Curated by skot deeming aka mrghosty, The Ghost Arcade is an exhibition featuring "11 hacks/bootlegs/fan made games shown at the exhibition, with two of them being Pokemon: Project Creepy Black (a fan made demo of the Pokemon Creepy Black myth), and the fan made Polybius game. Alongside these will be 9 other oddities, unknowns and known hacks and mods from NES to PC." (mrghosty). The Ghost Arcade takes place between June 20th-23rd on the third floor of City Lights Bookshop in London Ontario, Canada. The vernissage will feature two live performances by Toronto’s .exe (avant jazz composed on a Gameboy) and mrghosty's noise/drone set based on game hardware (GB, DS and PSP). skot deeming is an artist, curator, DIY culture writer, game maker, games researcher and Masters student in York and Ryerson’s Communication and Culture program.
Submitted by Matteo Bittanti
Image: Cory Arcangel
Cory Arcangel: Po_er Points
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deceptions of soft_are, electronic gadgets, games and other devices—_ith an emphasis on ho_ they become old and quickly outdated—Arcangel's art eulogizes technology's built-in obsolescence _hile also _ittily celebrating its noise, mindless repetitions, and inevitable failures.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)
LINK: Cory Arcangel
Submitted by Matteo Bittanti
Here's a gem via Things to Do In LA - kudos for their massive coverage of iam8bit Entertainment System show. Game designer and hacker extraordinarie Travis Chen has produced a killer customizable MAME cabinet:
"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.)
The exhibition iam8bit Entertainment System is ongoing until the end of June at iam8bit Gallery, 2147 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026. 80+ artist, many surprises, including Jude Buffum's pornographic series on Princess Peach. A must see.
LINK: Travis Chen
Submitted by Matteo Bittanti
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
"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)
LINK: Dark Horse Experiment
Submitted by Matteo Bittanti
Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start
Video Games as Performance Art
Pippin Barr, Wafaa Bilal, Mary Flanagan, Knut Hybinette, Paolo Pedercini, Troy Richards, Dana Sperry
May 17 - July 19, 2013
SPACES
2220 Superior Viaduct
Cleveland, OH 44113
216.621.2314
Gallery Hours
Tu – Su: 12 – 5 p.m.
Th: Open until 8 p.m.
Closed Mondays
"This May through July, SPACES hosts an unusual exhibition of performance art-featuring works that use the framework of video games to create performances. These works vary from interactive long-distance performances that are directed by viewers/players, to video art created by documenting video game performances, indie video games that invite players to perform within the presented framework, and classic video games that highlight the performative nature of this interactive art form.
Performance art often centers around the artist's body improvising within parameters or working through a set of directions. Video games set the stage for a dual performance of the player's subtle physical dance of fingers across a controller and the virtual movements of pixel bodies. In Dana Sperry's video First Person Shooter, a player's face is illuminated only by the pulsating glow of a first person shooter video game. Her eyes dart back and forth and her face slightly twists as the game becomes more difficult. This is a documented micro-performance choreographed by the action on the screen.
Wafaa Bilal's contribution is a documentation of a performance that took place in Chicago's FlatFile Galleries in 2007. Domestic Tension, had Bilal, an Iraqi, living in the gallery for one month, while a mounted paintball gun was controlled by users via the internet. Bilal and the gallery were pelted by yellow paintballs over the course of the month as people took the opportunity to shoot an Iraqi.
Pippin Barr's quirky internet-based games use the form of video games to critique both gaming culture and the art world. In The Artist is Present, named after the noted Marina Abramović at the Museum of Modern Art (2010), the player arrives at MoMA to attend the exhibition. After waiting in line for a ticket, the player then joins an interminable queue to get the opportunity to sit with the pixilated Abramović. Rather than a game of action, it is a game of patience that points toward the performances and frameworks that surround the art.
Visitors to Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start will have the opportunity to act out their own performances through artist-created games and arcade classics through July 19, 2013.
Note: "Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start," also known as the "Konami Code," is a cheat code for some video games that allows players to immediately gain hundreds of lives or unlock "easter eggs"-special surprises or hidden game modes." (Spaces)
LINK: Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start
Submitted by Matteo Bittanti
I tragically missed the UCLA Game Arts Festival 2013 this year, but the mighty Jonathan B. at Things to Do in LA has unleashed one of his killer reports. The first episode can be found here. The second is here. Can't wait to read more. Sneak preview:
"Packed with mini-games and set in an art gallery you could try out multiple creative titles as a LA Hipster, college student or someone who reads this site and decided to visit. The idea of UCLA Game Arts Festival 2013 is simple: college students and indie devs make games and you try them out with added stories about the different people who made them. There were some extras like some machinima to watch or a rock concert to listen too, something to get you in the mood to enjoy the art of play. This is the third game in the series with a totally new team behind the mini-games , but a lot of the old staff working from the previous years behind the scenes to keep the same format." (Jonathan B., TTDILA)
LINK: UCLA Game Arts Festival
Submitted by Matteo Bittanti
