GAMESCENES

EVENT: KATHERINE BERNHARDT: DUMMY DOLL JEALOUS EYES DITTO PIKACHU BEEFY MIMIKYU ROUGH PLAY GALARIAN RAPID DASH LIBRA HORN HP 270 VMAX FULL ART (MAY 20 - AUGUST 5 2023, HONG KONG)

Katherine Bernhardt: dummy doll jealous eyes ditto pikachu beefy mimikyu rough play galarian rapid dash libra horn hp 270 vmax full art

May 20—August 5, 2023

David Zwiner Gallery

5–6/F, H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road Central, Hong Kong

press release

 

David Zwirner is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by American artist Katherine Bernhardt (b. 1975) that will take place at the gallery’s location in Hong Kong. The works in this presentation focus on characters from the Japanese media franchise and global game sensation Pokémon, continuing to expand Bernhardt’s unique visual lexicon, which culls from an irreverent pop vernacular as well as her own life and the broader culture. Dummy doll jealous eyes ditto pikachu beefy mimikyu rough play Galarian rapid dash libra horn HP 270 Vmax full art will be Bernhardt’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong and her second with David Zwirner. 

Bernhardt first attracted notice in the early 2000s for her paintings of supermodels taken from the pages of fashion magazines such as Elle and Vogue. In the decade following, she began making pattern paintings that feature quotidian motifs—such as tacos, coffee makers, toilet paper, cigarettes, E.T., Garfield, Darth Vader, and the Pink Panther—in unlikely visual combinations within expansive fields of exuberant color. The compositional elements of Bernhardt’s paintings include palettes that allude to the tropical climes of Puerto Rico, references to the design and colouration of Moroccan rugs and West African Dutch wax fabrics, and influences ranging from Henri Matisse and the Pattern and Decoration movement to Peter Doig and Chris Ofili. 

 

US painter Katherine Bernhardt shines a spotlight on Pokémon characters, with Pikachu taking center stage (above), in her solo exhibition at David Zwirner gallery in Hong Kong. Photo credit: Katherine Bernhardt.

In this exhibition, Bernhardt continues her exploration of contemporary pop phenomena by focusing on the characters of Pokémon’s expansive universe Conceived by creator Satoshi Taijiri and art director Ken Sugimori and first launched by Nintendo in Japan in 1996, Pokémon was introduced to much fanfare in the United States in 1998 and has become one of the world’s largest cross-media franchises. Bernhardt previously debuted the Pokémon character Ditto, a pink-purple blob-like form with shape-shifting powers, in her 2022 exhibition Why is a mushroom growing in my shower? at David Zwirner London. 

In Dummy doll jealous eyes ditto pikachu beefy mimikyu rough play Galarian rapid dash libra horn HP 270 Vmax full art, the new works feature compositions culled from the Pokémon Trading Card Game; these “cards,” each featuring a different Pokémon, are rendered using the signature elements of Bernhardt’s ebullient style. For each painting, she delineates a loose border that frames the character represented and overlays the statistics and special abilities that distinguish their role within the game. Colors and lines bleed and pool together across their surfaces, revealing Bernhardt’s brisk and improvisational process. To create her works, the artist first draws on upright canvases with spray paint, after which she lays them on the floor to apply acrylic paint thinned out with water. Moving back and forth between several paintings at once, Bernhardt invites accident and chance into each of her dynamic compositions through her fast-paced actions.

Named after a gaming supply store in St. Louis, Missouri, Bernhardt's "Yeti Gaming" (2021) comes to life as a giant painting. Photo: David Zwirner

