GAMESCENES

ART GAME: JULIÁN PALACIOUS GECHTMAN'S CUCCCHI (2021)

From Fantastico Studio, a small Italian game development and publishing studio located in Rome, comes Cuccchi, "the first artist archive created in the form of a video game". Yep, it's "the official playable archive of Enzo Cucchi's" paintings set to a soothing electronic/lo-fi soundtrack:

Cuccchi is a game where you explore beautiful dioramas and go through dangerous and trippy labyrinths, in a journey inside the paintings of Enzo Cucchi. [...] Find your way through 7 unique areas and collect 51 hidden objects to unlock an archive gallery displaying the different sets of paintings that inspired the visuals for the game.

Enzo Cucchi (b. 1949) is a self-taught Italian painter, a key member of the Italian Transavanguardia movement, along with his countrymen Francesco Clemente, Mimmo Paladino, Nicola De Maria, and Sandro Chia, which was at its peak during the 1980s and was part of the worldwide movement of Neo-Expressionist painters. (Wikipedia has more info).

Visuals, design and development by Julián Palacios Gechtman, the author of Promesa, one of the best Italian video game debuts of all time, also published by Fantastico Studio. Julián is a multimedia artist and videogame developer living in Milan. The soundtrack was composed by Skinless Lizard. Sound design by Valerio Arcesi. Cuccchi was produced by Fantastico Studio and Archivio Enzo Cucchi.

Cuccchi is available for consoles and PC. Here's the Steam page.

LINK: Cuccchi

EVENT: GTA V PHOTOGRAPHER BOT (JULY 28 2021, ONLINE)

Uh, uh this is going to be very interesting. I'm thinking San Andreas Deer Cam with a robo-cam.

Screen Walk with GTA V Photographer Bot:

Wednesday, 28 July, 2021, 6 pm UK time / 7 pm CET

The event will be livestreamed directly on screen walks.com.

In the last event before the summer break, Screen Walks outsources its activities to a non-human photographer. GTA V Photographer Bot will lead an algorithmic street photography performance in the fictional city of the computer game Grand Theft Auto V. Refusing to engage with the game objective and missions, the bot has been programmed to take out its simulated smartphone camera instead of its guns, and snap pics of its environment.

LINK: Screen Walk with GTA V Photographer Bot

EVENT: THEO TRIANTAFYLLIDIS (JULY 23 - AUGUST 5 2021, ONLINE)

RADICALIZATION PIPELINE

Digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 15’ 01”, 2021 (Greece)

excerpt from live simulation

Created by Theo Triantafyllidis

July 23 - August 5 2021

Introduced by Matteo Bittanti

vral.org

 

You may disagree about the root causes, but the diagnosis is crystal clear: reality has imploded. The symptoms are everywhere. Video game fantasies, themes, characters, and narratives – which used to be confined to the imaginary – now shape our everyday life. In a world where meme presidents plan insurrections, global corporations are actively destroying the planet, social media are a toxic cesspool, a new kind of superstition – conspiracy theories, lore, false narratives – has become the dominant epistemological currency. In this uncertain, hyper violent, and chaotic scenario – complicated by metacrises, climate catastrophe, and ongoing pandemics – artists have been among the few to clearly identify the culprits and to imagine possible alternatives. In his latest work, Radicalization Pipeline, Greek artist Theo Triantafyllidis simulates the perpetual clash of two endless hordes fighting to death with large melee weapons. A wide range of characters – from citizen militias to fantastical creatures, from street protesters to hooligans – kill each other tirelessly. There’s no resolution. There’s no closure. Just mutual destruction. This is the Game over age. We now live in the world that video games made.

