GAMESCENES

GAME ART: SAVEME OH'S BOOSTER NIGHTS (2021)

"Dance when the booster gets down": this is where we are now.

The virtual alter-ego of Oscar Wagenmans - a Dutch theatre director and actor - SaveMe Oh is an infamous character in Second Life, where she is often labelled as a troll, griefer and even virus. The artistic community of Linden Lab’s virtual world is terrified by the idea that SaveMe Oh could show up unannounced during a vernissage, creating havoc. In the attempt to prevent a possible raid, the sims (or rather her haters) have been trying to protect themselves by banning her since 2007, when Wagenmans first appeared online. SaveMe Oh’s interventions in Second Life disrupt both the social conventions and shared rules of the real world, which are replicated online. Why do people feel obliged to act in Second Life as if they were in IRL, instead of realizing their full creative potential? This is the key question posed by SaveMe Oh. This retrospective includes a series of absurd, irreverent, often grotesque machinima starring SaveMe Oh produced between 2012-2019.

LINK: SaveMe Oh

EVENT: HILLEVI CECILIA HÖGSTRÖM (JANUARY 7 - 20 2022, ONLINE)

A HAND IN THE GAME

digital video, color, sound, 35’ 08”, 2017, Sweden

Created by Hillevi Cecilia Högström

January 7 - 20 2022

vral.org

introduced by Matteo Bittanti

 

A hand in the game is a video essay documenting the artist’s experience with SimPark (1996), a simulation published by Californian game company Maxis in which players cultivate and manage a successful park. Developed by Roxana Wolosenko and Claire Curtin, SimPark was explicitly targeted toward children: its objective was to educate the young about ecology and biodiversity. SimPark was accompanied by a 77-page manual which included tips on how to incorporate the game in the curriculum. Twenty years later, the artist intentionally tried to “mismanage the park enough to terminate all living things” in order to bring forth the simulation’s underlying ideology, which is grounded in capitalistic values and neoliberal imperatives. Specifically, Högström played four iterations — titled Termination 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 respectively — by altering the main variables, from the ratio between tropical, desert, and cold regions to the degree of animal agency, not to mention the effects of climate change upon the flora and fauna. The more she played, the more she realized that SimPark is deeply flawed: a supposedly pedagogical aid becomes a tool of disinformation.

Hillevi Cecilia Högström was born in 1994 in Jönköping, Sweden. She is currently completing her M.A. in Fine Arts at Malmö Art Academy. Previously, she received a B.A. in Fine Arts at the Iceland University of the Arts. Her work is concerned with the Anthropocene, which she defines as “the point in time where humans became an actual geological force capable of reforming the surface of the planet”, and its effects on the world. Her recent exhibitions include A Hand in the Game (solo, 2017), Bachelor Exhibition, Kubburin, Reykjavík, Iceland, and Full Vision (2020), Jönköpings länssmuseum, Jönköping, Sweden, Af stað!, Norræna Húsið, Reykjavík, Sweden (2019), and the 6th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art (2018), Main Project, Moscow, Russia. Her video works were featured at several international festivals, including EXiS (2021), Seoul, South Korea, and Impakt Algorithmic Superstructures (2018), Utrecht, Netherlands. Högström works and lives in Malmö, Sweden. 

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GAME ART: JORDY VEENSTRA'S EXPERIENCE (2021)

The latest project by Jordy Veenstra, one of the most talented filmmakers working today with the medium of machinima, is titled Experience, a visual study of a virtual fairground from a multitude of perspectives. Veenstra used Virtual Rides III, a funfair simulation game developed by German studio pixelsplit in which the player is given complete freedom regarding the customization and control of an ever expanding number of funfair rides to develop a machinima. The result is a fascinating experimental, non-narrative short film released on New Year's Eve. The incredible camerawork was achieved with the "freecam adjustment mod", developed by pixelsplit.

