphasis on ho_ they become old and quickly outdated—Arcangel's art eulogizes technology's built-in obsolescence _hile also _ittily celebrating its noise, mindless repetitions, and inevitable failures.
He plays serious pranks _ith computers: famously disabling Nintendo games; hacking, modifying or other_ise manipulating soft_are; re-appropriating and re-editing print media or YouTube videos to coax ne_ and unexpected meanings, trigger sardonic humour, reference art-historical traditions, or just have some honest fun. All this seems orchestrated from a sincere, layman's perspective and, simultaneously, from a conceptually savvy and specialist position." (John Zeppetelli, curater)
"Travis Chen made the customizable MAME cabinet and who knows if it will sell for $2,400. The games on it now are a bit old school with Bariball, mentioned at the UCLA Game Arts Festival, a rip on an old school game with Finn and Jake from Adventure Time and Canabalt, a building parkour jumper like game." (Jonathan B.)
410[GONE] is a new play by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig and directed by Evren Odcikin. It runs at the Thick House in San Francisco (1695 18th St., SF) through June 29th 2013. Heavily inspired by gaming aesthetics and Dance Dance Revolution in particular, 410[GONE] reconciles two different kinds of acting and performing:
"Where do we go when we die? In Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s dark and dazzling 410[GONE], that all depends on how you play the game. The stakes couldn’t be higher when a young woman goes in search of her lost brother in the Land of the Dead. On this fantastical journey into the underworld—a land ruled by the Chinese Goddess of Mercy and the Monkey King, where time is suspended, and Dance Dance Revolution holds the key to Transmigration—a sister and brother must face the ultimate question: if there is no love without pain, what does it mean to love?" (Crowded Fire Theater)
The official poster
Here's an excerpt from Sam Hurwit' review on KQED:
"Director Evren Odcikin's fast-paced staging deftly incorporates the play's heavy technological element; Wesley Cabral's video and Goose Manriquez's animations bring the video game levels to life admirably. Sara Huddleston's sound design combines both oppressively chipper videogame music and traditional Chinese music, and Stephanie Buchner bathes the stage in colored lights to set a variety of otherworldly moods. Dominated by a pyramid-shaped screen with Dance Dance Revolution control pads in front of it, Odcikin's set doesn't look much like the video arcade that the boy describes it as when he arrives, what with a bathtub-turned-bed and a bank of red phones in the foreground, but it's an intriguing setting in any case. Devon LaBelle provides clever props such as a Lonely Planet guide to the Chinese Land of the Dead." (Sam Hurwit)
Photo by Pak Han
Laura Brueckner interviewed Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig on the Crowded Fire Theater's website. Here's an interesting tidbit:
"Well, in 410[GONE] the question is particular to the dramatic situation. A Chinese-American girl is looking for her dead brother, but doesn’t know where he might be, since his place of ancestry is not his place of death, and she is probably getting all kinds of mismatched information. My mother was raised Taoist and my father Catholic, and when I was living in Okinawa I went to a missionary school, where the teachers told us that the Japanese holiday Obon, where families sweep the graves of their ancestors and offer food, was a festival that worshipped Satan. So then I became confused and worried when I went to my mom’s village for Chinese New Year and saw her entire family worshipping Satan. It seems like cultural and religious beliefs are at their strongest when it comes to the unknowable—i.e., death and what might happen after—so that is also where there is a high opportunity for conflict and confusion in a person who lives in the margins/the spaces between two worlds." (Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig)
More about the relationship between Dance Dance Revolution and theater here. In the video below, videogame champion Omid Farivar plays DDR. Farivar worked with Crowded Fire Theater on their production of 410[GONE]. They needed someone who could dance a perfect sequence on DDR so that video designer, Wesley Cabral, could record the graphics. In doing so, Omid unlocked a "secret" bonus level. When game meets play...
"A site specific installation created for the EXPLORA show in Tel Aviv in May 2002, RUNNERS: Wolfenstein recontextualized the a popular WW2 computer game allowing Israeli players to invade Nazi Germany and attack Nazi soldiers on three large projections. Three modified iterations of the war fantasy game “Return to Castle Wolfenstein” are controlled simultaneously through a re-wired game joystick interface." (Eddo Stern)
More than a decade since its debut, Stern's RUNNERS: Wolfenstein is as fresh and powerful as ever. A playable counter-histories with a powerful political message.
