GAMESCENES

GAME ART: LA IMAGEN RENACIDA: JON RAFMAN II (ONLINE)

The MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL may be over, but machinima keeps growing and evolving pretty much everywhere. 

Curated by Andrew Michael Davis, La Filmoteca Española introduced a new program titled La imagen renacida, which 

"explora los profundos cambios en la cultura audiovisual del siglo XXI y el papel del cine como parte integral de ello. Desde los 90, los avances tecnológicos han propiciado importantes cambios tanto en la producción como en la distribución del cine, pero quizás donde mas se haya notado esta revolución sea en el rol del espectador frente a la pantalla. Donde antaño el público se quedaba quieto en la oscuridad de la sala, ahora es protagonista y participante activo en la cultura visual que le rodea. Cada uno de nosotros cuenta hoy con un archivo de imágenes de nuestras propias vidas y herramientas para editarlas, así como acceso a miles de películas, juegos, vídeos o redes sociales, y nos movemos por ciudades atestadas de pantallas. Es un entorno audiovisual que arrastra al cine, incluso a su pesar, hacia un futuro imprevisible y plural."

["explores the profound changes in the audiovisual culture of the 21st century and the role of cinema as an integral part of it. Since the 1990s, technological advances have brought about important changes in both the production and distribution of films, but perhaps where this revolution has been most noticeable is in the role of the spectator in front of the screen. Where once the audience stood still in the darkness of the cinema, now they are protagonists and active participants in the visual culture that surrounds them. Today, each of us has an image archive of our own lives and tools to edit them, as well as access to thousands of films, games, videos or social networks, and we move around screen-crowded cities. It is an audiovisual environment that is dragging the cinema, even reluctantly, into an unpredictable and pluralistic future.]

Currently on display is the second part of a monograph on Canadian artist Jon Rafman:

Poor Magic (Jon Rafman, 2017) Canadá. 7’
Dream Journals (Jon Rafman, 2016-2019) Canadá. VOSE 18’
Disasters Under The Sun (Jon Rafman, 2019) Canadá. 8’

All artworks are subtitled in Spanish.

LINK: Filmoteca Española

GAME ART: AKIHIKO TANIGUCHI'S AMAZON KAWARA (2020)

Possibly the best renactment of the year.

Akihiko Taniguchi is a Japanese New Media artist who also teaches at Tama Art University and Musashino Art University. He creates diverse works consisting mostly of installations, performances and video works using self-built devices and software. Recently he started making internet art and he sometimes performs as a VJ.

LINK: Akihiko Taniguchi 

GAME ART: LA IMAGEN RENACIDA: JON RAFMAN (ONLINE)

Jon Rafman, Remember Carthage, 2013

The MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL may be over, but machinima keeps growing and evolving pretty much everywhere. 

Curated by Andrew Michael Davis, La Filmoteca Española introduced a new program titled La imagen renacida, which 

"explora los profundos cambios en la cultura audiovisual del siglo XXI y el papel del cine como parte integral de ello. Desde los 90, los avances tecnológicos han propiciado importantes cambios tanto en la producción como en la distribución del cine, pero quizás donde mas se haya notado esta revolución sea en el rol del espectador frente a la pantalla. Donde antaño el público se quedaba quieto en la oscuridad de la sala, ahora es protagonista y participante activo en la cultura visual que le rodea. Cada uno de nosotros cuenta hoy con un archivo de imágenes de nuestras propias vidas y herramientas para editarlas, así como acceso a miles de películas, juegos, vídeos o redes sociales, y nos movemos por ciudades atestadas de pantallas. Es un entorno audiovisual que arrastra al cine, incluso a su pesar, hacia un futuro imprevisible y plural."