By engaging the Pokémon ecosystem—premised on rarity—Bernhardt taps into a structure that corresponds to the high-low dichotomies of contemporary painting. In her attempt to “catch them all,” Bernhardt samples many of the eighteen Pokémon “types” that allow players to categorize characters according to their powers and capabilities. In Surfing Pikachu (2023), the titular canary-yellow critter originally created by artist Atsuko Nishida bursts across the painting in action. The cyan-colored Wobbuffet squeezes its eyes shut and opens its mouth wide against a bright pink backdrop. Mimikyu is the subject of Dummy Doll Jealous Eyes (2023), facing the viewer with floppy lopsided ears and a crooked smile. Bernhardt situates these characters in movement: the multiple arms of the rosy Chansey are activated mid-air as if running forth; a leporine Cinderace is poised for battle. The framework of these paintings seems to contain the characters’ constantly morphing bodies, which are ready to move and leap into our own spheres at any moment. In the monumentally scaled Yeti Gaming (2021), several Pikachus and amoebic Dittos share space with Teddiursa and household items such as a bottle of Elmer’s glue, a jug of Clorox bleach, and rolls of toilet paper—familiar motifs in Bernhardt’s oeuvre.

A monograph on Bernhardt is forthcoming from David Zwirner Books in October 2023.

Katherine Bernhardt was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1998 and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 2000.  

In 2018, the solo exhibition Katherine Bernhardt: Watermelon World was on view at the Mario Testino Museum (MATE) in Lima, Peru. The previous year, in 2017, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, presented FOCUS: Katherine Bernhardt. Also in 2017, the artist painted a sixty-foot-long mural entitled XXL Superflat Pancake for the St. Louis Contemporary Art Museum. Bernhardt has created a permanent installation for Club Caribe, Cidra, Puerto Rico, and a pool painting at the Nautilus South Beach, Miami Beach (both 2015).

In her studio, Bernhardt finds inspiration from a Pokémon card. Photo captured by Whitten Sabbatini.

Her work has also been included in significant group exhibitions, such as We Fight to Build a Free World: An Exhibition by Jonathan Horowitz, Jewish Museum, New York (2020); Animal Farm, an exhibition curated by Sadie Laska at the Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Greenwich, Connecticut (2017); NO MAN’S LAND: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection, Rubell Museum, Miami, which traveled to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC (2015–2017); and Bad Touch, Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago (2002). 

In 2022, David Zwirner, London presented an exhibition of new work by the artist, Katherine Bernhardt: why is a mushroom growing in my shower?

Work by the artist is found in prominent public and museum collections, including the Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Greenwich, Connecticut; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee; Portland Museum of Art, Maine; Rubell Museum, Miami; and San Antonio Museum of Art, Texas. Bernhardt lives and works in St. Louis.

LINK: Katherine Bernhardt dummy doll jealous eyes ditto pikachu beefy mimikyu rough play galarian rapid dash libra horn hp 270 vmax full art 

EVENT: GAME SOCIETY (MAY 12 - SEPTEMBER 10 2023, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA)

Game Society
May 12–September 10, 2023

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul
30 Samcheong-ro, Jongno-gu
03062 Seoul
South Korea
Hours: Tuesday–Thursday 10am–6pm
Friday–Saturday 10am–9pm

Organized by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea.
Curated by Hong Leeji
Curatorial Assistant: Sojung Jang 
Technical support by Lee Giljae and Jiyoung Han

Artists: Cory Arcangel, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Harun Farocki, Jacky Connolly, Kim Heecheon, Lawrence Lek, Lu Yang, Ram Han

press release

Game Society is an exhibition that examines how the grammar and aesthetics of video games have influenced contemporary art and visual culture, and permeated our society and daily lives over the five decades since the launch of the first video game. Video games encompass interface design for visual and auditory stimulation, storytelling that spurs the imagination, immersive experiences and social interactions, which makes them the most relevant media form today. Game Society takes a closer look at the process of powerful synchronization between society and video games that has been accelerated by the pandemic. It explores the context in which society becomes virtual spaces and the reality of those spaces becoming part of everyday life, examining what experiences games can communicate and share with us. The exhibition features 9 video games and more than 30 artworks by contemporary artists who have been influenced by the grammar and aesthetics of video games. The games on display include Korean video games and select loans from the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA) and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which have been acquiring games since the early 2010s.