Sam Billingham is a British designer and developer currently finishing his B.A. in Digital Art & Technology at Plymouth University (UK). His final project is a game titled Command Control, inspired by Henry Smith's iOS game Space Team. I am in love with its retro-look, vintage aesthetics and custom physical controllers made of switches, sliders, and knobs. It looks like something one might encounter in a Terry Gilliam's film. As Billingham explains:
"The premise for this game is that players work together to stop a spaceship falling apart as it travels through hyperspace. Each player controls an area of the ship and must relay instructions to other players while simultaneously acting on instructions they receive. Each Player has a physical controller with buttons, switches rotary and slide potentiometers and a screen to see a visual representation of their physical controllers. Instructions are displayd with a time limit as players work their way through diffrent zones. Press the wrong buttons or run out of time and you lose health untill the ship blows up." (Billingham, 2013)
Below, the developer's diary:
Command Control will be on display at Plymouth University between June 14th and June 27th 2013 as part as part of the graduate showcase 2013.
Scott Kildall's new project is titled Player Two, developed during a rotoscoping workshop. As he explains, "Using my Android phone, I had a friend shoot a gesture of me acting like a video game fighter. Then, I isolated 24 frames of this action and used Photoshop to trace an outline of the basic figure. In successive iterations, I detailed the hair, shoes, pants and shirt. Then, I brought this into Processing and added backgrounds from scenes for existing videogames. The projectiles are also 4-frame hand-drawn PNG files which move from right to left. Using Processing's video output functions, I generated this short (rough version) sample video." (Scott Kildall)
Jenna Ng - a Newton Trust/Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Centre of Research for the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) in University of Cambridge - discusses her forthcoming collection of essays and interviews on machinima making, viewing and theorizing Understanding Machinima: Essays on Filmmaking in Virtual Worlds(Continuum Press) with a compelling video. The above machinima illustrates the origins of the book project and outlines its underlying theoretical perspectives. The book itself is no ordinary: it is augmented by a growing online media collection that readers can access through QR-codes embedded in the text. That is, while reading about machinima the reader can access the films, images, links and written texts that support the book chapters. The book features an introduction by Henry Lowood and a closing interview with Isabelle Arvers, a French machinima artist and activist. Contributors include Joseph Delappe, Sheldon Brown, Sandra Danilovic, Chris Burke, Michael Nitsche, Ali Mazalek, Paul Clifton and many more.Understanding Machinima: Essays on Filmmaking in Virtual Worldswill be released on July 18, 2013.
On April 23, at Ignite Guelph, independent game developer Owen Goss discusses a style of game that illustrates the true potential of the medium. Art games push the limits of game design and open the world of art to a new market.
Full bio: "Owen spent his early games career at Electronic Arts and Disney in Vancouver. Then, in 2008, he founded Streaming Colour Studios, and he has since released 6 games on Apple’s App Store. His most recent game, Finger Tied, was picked by Apple as one of the “Best of the App Store” in 2012. He recently co-founded Milkbag Games, and is currently working on a new game called Snow Siege." (Ignite)
Location: Dark Horse Experiment, 110 Franklin Street Melbourne Exhibition Dates: Saturday May 15th to Saturday July 13th, 2013. Opening Date: Friday 14th June, 6:00pm - 9:00pm. Opening Hours: Wed to Sat 12–6pm
Curated by Georgie Roxby Smith, NOW 13 brings together a diverse group of research artists from Australia, United States and Asia on the cutting edge of new media art, game art, animation and experimental digital media
"From the controversial to the irreverent, these artists work to deconstructthe digital interface through networking, interactivity and medium as they challenge and question the global reality of living in a digital age in series of works never seen before in Australia. The artists form a loose collective, having met and shared common research objectives in digital art festivals, studio spaces and graduate programs, reconnecting for NOW13 across virtual and physical divides." (Georgie Roxby Smith)
Featured Artists:
Anne Bartges (Michigan) website Benjamin Poynter (Nevada) website Brent Richardson (Oklahoma) website Georgie Roxby Smith (Australia) website Kian Peng Ong (Singapore) website Joseph DeLappe (Reno, Nevada) website Liat Berdugo (Rhode Island) website Raphael Arar (Los Angeles) website Simon Finn (Australia) website Sophie Kahn (New York) website