["explores the profound changes in the audiovisual culture of the 21st century and the role of cinema as an integral part of it. Since the 1990s, technological advances have brought about important changes in both the production and distribution of films, but perhaps where this revolution has been most noticeable is in the role of the spectator in front of the screen. Where once the audience stood still in the darkness of the cinema, now they are protagonists and active participants in the visual culture that surrounds them. Today, each of us has an image archive of our own lives and tools to edit them, as well as access to thousands of films, games, videos or social networks, and we move around screen-crowded cities. It is an audiovisual environment that is dragging the cinema, even reluctantly, into an unpredictable and pluralistic future.]

Currently on display is a monograph on Canadian artist Jon Rafman:

Shadowbanned (Jon Rafman, 2018). Canadá. VOSE. 8 minutos
Remember Carthage (Jon Rafman, 2013). Canadá. VOSE. 13 minutos
Legendary Reality (Jon Rafman, 2017). Canadá. VOSE. 16 minutos

All artworks are subtitled in Spanish.

LINK: Filmoteca Española

EVENT: MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL 2020 GOES VIRAL (MAY 25-30 2020)

The 2020 edition of the MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL which was previously postponed due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic will indeed happen. And sooner than later. From Monday 25 until Saturday May 30 2020, the entire program will be fully available on the festival website. The MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL is part of the revamped Milano Digital Week 2020: The Augmented City. This year, the work of 25 artists from 13 countries will be presented in 6 sections: Game Video Essay A, Game Video Essay B, The Weird, The Eerie, and The Unreal plus three Special Programs (Artists in focus).

Click here to read the full program.

LINK: MILANO MACHINIMA FESTIVAL 

EVENT: VICTOR MORALES'S RAPID TRANSIT: PREFACE (APRIL 25 - MAY 7 2020, ONLINE)

RAPID TRANSIT: PREFACE

digital video, color, sound, 13’, 2020

Created by Victor Morales. Music: Daniel Dobson. Voices: Modesto Jimenez and Christine Schisano. Written by William Burns.

WORLD PREMIERE

April 25 - May 7 2020

VRAL

What is it like to ride the New York City subway thirty years from now? Victor Morales predicts that most travellers will wear VR/AR displays combined with electric stimulants or lectrics. But the subway itself has not changed much nor its rituals: passengers ignore each other while dancers perform to rhythmless soundtracks interrupted by beeps and synthetic shouts popping out of devices like rings and bracelets featuring holograms with hovering capabilities. On a late weekday night, a rider under the influence boards the train, unbeknownst to what is about to happen.

Born in Venezuela and based in New York City since 1991, Victor Morales is a director, performer, and designer. His practice includes theater direction, video design, animation, text, sound design, and digital puppetry. He collaborated on a variety of projects with Chris Kondek (Berlin), Joseph Silovsky (NYC), Jim Findlay (NYC), Findlay/Sandsmark (Norway), and Wolfgang Mitterer (Austria). Since the early aughts, Victor has been using video game engines to create interactive and non-interactive artworks. His multidisciplinary project Esperpento was selected for the Sundance 2019 New Frontier program and received the “Best Immersive and Time Based Art” award at the B3 Biennial at the Buchmesse in Frankfurt, Germany. 

WATCH NOW

ART GAME: VERONIKA ŠVECOVÁ'S DREAMOBOROS (2019)

Veronika Švecová is an artist based in Prague, Czech Republic. Her practice includes video and installations using ludic tropes and themes, where organic creatures merge with technological entities. DREAMOBOROS is a trailer for a fictional video game set in a post apocalyptic dystopian universe where players fight "with their imagination". 

LINK: Veronika Švecová

GAME ART: CARSON LYNN AND GRACE GROTHAUS' PARCHED EARTH (2020)

A collaborative project between artists Carson Lynn and Grace Grothau, Parched Earth examines the ecological tensions embedded in contemporary video games. As Carson writes: 

Both artists have dealt with global warming in their respective practices, so they sought out to create a speculative fiction film depicting a dystopian future where scavengers are rewarded for finding remnants of flora in a ruined landscape. The film combines Lynn's machinima practice and Grothaus' digital seed archive. Lynn utilizes No Man's Sky and a VR headset to create a found-footage-like setting, with Grothaus' documented flora and text serving as a connection to the past (our present).