Theo Triantafyllidis (b. 1988, Athens, Greece) is an artist who builds virtual spaces and interfaces for the human body to inhabit them. He creates expansive worlds and complex systems where the virtual and the physical merge in uncanny, absurd and poetic ways. These are often manifested as performances, virtual and augmented reality experiences, games and interactive installations. He uses awkward interactions and precarious physics, to invite the audience to embody, engage with and challenge these other realities. Through the lens of monster theory, he investigates themes of isolation, sexuality and violence in their visceral extremities. He offers computational humor and AI improvisation as a response to the tech industry’s agenda. He tries to give back to the online and gaming communities that he considers both the inspiration and context for his work by remaining an active participant and contributor. He holds an MFA from UCLA, Design Media Arts and a Diploma of Architecture from the National Technical University of Athens. He has shown work in museums, including the Hammer Museum in LA and NRW Forum in Dusseldorf, DE and various galleries such as Meredith Rosen Gallery, the Breeder, Eduardo Secci and Transfer. He was part of Sundance New Frontier 2020, Hyper Pavilion in the 2017 Venice Biennale and the 2018 Athens Biennale: ANTI-. Theo Triantafyllidis is based in Los Angeles.

WATCH NOW

EVENT: WORKING TOWARDS OUR OWN OBSOLESCENCE (JUNE 18 - JULY 23 2021, LIMASSOL, CYPRUS)

working towards our own obsolescence

An exhibition curated by Régine Debatty

June 18 - July 23 2021

NeMe Arts Centre

3603 Limassol, Cyprus

Artists: Pippin Barr; Larisa Blazic; Peter Buczkowski; Stéphane Degoutin, Gwenola Wagon, and Pierre Cassou-Noguès; Dasha Ilina; Sanela Jahić; Lisa Ma; Liz Magic Laser; Julien Prévieux; Laurel Ptak.

This exhibition features the work of artists who are critically investigating the ways the Silicon Valley economy is affecting labour conditions. Their works help us understand the pervasive constrictions we, as passive consumers, have unintentionally aided implement. The proposed works fall into five spheres of investigation: the myth that the machines are replacing us; the emergence of an army of invisible, or rather invisibilised workers; the transformation of labour conditions through precariousness and the atomisation of tasks; the body of workers disciplined to act like machines and finally, the ways workers and consumers can fight back with not just resistance but positive alternatives. (read more)

Régine Debatty curated a fantastic exhibition for the NeMe Arts Centre in Limassol, Cyprus, which I had not the pleasure of attending. Nonetheless, the exhibition was accompanied by a consistently phenomenal amount of content, including a series of interviews with the all the artists involved (the entire archive is available on YouTube), plus a killer interview with Pippin Barr on Regine's We Make Money Not Art, which you can read here.

Here's a juicy excerpt:

Indie games are also becoming this massive thing with some titles that become surprising successes. One game that i would call experimental and that met a broad success is Papers, Please. It’s an independent title and it’s pretty surprising that people were so excited about it. Like It is as if you were doing work, it’s a representation of labor. You’re asked to do what seems to be an extremely boring job which is stamping people’s passports. It’s not relying on an exciting narrative with spies coming through, bombings and shooting people at the border. That’s not what the job of a border officer is really like. Lucas Pope is an incredible game designer, he found that balancing act between an unlikely premise and a set of mechanics which are in some sense boring and a narrative framing around that and beautiful tiny elements of design that drew people in. Many of the more experimental games are pulling conventional game design into more interesting areas while acknowledging some of the conventions of design. (Pippin Barr)

And here's the conversation on video:

LINK: Working Towards Our Own Obsolescence

LINK: Régine Debatty's curatorial text

LINK: Pippin Barr interviewed by Régine Debatty on WMMNA (text)

LINK: Artists' interviews page on YouTube (videos)

CFA: M.A. IN EXPERIMENTAL GAME CULTURES (VIENNA, AUSTRIA, DEADLINE: JULY 30 2021)

Application deadline: July 30, 2021

Experimental Game Cultures

Academic degree: MA (Master of Arts)

Credits: 120 ECTS

Duration: 4 years

Language: Englisch und Deutsch/English and German

University of Applied Arts Vienna
Oskar-Kokoschka-Platz 2
1010 Vienna
Austria

T +43 1 711332160
[email protected]

The University of Applied Arts Vienna is introducing a groundbreaking Masters Progam in Experimental Game Cultures

which aims at critical reflection of the societal impact of games while at the same time applying it to the prototypical development of innovative game concepts and approaches. Therefore, the central aspect of the studies is formed by the development of innovative game concepts beyond the commercial game industry in interconnection with the critical reflection of games in their various historical, societal, and social contexts.