To read is to imagine a world, to watch a movie is to observe that world, and to play a video game is to live in that world; the imagination and realism have become a shared experience and visual grammar in modern society. To play a game is analogous to contemplating and appreciating contemporary art in that it requires active participation in a work of art, during which the audience can attain a moment of art. However, the worlds within games are still imperfect. There is a marked lack of diversity in games, where virtual worlds are populated by hyperbolically perfect physiques, and women, the aged, weak, or disabled are either not represented or appear as non playable characters. As in real life, it can be difficult for them to find ways to access games and their digital environments. In contextualizing digital spaces and games in an exhibition, the MMCA, as a space of inclusion, proposes a reimagining of our society where gamification has become part of everyday life, examining gaps and empty spaces in games. In the end, presenting games in the museum is directly linked to the issue of the museum’s accessibility. Playing a video game is not different from viewing an art exhibition in that a video game’s tutorials resemble an exhibition guide with its set routes, exits, and entrances; the accumulation of experience and skill by playing a game resembles the increasing fluency and appreciation of art by visiting exhibitions and museums.    

All the video games in this exhibition are available for play. Audiences can play them with Gaming Accessibility Controller designed and developed by the Korea National Rehabilitation Center Assistive Technology Open Platform, along with Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller devices. As video game critic C. Thi Nguyen noted, games are “the art form of agency.” As such, the exhibition offers audience ways to gain fresh perspectives on the issues that emerge when they gamify their daily lives by providing universal and expansive controllers. In a similar spirit of inclusiveness and accessibility, the exhibition also provides online projects organized with PACK.

For the MMCA, this exhibition is a celebration of what video games and art museums share in their experiences. The exhibition is also an active endeavor to share the common act of accessing and reflecting on video games and the art museum, observing the roles and spheres of the individual and the public. In both video games and art, it is the application of contemporary knowledge and social experiences, and the speculation that it provokes, that creates an opportunity for us to reevaluate the world we live in. In this sense, the intention of Game Society is to provide the audience with the opportunity to contemplate and question the efforts and attention required to make public places and games more inclusive, reframing where we might wish to redefine our common goals. Through games as an artistic medium with cross-generational appeal, the exhibition hopes to provide the full sensory gamut to each individual in a unique way that serves the artistic experiences and values of each person best.

LINK: Game Society

EVENT: THE PRIVILEGE OF PLAY: CONNECTING GAMES AND RACE IN THE 20TH CENTURY (JUNE 9 2023, STANFORD)

Aaron Trammell

The Privilege of Play: Connecting Games and Race in the 20th Century

Friday, June 9, 2023
4pm to 5pm PT
Hohbach Hall, 123
557 Escondido Mall, Stanford, CA 94305

The Silicon Valley Archives will host an online version of this talk via Zoom on June 9, 2023, at 10:00 am PDT. To register for the online version of this talk, please RSVP here. The in-person talk will be held in Hohbach Hall on June 9, 2023, at 4:00 pm PDT. To register for the in-person version of this talk, please RSVP here. 

The histories of race and games in the 20th century have long been siloed. Popular histories of games often render invisible the race of the white men that they celebrate, thus inviting readers to take for granted the somewhat homogenous demographics of the games industry. Far from being coincidental, I argue that race has been central to the history of games. I will present historical research in this talk that shows how the early leaders of the game industry were able to thrive due to their community ties. I term these white communities "networks of privilege" and offer evidence for how these networks developed of the course of the 20th century and used dog whistles to keep BIPOC people out. Thus, in this talk I will foreground how the invisible politics of whiteness have shaped the history of games itself. 

Aaron Trammell is an Assistant Professor of Informatics at UC Irvine. He is interested in how tabletop games further values of white privilege and hegemonic masculinity in geek culture. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Analog Game Studies and the co-editor for the Tabletop Gaming series at University of Michigan Press. He has two books Repairing Play (2023 MIT Press) is a theory of play that centers BIPOC people and The Privilege of Play (2023 NYU Press) is a history of games and race in the 20th Century.