Carson Lynn is an artist based out of Southern California who through the usage of digital materials, sublime landscapes, and exploration within gamespaces, creates artworks as a queering of heterocentric photographic conventions and game systems. He is working towards receiving his MFA from ArtCenter College of Design with a projected graduation in April, 2020. He received his BFA in Photography and Imaging, also from ArtCenter, in 2015.

Grace Grothaus is a transdisciplinary artist focused on creating moments of reflection about human agency and balance with the built and natural environment. Through physical computing she creates immersive indoor and outdoor installations and performances, as well as interactive paintings and sculptures. Notable exhibitions & projects include the International Symposium of Electronic Art 2018, Trace, a large-scale public artwork for the city of Tulsa, and the 2012 World Creativity Biennale. Her work has been exhibited and/or collected nationwide and abroad on five continents. She was a National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts Merit Award winner and has received an Art365 Fellowship. Her art has been featured on the cover of Art Focus magazine and This Land Press. Grothaus earned a BFA as a double major in Interdisciplinary Arts and Art History at the Kansas City Art Institute and is currently pursuing an MFA from the University of California, San Diego where she resides with her dog and many plants.

LINK: Carson Lynn and Grace Grothau

OPEN CALL: EXPLORER AWARD AT A MAZE. THE INTERNATIONAL GAMES & PLAYFUL MEDIA FESTIVAL (JAN 1 - FEB 2 2020)

 

Heads up! A MAZE. just launched a call for submission which may be of interest to you all:

 

Ok. First of all, you probably already know that A MAZE. 9th International Games and Playful Media Festival takes place in Berlin from April 22-25, 2020, in Berlin, Germany.

 

Now, the organizers are looking for creative, playful works, and crazy experiments located at the intersection of gaming, video art, and performance that could to compete in the Explorer Award category. Machinima perfectly fits this description, for instance. But also installations, interactive experiences, VR or in-game photography... You name it.

 

Full description below:

Explorer Award

"Go, where nobody has gone before! This is the award for all forms of experiences beyond the boundaries of contemporary ways to play or develop games. Here, we are exploring alternative controllers, interactive installations, creative coding experiments, robotics and tech performances, as well as interdisciplinary teams, collaborations with science, makers, engineers, researchers, theater and writers."

 

The submission fee is 30€ and even if artists don't get nominated, they will receive a 25% discount on the festival ticket and will be asked first for spots in the Open Screens program of the exhibition, so that everyone has the chance to exhibit. Every entry will be visible on the website too. It is also possible to register as Selection Committee to review the submitted works - Here a 25% discount is given out as well, for everybody who reviews 5 or more entries.

Read more about this category by clicking the link below.

 

LINK: EXPLORER AWARD at A MAZE.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: VECTOR FESTIVAL 2020 (DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 1 2020)

VECTOR FESTIVAL 2020: AFTER GAMIFICATION

TORONTO, ON | JULY 16-19, 2020

OPEN CALL FOR ARTWORKS AND CURATORIAL PROPOSALS 

Vector Festival is an annual media arts event dedicated to showcasing experimental art works that engage critically with digital technologies.
The festival is proudly participatory and community-oriented. Hosted by InterAccess and co-curated by Katie Micak and Martin Zeilinger, Vector Festival takes place at arts venues and in public spaces across the City of Toronto.

Since its inception, Vector Festival has been innovative in its inclusion of game-based digital art alongside other new media disciplines. Continuing this focus for the 2020 edition, the festival’s curators pose a deceptively simple question: what comes after gamification?

Now that game culture and game technologies have become so pervasive in popular culture, how do experimental media artists respond critically to the rampant gamifying of everyday life? From online social interaction to digital finance, from education to military conflict, from politics and environmental issues to the ways in which humans (and machines) express themselves creatively, what comes after gamification?

The Festival will take place between July 16-19, 2020, with the flagship exhibition extended until August 22, 2020.

Please note that Vector Festival does not charge submission fees to artists applying to participate.