Research areas of the study programme are, among others, the use of games as an instrument for a better understanding of social, economic, and political interrelations and for a democratic shaping of their future (serious games, critical games, educational games, etc.).

The M.A. in Experimental Game Culture swill start in the Winter semester 2021/22 and offered at the Institute for Art and Society. It is lead by the legendary Margarete Jahrmann who said in a statement that

For me, artistic play is the experimental testing and subjective experience of alternative possibilities of the world and agency. Play as a participatory process can show us ways to positive change, new forms of future society, politics, and empathic coexistence. Through the conscious breaking of rules, the transformation of rule systems, the acceptance of ambiguity as a quality in play, a new understanding for the global challenges of our time can emerge. Our way there is the game!

Applicants are invited to develop/describe a project on of the following topics:

• game changer concepts,
• queer and non-colonial game mechanics,
• dark patterns of game design,
• body and game fashion,
• games for non-humans,
• games and nature.

Written applications can be submitted between July 1 to 30, 2021 via application.uni-ak.ac.at.

How to apply

Check out the available courses

LINK: Experimental Game Cultures

LINK: Margarete Jahrmann

EVENT: HOMO LUDENS: VIDEOGAMES TO UNDERSTAND THE PRESENT (JULY 20 - OCTOBER 31 2021, MADRID, SPAIN)

Homo Ludens: Videogames to understand the present

July 20 - October 31 2021

CaixaForum Madrid

Paseo del Prado, 36
28014 Madrid, Spain

Curated by Luca Carrubba

Designed by Domestic Data Streamer studio

Produced by Fundación "La Caixa"

Opening Conference: July 20 2021

"The exhibition Homo Ludens proposes an anthropological journey through the playful dimension of human beings through video games, a cultural, aesthetic and artistic phenomenon that is essential in contemporary mass culture. It is currently estimated that more than 2.5 billion people are video game players. Starting from the centrality of the game in our lives, the exhibition's journey approaches video games in a broad and holistic sense, and addresses the role of play as a regulating practice of human activity, both in the history of culture and today. Rather than being a history of video games, the exhibition provides a basically anthropological vision, bringing together culture and technology, industry and art.

The content of the exhibition combines examples of video games with contemporary artworks by the following artists: Rasheed Abueideh, Anna Anthropy, Matteo Bittanti and the collective IOCOSE, Ricardo B. Brasilero, Daniel Canogar, Robbie Cooper, Jake Elliott, Bruno Federico, Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn, Roc Herms, Agustina Isidori, David Jaumandreu, Ge Jin, Tamas Kemenczy and Ben Babbitt, Josep Lago, Jorge Paris, Nadège Mazars, MesquitaFMS, Hamilton Mestizo, Juan Naharro Gimenez, Roman Pilipey, Everest Pipkin, David Ramos, Linnea Rheborg, Mario von Rickenbach and Christian Etter, Pietro Righi Riva, Monica Rikić, Skawennati, Octavi Serra, Bill Viola and USC Game Innovation Lab, and Robert Yang.

In the exhibition, themes such as the anthropological roots of the game that are transferred to the video game, its million-dollar industry, the influence of video game aesthetics in other disciplines such as art and design, identity in a world where the real coexists with the virtual, among other issues.

The exhibition invites to an interactive and participatory tour in which the viewer acts as a gamer, although without playing at any time with the video games on display. The viewer chooses the itinerary from a central square that acts as an antechamber and distribution space of the exhibition. The visitor can interact with the exhibition through a device -the Coin-, an object that allows the viewer to build his or her opinion as he or she answers a series of questions. The answers also allow a collective knowledge of the participation of all visitors. On the large screen installed in the last room of the exhibition, a community of avatars is projected, representing, in real time, the accumulated data of all the visitors to the exhibition.

In this way, the exhibition provides a new perspective on the concept of the gamer and shows a gamified world in which life and play merge and in which we are all, in one way or another, gamers. This hypothesis, based on the work of sociologist and game scholar Daniel Muriel, is reflected in the video essay "Gameworlds: the video-gamification of the real" by Luca Carrubba and Daniel Muriel, directed by LaviniaNext and produced by "La Caixa" Foundation.