As Veenstra explains on his website:

The project was almost two years in the making. Our fruitful collaboration started in late february 2020 with a simple proposition, and evolved into a fully fledged script and amazing looking endproduct. The recording process was finally started in early spring of 2021 on five different computers; out of which 2 windows computers and 3 macs. Can you tell the difference between the footage? Experience was originally coined as an idea a few years ago in 2016 when I decided I wanted to make a visual study of a real life fairground, and place additional focus on the lights, atmosphere, people, people flow, and the rides themselves. Inspiration was also found in a documentary idea I had carried with me with as long since 2010, during which I was researching the possibilities to make a full-length documentary of the local fair in the village I once lived in. Also, ever since I played VR3 since its release in 2017, I wanted to do something with a film inside of this magical environment.

Jordy Veenstra is a video editor, motion graphics designer, 2D animator, and experimental filmmaker based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In his practice, Veenstra connects art and narrative with technology and software through the medium of experimental film. His work examines often overlooked social and artistic concerns. His groundbreaking Depthmap was featured in the The Weird, The Eerie, and The Unreal program of the 2020 MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL.

LINK: Jordy Veenstra

EVENT: GRAYSON EARLE (DECEMBER 10 - 23 2021, ONLINE)

Why don't the cops fight each other?

digital video, color, sound, 9’ 41”, 2021, United States of America, 2021

Created by Grayson Earle

Made with support from Media Art Exploration and Akademie Schloss Solitude

vral.org

 

Why don’t the cops fight each other? is a desktop documentary that chronicles the attempt by the artist to modify the behavior of virtual police officers within Grand Theft Auto V. This work also engages the modding scene that emerged around Grand Theft Auto, a community of people creating tools to modify the game’s environment, characters, and mechanics. While these mods allow for an almost infinite manipulation and transformation of the game features, one attribute seems completely immutable: the police officers in the game will never fight each other. Through an exhaustive forensic analysis of the game’s source code and interactions with mod developers, the artist illustrates the extent to which the cultural imaginary concerning the real world police is projected into the game space.

Born in California, Grayson Earle is a new media artist and educator. After graduating from the Hunter College Integrated Media Arts MFA program, he worked as a Visiting Professor at Oberlin College and the New York City College of Technology, and a part-time lecturer at Parsons and Eugene Lang at the New School. A member of The Illuminator Art Collective, Earle is the co-creator of Bail Bloc (2017), a computer program that bails people out of jail and Ai Wei Whoops! (2014), an online game that allows the player to smash Ai Weiwei’s urns. In 2020, he hacked the Hans Haacke career retrospective exhibition at the New Museum to criticize the Museum's efforts to union bust its employees. His artworks have been exhibited internationally. He is currently residing in Berlin, Germany, as a participant in the forthcoming Berlin Program for Artists.

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REMINDER: CALL FOR ARTWORKS_MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL 2022 : ONE WEEK LEFT!

The MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL is an annual event showcasing audiovisual non-interactive works produced with video games otherwise known as machinima.

The fifth edition will take place between March 21-27 in Milan, Italy.

The call for submissions is open until December 15 2021.

Check out the past editions: MMF 2021, MMF 2020, MMF 2019, MMF 2018

LINK: MMF 2022

RESOURCE: FUTURE ART ECOSYSTEMS: ART x METAVERSE BY SERPENTINE R&D PLATFORM

Ask not what the metaverse can do for your art, but ask what your art can do for the metaverse.

Check out Serpentine R&D platform's briefing for more insights.

LINK: FUTURE ART ECOSYSTEMS: ART x METAVERSE,

 

EVENT: GINA HARA'S AT THE END (THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9 2021, 7-8 PM, MONTREAL AND ONLINE)

Artist and filmmaker Gina Hara, the recipient of the 2021 Milan Machinima Festival's Critics Choice Award among other things, will deliver At the end, her residency presentation at Ada X, a feminist artist-run center based Montreal with a focus on media arts and digital culture tomorrow, Thursday, December 9th from 7-8pm (that's 1:00 AM – 2:00 AM CET). Inspired by the rise of AIs in mental health contexts, Gina Hara used the world of Minecraft as a backdrop for exchanges with an AI-powered chatbot. This process and the resulting narrative are documented in a short machinima film premiering on the day of the event. This will be followed by a discussion with Marie LeBlanc Flanagan and a Q&A with the public.