All artists and curators selected for participation will receive fees in accordance with the up-to-date CARFAC Fee schedule, as well as support to apply for external funding.

We invite art submissions of digital – and post-digital – works for the following festival categories:

Flagship Exhibition
Digital and post-digital art works including interactive installations, experimental game mods, sculptural work, screen-based work, sound art, etc.

Online Projects
Web-based projects and digital artworks that can be presented online, including experimental interactive and time-based digital projects.

Festival Screening
Experimental film/video/machinima works.

Performance
Performance-based proposals including chiptune, sound art, live coding, A/V performances, and telematic performances for virtual and public spaces.

Site-Specific Outdoor Screening
To be presented on two large-scale (4.88 x 8.64 m) outdoor LED screens for a public audience of all ages.

GIFs
Animated GIFs intended for presentation on public screens across Toronto.

Curatorial Submissions
This year, we also invite curators/curatorial collectives to submit proposals for machinima screenings (on a theme of your choosing). If you are considering a curatorial submission, we encourage you to contact the Vector Festival team for additional practical details.

Deadline: February 01, 2020

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Please submit the following details using our online application form:

• Project description (approximately 300 words)
• Documentation (maximum of five images, and/or link to audio/video documentation)
• Description of technical requirements (please outline materials provided by the artist and materials required from the exhibiting venue)
• Artist biography (approximately 100 words)
• Please indicate if your work has a thematic, conceptual, or historical connection to Toronto, or if you have a biographic connection to the Greater Toronto Area
• Current CV

If you have questions about submitting your application please contact [email protected].

About Vector Festival
Vector Festival is a participatory and community-oriented initiative dedicated to showcasing experimental media art practice. Presenting works across a dynamic range of exhibitions, screenings, performances, lectures, and workshops, Vector Festival acts as a critical bridge between emergent digital platforms and new media art practice. 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. In 2015 Vector Festival announced that longtime presenting partner, InterAccess, would be taking over responsibility for the festival as part of its regular programming.

About InterAccess
Founded in 1983, InterAccess is a non-profit gallery, educational facility, production studio, and festival dedicated to emerging practices in art and technology. Our programs support art forms that integrate technology, fostering and supporting the full cycle of art and artistic practice through education, production, and exhibition. InterAccess is regarded as a preeminent Canadian arts and technology centre.

For more information contact:
Festival Curators, Katie Micak and Martin Zeilinger
[email protected]

Follow us for updates!
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twitter.com/VectorFestival
instagram.com/interaccessto

LINK: VECTOR FESTIVAL

GAME ART: HUGO ARCIER'S INLAND (2019)

Hugo Arcier, Inland, Audiovisual performance: live music, video in audio reactive 3D computer images, 2019 - Music: Annabelle Playe & Marc Siffert, music - video in 3D computer graphics with audio reactivity: Hugo Arcier

Passages, crossings and metamorphoses weave the odyssey of « inLAND | come back in broad day ».These universes are explored live as a 3D video game in which we wander. This exploration is carried out on site or remotely with Discord gamer tool. In these multiple spaces, perception is disturbed between reality, matter and appearance. Abstraction gives way to landscapes, echoes of the inner worlds that a narrator seems to unfold. The visions crumble, the image turns out to be an illusion. We then experience what can't be said or represented. (Hugo Arcier)

Hugo Arcier is a French digital artist - or, rather, “an artist in a digital world” - who uses 3D computer graphics in various ways: videos, prints and sculptures. Initially interested in producing special effects for feature films, he worked on several projects with such directors as Roman Polanski, Alain Resnais, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. This practice has allowed him to gain a deep understanding of digital tools, in particular 3D graphic images. His artistic works have been exhibited at international festivals (Elektra, Videoformes, Némo), galleries (Magda Danysz, Plateforme Paris, etc.), art venues (New Museum, New Media Art Center of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Le Cube, Okayama Art Center, Palais de Tokyo, etc.), and contemporary art fairs (Slick, Variation)

LINK: Hugo Arcier