LINK: The Privilege of Play

LINK: Aaron Trammel

EVENT: BRENT WATANABE (MAY 19 - JUNE 1 20923, ONLINE)

MINE

machinima/digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 37’ 06”, United States, 2023

Created by Brent Watanabe

 

The latest work by Brent Watanabe is a thought-provoking exploration of the intersection between virtual reality and contemporary culture. Originally conceived as a semi-narrative interactive experience, MINE spans eight mesmerizing episodes, each presenting a different facet of our complex relationship with consumption, waste, the environment, and the digital world. Originally presented on Meta/Facebook's VR platform Horizon Worlds, visitors are invited to journey through a kaleidoscopic array of immersive and fully-realized virtual environments, each revealing a new layer of insight and critique. From the grotesque realities of animal exploitation to the dark allure of gaming, guns, and surveillance, MINE is a bold and unflinching statement on the pressing issues of our time. The original work has been reimagined as a single-channel walk-through video edited by the artist for VRAL. 

Brent Watanabe’s art practice defies categorization, fusing traditional techniques with cutting-edge technology to create installations that are at once visually arresting and intellectually engaging. Drawing on his extensive background in drawing and sculpture, Watanabe uses computer programming and electronics to create kinetic sculptures that are at the forefront of a new wave of digital art. Watanabe’s work has been recognized both nationally and internationally, with his groundbreaking 2016 project, San Andreas Deer Cam, receiving over 800,000 visitors in its first three months alone and being featured in publications such as New York Magazine, the BBC, and WIRED. In addition to his solo work, Watanabe has participated in group shows and screenings around the world, including Through Machine Eyes at the NeMe Arts Center in Limassol, Cyprus, Game Changers at MassArt Art Museum in Boston, and Playmode at the MATT Museum in Lisbon, Portugal. With recent solo exhibitions at prestigious venues such as SOIL Art Gallery, McLeod Residency, Jack Straw New Media Gallery, Gallery 4Culture, Anchor Art Space, and the Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival, Watanabe continues to push the boundaries of what is possible in the realm of digital art. 

WATCH NOW

EVENT: NOW WHAT? (APRIL 25 - JULY 9 2023, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA)

Theo Triantafyllidis, BugSim (Pheromone Spa), 2022, Live Simulation

 

NOW WHAT?
April 25–July 9, 2023

 

SeMA, Buk-Seoul Museum of Art
1238 Dongil-ro, Nowon-gu
01783 Seoul
South Korea

 

Artists: Riar Rizaldi, Sam Barlow, Half Mermaid Productions, Theo Triantafyllidis, Jaewon Kim, Internet Mountain Club, Yoon Jeewon

press release

2023 marks the tenth anniversary of SeMA, Buk-Seoul Museum of Art. With its mission to build sustained connections to the local community, the museum has experimented with a variety of exhibitions and programs. It is in this context that the museum presents NOW WHAT?, an exhibition that requires a deeper level of engagement from the museum, artist, and the audience.

In our contemporary digital media environment, new media is the medium enjoyed by most people. Yet, even such attributes of new media started to stutter and did not work very dramatically as they entered the format of the white cube. It happened since the new media were not inherently unilateral. Historically, attitudes toward art exhibitions have evolved to emphasize the importance of experience and interaction. Yet, there are still some points that leave something to be developed. In particular, the video art that we want to examine in this exhibition has not escaped the limits of receiving the audience on a white wall like an old painting, even in an explosive circulation of the media ecosystem. The experiential layers of video art must be presented in a more complex and autonomous way. Therefore, we materialize the numerous elements that make up their works in a “game-like scenography.”