REGISTER AT THIS LINK

Présentation de résidence | vidéo + discussion
Jeudi 9 décembre, de 19h à 20h
En ligne | Inscription via ce lien
Avec Gina Hara
Discussion modérée par Marie LeBlanc Flanagan

Prenez-part à la présentation du travail que Gina Hara a produit en résidence chez Ada X! S’inspirant de l’essor des IA en santé mentale, Gina prend l’univers de Minecraft comme toile de fond pour faire émerger des échanges avec une amie chatbot en IA, développée spécifiquement pour ce projet. Ce processus et la narration qui en découle sont documentés dans un court film machinima, présenté en primeur le jour de l’événement et suivi d’une discussion.

« Alliant l’IA, les mondes virtuels et les récits qui en émergent, AI The End brouille la frontière entre l’humain et la machine tout en contemplant la solitude de la vie contemporaine. De nature autoréflexive, l’œuvre de Hara ne propose pas de parabole ni de solution aux problèmes de la société. Plutôt, à travers un design itératif, Hara contemple les rythmes lents de la solitude ainsi que nos relations naissantes avec les non-humains. » — Michael Iantorno

Cette résidence a bénéficié du soutien de Algora Lab, un laboratoire universitaire interdisciplinaire qui développe une éthique délibérative de l’IA et de l’innovation numérique

LIRE +

LINK: At the End

LINK: Gina Hara

EVENT: THE MYCOLOGICAL TWIST: QUADRAT SAMPLING E-ECOLOGIES (DECEMBER 16-18 2021, BERLIN AND ONLINE)

The Mycological Twist  @ HAU3

Tempelhofer Ufer 10, 10963 Berlin

December 15-18 2021

Livestream on 18.12.

 

The Mycological Twist would like to invite you on a quest at HAU3 and organises joint gaming sessions of “No Man’s Sky”. In this game a player can explore a seemingly infinite amount of planets, each with their own unique ecologies. Even after countless hours of play, new things can always be discovered.

“Quadrat Sampling E-Ecologies” will consist of two different sessions: In an “introducing workshop” the game and its environment are explored. This will be done through a series of field research tools that have been converted for a digital landscape. In the “gaming session” Eloïse Bonneviot and Anne de Boer invite experts to join them to provoke a different view on the game, and enable a critical reflection onto the narratives and visuals they encounter together with the players.

On the background to the production:

As personal computers are becoming more and more capable of running visually advanced video games, a myriad of worlds is opening up to audiences around the globe. This domain no longer belongs to the stereotypical, mostly male-youth gamer, but rather becomes a social space for rather diverse groups to meet and explore together. These spaces are becoming the next Social Media. While traditional social media connects us through a performativity of the everyday, navigating games engages us with intense sensations through the temporary emotional embodiment of the avatar. As a player you are both the creator and spectator of the narrative, and even better, you can actively enjoy these narratives with others.

Even though these multiplayer games are played by a large number of players, the progression of the gameplay follows similar patterns throughout; kill this, conquer that, become the best, capture it all. A linear quest that dictates the way these spaces operate as well as the audience it attracts. The tropes they endlessly reproduce mirror contemporary constructions of prejudice, power struggle and underlying ideologies. Each game has different problems that demand different explorations and questions to be asked.

The two artists Eloïse Bonneviot and Anne de Boer have already been part of the HAU festivals “Spy on Me #2 + #3” and were most recently represented at the 7th Athens Biennial.

“Quadrat Sampling E-Ecologies” also takes place in cooperation with the Fritz-Karsen-Schule from Berlin-Neukölln. HAU invites a class to play and discuss together at HAU3.
 