The exhibition also includes a catalog (in Spanish) that presents in detail all the works installed and proposes a reflective framework for their interpretation. This publication, which I had the pleasure of thinking, coordinating and writing, also includes texts by guest authors such as Oliver Perez La Torre, Flavio Escribano, Luján Oulton, Eurídice Cabañes, Carlos Scolari and Daniel Muriel.

The exhibition will be traveling during the next  four years touring all major cities in Spain. So if you do not have time to get to Madrid you can see the exhibition soon in Barcelona, Sevilla, Zaragoza, Valencia, Palma, Tarragona, Girona." (Luca Carrubba)

LINK: Homo Ludens

EVENT: KENT SHEELY (JULY 9 - JULY 22 2021, ONLINE)

Kent Sheely

Ice Cream President

digital video, black and white, sound, 06’ 37” (United States)

July 9 - July 22 2021

Introduced by Matteo Bittanti

vral.org

Fifteen years after its first appearance, Hitman: Blood Money’s disarming yet lethal ice cream truck returns in this bleak machinima that focuses on a much bigger tragedy. What happens when the video game imaginary breaks the fourth wall and enters the so-called “reality”? You may get two scoops of Ice Cream President.

Kent Sheely (b. 1984, United States) is a new media artist based in Los Angeles. His work draws both inspiration and foundation from the aesthetics and culture of video games, examining the relationships between real and imagined worlds. Much of his work centers around the translation and transmediation of symbols, concepts, and expectations from game space to the real world and vice versa, forming new bridges between simulation and lived reality.

WATCH NOW

ART GAME: ROBERT YANG AND ELEANOR DAVIS'S WE DWELL IN POSSIBILITY (2021)

Robert Yang's latest game, developed in collaboration with illustrator Eleanor Davis and Manchester-based musician aya, is titled We Dwell in Possibility (WeDIP), a "queer gardening simulation game about planting bodies and ideas, and watching them grow into a kinetic landscape" (Yang). The game can be played in a browser on the Manchester International Festival's (MIF's) Virtual Factory website. The interactive experience is 5 - 10 minute long. Over at Radiator Blog, Yang explains his design philosophy, the genesis of the project, and the underlying logic of WeDIP. It's a great read, like everything else on his website. Expect thoughtful, insightful bits on Ian Cheng, Mario von Rickenbach and Mario Frei, the size of penises and vaginas, Emily Dickinson, Claude Shannon, Pierre Lévy, Goat Simulator, SimCity, Peter Sunde, Marie-Laure Ryan, Jean Baudrillard, virtuality, the history of browser games, Apple's policies, and much, more more.

LINK: Robert Yang

LINK: Eleanor Davis

LINK: We Dwell in Possibility

ART GAME: HENRY DRIVER'S SECRETS OF SOILS (2021)

Henry Driver is a prolific new media artist from the United Kingdom often incorporating game mechanics and aesthetics in his practice. His latest project is an interactive artwork/game commissioned by the BBC titled Secrets of Soil, which was supported by the leading Plant Science and Microbiology Researchers at the John Innes Centre, UK. According to Driver, the game "was inspired by his family's attempts to make their farming practices carbon negative.". Specifically,

Secrets of Soil is an interactive journey that explores the hidden world of soil and its role in combating climate change. Your journey will take you to a microscopic world, witnessing the essential life forms that live there. Explore the microscopic landscape to understand the many citizens of the soil and the essential roles they play in this diverse ecosystem. Witness how bacteria and plants speak to each other. Glide through vast fungal webs. Create earthworm burrows. Or simply relax and linger in dazzling soilscapes and explore this unseen world. Unearth the secret of how this hidden universe could help save us from climate disaster.

Driver's goal is to raise "awareness to the change that we can all be a part of when thinking about the world we live in." Secrets of Soil is freely available for Windows platforms on Steam as a short interactive experience, with a free 360-degree video version which will run on nearly any device on the market. The project was commissioned as part of New Creatives, a project from Arts Council England and the BBC, which champions emerging new talent. Production took place between the months of August 2020 and April 2021. Driver was responsible for the Design, Coding, Sound. His collaborators include Collusion (Production Partner), Rachel Drury and Rich Hall (Producers), Lynsey Murrell (Narration), Sam Snape (Script Editor), Peter Richardson (Executive Producer), Joseph Amoah (Executive Producer for BBC R&D), and Jo Nolan (Programme Producer New Creatives Screen South).