We invited artists who work with new media in various ways such as film, documentary, interactive video, and live simulation. We then focused on researching their works that resulted in the single-channel video format. First and foremost, Sam Barlow, Half Mermaid Productions is a filmmaker and game developer who created IMMORTALITY (2022), a game that raises questions about the nature of video art by deconstructing the unidirectionality and monolinear structure of traditional cinema. In IMMORTALITY, the player sits in the editing room to unfold and reassemble all the scenes of the three unmerged films to infer the unfilmed events. It is an important and inspirational example that is closely connected to how the exhibition came about. Jaewon Kim talks about the lives of queer people, those infected with HIV/AIDS, and his relationship with his lovers. His works are composed in the form of letters to lovers through the fragmentation of images or reconstruction of memories. We transformed these works into a performative dimension and placed devices for pseudo-emotional experience. Riar Rizaldi focuses on individuals and specific groups in Indonesia and Hong Kong who are marginalized from a socio-economic perspective. In the exhibition, the audience will become marginalized individuals or particular groups in no time through spontaneous performative acts. The mountaineering documentary True of Landscapes (2023) by Internet Mountain Club allows us to take a closer look behind the scenes of the mountain that was not visible to the eyes of mountain hikers. They tell the holistic story of our time—ethnicity, identity, culture, generation, climate—on the actual topographic map of a “mountain”and ask the audience to be witnesses of the times. Taking on the determination of this video work, we concretized our actions and experiences as witnesses. In the meantime, Theo Triantafyllidis creates a live simulation in which an autonomous ecosystem operates. This work in the exhibition space becomes an object of observation and exploration by itself. The intention is to have this work interact with the audience with a sense of observing an ant’s nest as we did as homework when we were young or with an intention to have it as a mirror to reflect on reality. Finally, artist and filmmaker Yoon Jeewon presents a new video work A VERY ABSOLUTE EFFECT ON THE PERCEIVER (2023). It is hoped that the audience will appreciate the exceptional golden ratio and infer the rules that constructed the work. The best way to watch the video works with the most delicious taste might be to learn the rules and connect what is possible within them for an emergent viewing. 

We prepared game-like texts to facilitate the interaction between the interpretive layers of the video works and the fragmented experiences. Among the various formats of games, we focused on “immersive simulation”games. While the player’s actions were limited to essential actions in the early games, it is possible to interact with almost every element of the environment in immersive simulation games. Players can have autonomy and thus practice emergent gameplay in a given environment regardless of their original obligations. In addition, the proficiency accumulated through trial and error creates a deep understanding and immersion in the game’s worldview. 

Taking this into account, the scenography of the exhibition is set in the gray area of the city, which also happens to be the psychological background of the uncertainty of our time and the participating artists. In particular, the exhibition houses an “underpath of an imaginary bridge.” The underpath is a limbo-like space where the audience’s failures return not as defection but as experiences and skills. Here, artists and curators talked about what it would take for an individual’s media experiences and subjective memories to move beyond mere appreciation and become part of a collective experience, memory, and language. The process devised in the underpath has become an activity sheet and is given to all players. While the placeness of this exhibition primarily gives a sense of déjà vu, the activity sheet works as a tutorial and a list of tasks that help the artists to master the experiences and languages they want to deliver through the live action. Now, with the list of missions in hand, the audience (player) will be able to recall our question. 

“NOW WHAT?”
The exhibition expects that the audience to become the player, and determine their own path at will and absorb the rules or languages of artworks through their explorative interaction at the experiential level. We hope the audience to get deeper into the pleasure of watching video art and the essence of what the artists tell in their works. 

LINK: Now What?

EVENT: LARRY ACHIAMPONG'S AND I SAW A NEW HEAVEN (MAY 4 - JUNE 17 2023, LONDON

Larry Achiampong, And I saw a new heaven. Photo credit: Reece Straw, Copperfield Gallery, 2023

 

Larry Achiampong

And I saw a new heaven

4 May - 17 June 2023

Copperfield Gallery

6 Copperfield Street
London SE1 0EP
info (at) copperfieldlondon . com
+44 (0) 7455 029002
+44 (0) 7845 594549​

Press release:

Referencing the unlikely trinity of HBO TV, video games and Christianity, the title drawn from dialogues from the game-turned-series The Last of Us and ultimately from the Bible encapsulates the references for Larry Achiampong’s second solo show at Copperfield. From computer games to church the cast of faces represented there has almost always been white. The already problematic status quo that church is high culture and gaming is low or pop culture breaks down here when one references the other, but the exhibition brings real game play for visitors into direct dialogue with Achiampong’s collaged paintings. 
 
