Mélanie Courtinat: The Siren, 2023, video game.
Mélanie Courtinat: The Siren
February 12–March 23, 2025
Gray Area
2665 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110
press release
Gray Area is pleased to present Mélanie Courtinat: The Siren, a solo exhibition and the US premiere of a new video game work by French artist Mélanie Courtinat. Join us in the Gray Area Gallery on February 12 for an opening reception and guided playthrough with curator Wade Wallerstein.
The Siren (2024) is an interactive experience built with Unreal Engine that questions the traditional conventions of video games.
In the game, players embody a heroine wearing a shining suit of armor who wanders aimlessly along a beach at dusk. Once in control, players explore this beautiful and austere world under the watchful eye of an omniscient narrator. The narrator prompts players to undertake the seemingly arbitrary task—or side quest—of collecting bioluminescent seashells scattered across the sand. Only by collecting all of the shells can the player advance to the main quest: rescuing a damsel in distress.
Though rendered in ultra-high definition fidelity, resembling the hyperrealistic outputs of mass market AAA game studio productions, The Siren’s unique mechanics make it a distinctly different experience. The work elides a blockbuster main storyline and instead hones in on the droll imperatives and mundane taskings present in most video games. In this way, The Siren probes the meanings we assign to actions within gamespace, our relationships to the worlds we inhabit, and the motivations behind our playful engagements.
This experience is designed to be accessible to all visitors, including gaming newcomers, while also providing an additional meta-level of understanding for seasoned players.
The Siren is presented in San Francisco with support from Villa Albertine, in partnership with the Albertine Foundation, the Institut Français, and the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. Gray Area is proud to be a 2025 French Immersion Laureate institution.
The Siren was originally commissioned by the Pully Art Museum as part of their exhibition Vivre l’œuvre/Voyage aux frontières de l’art immersif contemporain.
Mélanie Courtinat (1993) is an award-winning artist and art director based in Paris. Considering video games as a major medium, she focuses on their extraordinary immersive properties and seeks to push their boundaries. Her work, crafted through the use of digital tools, encompasses CGI images and films, interactive experiences, as well as virtual and augmented reality projects. As an artist, her personal creations are consistently showcased worldwide in cultural institutions, galleries, and museums, from Tokyo to New York. As an art director, she collaborates on commissioned projects for clients in the luxury, fashion, culture, and music industries. Mélanie also teaches video game history at ÉCAL in Lausanne and virtual reality at Beaux-Arts de Paris, while regularly conducting lectures and workshops in academic settings.
Don't miss the workshop on March 17 2025.
LINK: Mélanie Courtinat
LINK: Gray Area