 

Henry driver's work has been exhibited around the world. Selected cities include Berlin, Copenhagen, Montreal, Toronto, Sydney, Melbourne, Seoul, Yokohama, and Taipei. In the United Kingdom, Driver's installations were presented at Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, Barbican and The Whitechapel Gallery. He was selected by leading curators as one of the top fifteen residence at Cressing Temple Barns, and asked to create a permanent artwork.

 

Secrets of Soil is also featured on the BBC website.

 

Henry Driver, Secret of Soils, still from interactive experience, 2021 (All images courtesy of the Artist)

 

LINK: Henry Driver

EVENT: VECTOR FESTIVAL 2021: NETWORK DEPENDENCIES (JULY 15-AUGUST 8, 2021)

Vector Festival 2021
Network Dependencies
July 15 – August 8, 2021

vectorfestival.org

press release:

InterAccess is thrilled to announce the ninth annual Vector Festival, a participatory and community-oriented initiative dedicated to showcasing digital games and creative media practices. This year’s theme, Network Dependencies, asks what post-isolation co-existence might look like, with the return to in-person activities on the horizon. Join us in exploring new ways of being together, finding community, and sharing space through a four-week program of mail-art dispatches, outdoor screenings, virtual workshops and discussions, and enactable participatory performances.

Network Dependencies launches on July 15 with three exhibition openings. The flagship exhibition, dis-ease, responds to screen-based escapism and exhaustion through an e-newsletter and mail art programme. Curated by Rea McNamara, it features works by Stefana Fratila, Driftnote, and Racquel Rowe. You can take part in the exhibition by registering for dis-ease’s mailing list. Constellation of Oracles—a virtual exhibition curated by Diasporic Futurisms (Vanessa Godden and Adrienne Matheuszik)—presents works by Alyssa Bistonath, Rah Eleh, Victoria Kamila, and Quentin VerCetty. Using sci-fi, fantasy, and digital culture to envision alternate realities, they foretell collective futures. Meanwhile, the multisite exhibition Infinite Scroll showcases GIF artworks that use abstraction and repetition to simulate the hypnotic effects of social media scrolling. GIFs by Khadija Aziz, Justine Durand, Peter Rahul, and Shaheer Zazai will be presented by Digital Arts Resource Centre (Ottawa), Factory Media Centre (Hamilton), InterAccess (Toronto), and Trinity Square Video’s Virtual Vitrine (online).

Over the course of four weeks, a series of participatory performances on Instagram Live (@interaccessto) will guide audiences through new somatic experiences in their homes and outdoor surroundings. Take part in an outdoor performance-based movement session with Kim Ninkuru. Learn how to create and bottle your own wild yeast soda with Meech Boakye. Follow risograph maps by Kristel Jax and Tasman Richardson (Hum Zine) that locate resonant sounds heard along the streets of Toronto. Jax and Richardson will host a dual live broadcast, touring and harmonizing those sonic locales.

This year’s Vector Festival workshops include “Place-making & Mapping Beyond Binaries” by Darian Razdar, “Understanding and Hacking Facial Recognition Technologies” by Aaron Tucker and Jae Seo, “Virtual Reality Life Drawing” by Cat Bluemke and Jonathan Carroll (SpekWork), and a special Minecraft mini-series in partnership with Ender Gallery. Designed to foster proficiencies in digital worldbuilding, embodied counter/mapping and geo-data wrangling, and critical awareness of biometric surveillance, these technical seminars survey the many facets of network dependency. Please note that workshops require registration through Eventbrite.

Vector Festival was founded in 2013 as the “Vector Game Art & New Media Festival” by an independent group of artists and curators: Skot Deeming, Clint Enns, Christine Kim, and Katie Micak, who were later joined by Diana Poulsen and Martin Zeilinger.

All Vector Festival events will be offered for free or pay-what-you-can.

LINK: Vector Festival