“video games have had huge influence on my art work and the reality of their sophistication and cultural referencing is ignored by the rest of the creative sphere. It’s time for video games to take their place as context in the gallery while I work on my ultimate goal; a playable artwork. At its core gaming is storytelling, world building, fantasy, exploration and human culture in one”
 
What is missing still, trailing behind even film and TV, is minority representation in games. What scant references there have been to people of colour or the queer community for example have almost always been negative or derogatory with just one or two recent exceptions like Beyonetta. Why though when nearly half of game players in the US alone are people of colour? While the mechanics differ, this cause and effect of this uncomfortable fact can ultimately be connected to a similar peculiarity in religion.
 
Almost anywhere in the world touched by white missionary work, from the Philippines to Ghana, you can find congregations of colour surrounded by posters and imagery with an entirely white cast of God, Mary, Jesus, disciples and crew. The incongruity of a chalk white Jesus with his apparently middle eastern origins is hugely questionable, but in the context of countries that have been repressed by white western imperialism, the apparent perpetuation of these images by these congregations becomes even more unsettling. As a starting point for the works in the exhibition, Achiampong has selected a series of typical religious posters from Ghana to paint over. Their plethora of graphic and immediate imagery draws on a pastiche of dated advertising styles and, in turn, so does Achiampong’s response. While the Golliwog or minstrel show character is an uncomfortably recognisable icon of Britain and America's colonial past, the immediacy of this image when reduced here to an internet style avatar, belies its complex and often obscured history. Other more subtle painted edits and editions amplify the way in which these works question, disrupt and take ownership of these problematic legacies by obscuring parts of the posters. The frame on the face of each panel is custom made by hand by Larry in a nod to the idealised story of Christ as carpenter vs the realities faced by many undervalued manual work forces today. The framing style is comparable with the kind found in the humble places of worship Achiampong experienced as a child — grand in form but with no pretence of gilding or hiding the knots — in other words, strangely honest. 
 
Nearby, games like Bayonetta 2, The Binding of Isaac, and Blasphemous give context to the works for visitors through play. The Binding of Isaac was made in darkly humorous response to the game developers Catholic and Baptist upbringing which Achiampong’s childhood shares, and is loosely based on the Bible story of the same name, but has as much to say about childhood as organised religion. In their aesthetics and sounds, and references to literature and history, Blasphemous and Bayonetta 2 relate to Christianity – specifically, the Catholicism with which the artist grew up – and explore the problematic aspects of religion and blind Faith. An uncanny dialogue thus arises between these games and the artworks, from their use of racialised imagery, to that of language: Biblical commands, lifted from Latin; teachings from Psalms demanding control of the self under the guise of support. It is a question of independently analysing the instruction given to us by a ‘higher power’, of considering the self in the broader context of accepted traditions and behaviours.
 
It is the intro sequence from 2014 blockbuster game Bioshock Infinite that welcomes visitors to the exhibition. While part fantasy, the game draws on some of humanities darkest moments, and gives context to the kind of processes that have led to historic whitewashing across culture. The game is set in the fictional city of Columbia, founded by self-proclaimed prophet Zachary Comstock, and funded by the American government as a floating world's fair within the ideology of American exceptionalism. Worshipped as a prophet, Comstock has transformed the city into a theocratic police state, with the Founding Fathers of the United States venerated as religious icons. Play makes it clear that institutional racism and elitism are widespread in the city, with minorities serving as a labour underclass on the verge of rebellion.
Sound familiar?

 

LINK: And I Saw A New Heaven

LINK: Larry Achiampong

EVENT: SEBASTIAN MÖRING AND IDA KATHRINE HAMMELEFF JØRGENSEN (MAY 24 2023, ONLINE)

Sebastian Möring and Ida Kathrine Hammeleff Jørgensen on a trip exploring flight simulators

Wednesday 24 May, 18.00 BST

Screenwalk

Free, online

In this Screen Walk, game scholar turned virtual pilot Sebastian Möring will take his guest Ida Kathrine Hammeleff Jørgensen to the skies in Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Throughout their flight from Berlin to Copenhagen, the two researchers will discuss realism and abstraction, models, simulation, and representation in games and game research. This Screen Walk marks the first episode of Möring’s new series A Lift Home – Talking Game Research at 36.000 ft Above Sea Level. (more info here)

Register here

EVENT: ART AND/OR GAME: SYMBIOSIS OR DISSONANCE? (MAY 16 - 20 2023, PARIS)

Post Growth Toolkit (The Game), Disnovation.org, 2020, game table of the installation, photo : iMAL, Bruxelles/Brussels

Art and/or Game: Symbiosis or Dissonance?