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley works predominantly in animation, sound, performance and video games to communicate the experiences of being a Black trans person. Brathwaite-Shirley’s practice focuses on recording the lives of Black trans people, intertwining lived experience with fiction to imaginatively retell trans stories. Spurred on by a desire to record the “History of trans people both living and past” their work can often be seen as a trans archive.Thework has been shown at Albright-Knox Art Gallery, David Kordansky Gallery, Quad Gallery, Arebyte Gallery, Science Gallery, Barbican Centre and Tate Modern. During the 3hd 2020 festival by Creamcake, Danielle shared their film and interactive performance “We Are Here Because of Those That Are Not” on HAU4.

Xenia Chiaramonte is a jurist and a socio-legal scholar. In 2019, she published her monograph “Governare il conflitto: La criminalizzazione del movimento No TAV” [“Governing conflict: The Criminalization of the No TAV Movement”], which analyses the criminalization of one of the most longstanding and high-profile environmental movements in Western Europe. In her research, she developed a deep ethnographical approach blended with a theory-oriented vision.

Ahmed Isam Aldin is a visual artist, designer and blogger from Khartoum. He studied physics at the University of Khartoum and graphic design and photography in Cairo, Visual communication at Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin. His practice focuses on immigration and psychology, as well as the processes of revolutions, de-colonial design, and technology. He has participated in various exhibitions between Khartoum, Cairo, and Berlin, and is currently studying Media Art at UDK Berlin.

Barbara Marcel is a Brazilian artist and film-maker. Her works explore historical views of nature and how these relate to colonial imagery.

 

LINK: The Mycological Twist Quadrat Sampling E-Ecologies (Thanks to Sarah Reimann for the heads up)

EVENT: SCREEN\DOOR (DECEMBER 9 2021, ROCHESTER, NEW YORK)

HTTPGSAB_Desktop Runthrough by Peter Basma-Lord

 

Event: SCREEN\DOOR

When: Thursday December 9 at 7PM EST

Hosted by: Visual Studies Workshop (Rochester, New York, USA)

LINK: SCREEN/DOOR

 

In-person at VSW and streaming online, curated by swampbabes

SCREEN/DOOR will feature several members and friends of the swampbabes community across the earth working in various genres and mediums, with a common interest in radical (video) game making, playing, and exhibiting. These works deal with the video screen as door, wall, and window, many with a conflicted sense of dread or longing. Includes games, video, and performance from Cody Filardi, gg noni, Mariken and fotocopiadora, Evan Bobrow, Peter Basma-Lord, nilson carroll, Taehee Whang, and others. This program will be in-person in the VSW microcinema and will also be livestreaming via Twitch.

 

swampbabes is a tiny, artist-run, no-profit organization in Rochester, New York devoted to fostering a games/art/queer local/regional community and inclusive space. swampbabes is interested in sharing experimental, non-commercial, renegade games-related art and projects and providing a platform for diverse voices and bodies outside of the already established structures and hierarchies.

LINK: SCREEN/DOOR

EVENT: THE STRUGGLE IS REAL (NOVEMBER 22 - DECEMBER 16 2021, ONLINE)

THE STRUGGLE IS REAL is curated by CLUSTERDUCK

Live Commentary by WADE WALLERSTEIN

Hosted by GREEN CUBE GALLERY

The first artist tournament set in Fondazione Spara — an online survival multiplayer video game by Riccardo Rudi and Superinternet — taking place in the context of this fall Green Cube Gallery’s new exhibitions program. THE STRUGGLE IS REAL aspires to be an open and participatory performance on the physical and mental condition of digital artists today. A space where artists are invited to share their frustrations over the hyper-competitive art world. A space to meet, curse, talk and try to survive. The tournament will take place in a series of elimination matches, lasting 10 minutes. Eliminations will take place by consulting an impassive referee: the killing chart. The artist who will hold the pole position till the end, will win the phantasmatic prize: a 500€ Artist Fee. The events will be streamed through Twitch on greencube.gallery. Kill your pals, win the fee. 

LINK: THE STRUGGLE IS REAL