Centre Culturel Canadien

130 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, 75008 Paris, France

16 May 2023 -> 20 May 2023

Curated by Lynn Hughes
Artist, independent curator and Emeritus Professor at Concordia University (Tiohtià:ke / Montreal, Quebec, Canada)

Assistant Curators
Nathalie Bachand
Independent curator and artistic co-director at Sporobole, Contemporary Art Centre (Ndakina/Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada)

Catherine Bédard
Curator and Deputy Director, Canadian Cultural Centre (Paris, France)

press release

Art and/or Game: Symbiosis or Dissonance? is an exhibition that looks at some current practices in the very vibrant area where experimental games meet related art practices. Experimental games seek to resist the hegemony of the huge international digital games industry by presenting a profusion of local, personal and community-based alternatives that stretch the game form expressively and critically. 

The exhibition brings together a selection of artists and game designers from Canada and France with very different approaches to this interstitial space. The works range from the explicitly political and activist to those with more implicit and poetic integration of social critique, from the very figurative to the abstract, and from more traditional screen game formats to ones with physical interfaces of different types.

The game-work by the collective Disnovation.org is part of ISEA’s official programming. This project is funded by the European MASC-RISE programme under grant agreement n°101007915.

Visitors are invited to play on site with all the games presented in the exhibition.

Featured artists
Disnovation.org (France), ISEA2023 laureate artists collective
Ahreum Lee (Canada), Enric Llagostera (Canada), Raphaëll Maïwen (Canada), Santiago Tamayo Soler (Canada), Tatiana Vilela Dos Santos (France)

 

LINK: Art and/or Game: Symbiosis or Dissonance

EVEN: OPEN SYSTEMS 1_OPEN WORLDS (MAY 4 - AUGUST 10 2023, SINGAPORE, ONLINE)

Open Systems 1_Open Worlds
May 4–August 10, 2023

Curated by Duncan Bass

curatorial text

Press release

Singapore Art Museum (SAM) launches Open Systems (OS), its first dedicated initiative exploring technology and virtual spaces as sites for exhibition and art production, focused on the examination of the impacts of contemporary digital culture on creative expression. OS presents online exhibitions, interventions and virtual programmes where the sites of their production—video games, creative code, the browser—serve as the locus for both artistic expression and inquiry.

From May 4 to August 10, 2023, audiences are invited to reimagine the metaverse through Open Systems 1_Open Worlds (OS1) at opensystems.sg, a browser-based art experience exploring the dynamics between real and virtual realms. Bringing together artists and thinkers who imagine scenarios challenging logics of enclosure, privatisation, and artificial scarcity imposed on virtual realms, OS1 maps the inequities that transfer between lived and digital realms, positing that video games, game engines and virtual environments may function as sites to rehearse alternative and novel modes of social, political, and spatial organisation.

Unfolding across six thematic chapters fortnightly, the artworks presented in OS1 seek to reframe virtual spaces as sites for practicing alternative modes of organisation within society, from the shared reality of global financial systems and major cities to the multiplicity of personal interactions and individual expression. As the boundaries between real and virtual spaces continue to degrade—another opening of worlds—interventions in virtual realities increasingly reflect upon our physical realities, for worse and for better. OS1opens possibilities of reimagining our shared spaces, investigating a world that is no longer a niche pastime.

OS1.1_Virtual Capital Available 4–17 May 2023

Alice Bucknell, Lawrence Lek, and Bahar Noorizadeh, Rudá Babau & Waste Paper Opera (Klara Kofen, James Oldham, Gary Zhexi Zhang, Anna Palmer)

Through satirical storytelling and science-fiction narratives, Virtual Capital demonstrates how virtual cultures simultaneously reflect and react to tangible impacts on real, lived experiences.

OS1.2_WoW, Unite! Available 18–31 May 2023

Cat Bluemke, Joshua Citarella & Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman, and Mario Mu

Exploring video games as unexpected sites for collective action and organisation, WoW, Unite! considers labour rights issues, exploitation, and organisational conditions in the video game industry.

OS1.3_Landscapes of the Political Imaginary Available 1–14 Jun 2023

Zheng Mahler, Shabtai Pinchevsky, and Firas Shehadeh

Through the concept of the nation-state as constructed by both physical environments and the collective imagination, viewers are invited to reassess their understanding of video games in Landscapes of the Political Imaginary and the underlying assumptions that are built into their virtual landscapes.

OS1.4_Unrealpolitik Available 15–28 Jun 2023

Yeyoon Avis Ann & George Chua, Grayson Earle, and Clemens von Wedemeyer

Focusing on the ubiquitous nature of violence in video games, Unrealpolitikunpacks the societal tensions and assumed neutrality of ideologies embedded in gaming software while highlighting the potential for intervention and political resistance in gamified environments.

OS1.5_Dematerialised Zones Available 29 Jun–12 Jul 2023

Antoine Chapon, Hayoun Kwon, and Total Refusal

Subverting stereotypical perceptions of violence often associated with video games by expanding on sites of conflict as liminal spaces, Dematerialised Zones illustrates how virtual spaces can serve as sites of healing.

OS1.6_Intimate Encounters Available 13–26 Jul 2023

Kara Güt, Sara Sadik, and Xáfier Yap

Intimate Encounters reflects on notions of nurturing one’s identity and intimacy within virtual spaces by drawing on old-school aesthetics, comparing character development in role-playing games to processes of personal identity construction.

A series of accompanying programmes featuring artists and collaborators titled OS Broadcasts will be hosted on the popular live-streaming platform, Twitch, and broadcasts of prior programmes can also be found on the Open Systems platform.

 

LINK: OPEN SYSTEMS

EVENT: MORITZ JEKAT (MAY 5 - 18 2023, ONLINE)

Moritz Jekat

The Blue Seals. Extinct and Happy

machinima/digital video, color, sound, 5’ 25”, Germany, 2023

May 5 - 18 2023

Introduced by Matteo Bittanti

 

In The Blue Seals. Extinct and Happy the artist tackles the multifaceted theme of memory and its impact on our sense of place and identity. Exploring the notion of “home” as a deeply personal and evolving construct, the artist delves into their relationship with the city of Berlin, a metropolis which has undergone significant transformation over the past decade. Through the medium of an immersive bus simulation game set in 2021 Berlin, the artist takes us on a virtual journey through the city’s ever-changing landscape, one that mirrors the shifts and fluxes of their own being. The work weaves together a complex interplay of past and present, real and imagined, personal and collective, as the artist reflects on their fading memories of a love that once bloomed amid the streets of Berlin. The Blue Seals is an evocative exploration of the ways in which we are shaped by the spaces we inhabit and the memories we carry within us.

Moritz Jekat is a visual artist hailing from the vibrant intersection of Berlin and Lausanne, whose practice spans the mediums of computer-generated imagery, sculpture, and installation. With a distinguished BA in Visual Communication from Potsdam under their belt, Jekat has since gone on to further refine his craft as a participant in the esteemed Master program of Photography at ECAL in Renens, Switzerland. At the core of Jekat’s practice lies an incisive exploration of contemporary developments within western and specifically German society, with a particular emphasis on the role of identity and digital culture. Investigating the themes of co-existence, cohabitation, and the multiplicity of ideas that converge in shared spaces, Jekat’s work often draws on his own immediate surroundings before expanding outward to explore broader universal truths. Jekat explores the intersections between human experience and technological advancement, with computer-generated imagery and the use of AI serving as powerful tools in his artistic arsenal. Their work stands out as a thoughtful, insightful exploration of the rapidly evolving landscape of modern life, reflecting a deep engagement with the pressing questions and issues of our time.

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