GAMESCENES

GAME ART: BRENTON SMITH'S STOP FOR A MOMENT (MARCH 7 - 17 2019, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA)

Brenton Alexander Smith, Stop for a moment, machinima, 4' 42", color, sound, 2019

BRENTON ALEXANDER SMITH

STOP FOR A MOMENT

SCRATCH ARTSPACE

67 Sydenham Road Marrickville NSW 2204

Sydney, Australia

John Chamberlain meets the digital uncanny. In Brenton Smith's solo show at SCRATCH ARTSPACE in Sydney, Australia, stop for a moment, James Graham Ballard, video games, and automobiles collide and collude to create situations that appear both familiar and bizarre. Smith gives machinima a third dimension using crushed automobile parts welded together and electronic parts to bring them to simulated life. The automobiles' viscera are on display, both on the screen and in the gallery space. Both virtual and physical, these organic/mechanic/machinic creatures know and crashforms evoke Shinya Tsukamoto's cyborgian entities.

Stop for a Moment underpins an endeavour to explore the potential for nonhuman entities to elicit an affect in human viewers. The car accident is a central theme using the driving simulator video game BeamNg.drive, known for its ability to realistically simulate car crashes. By pushing the limits of what the game engine allows, Brenton Alexander Smith forces the game into a crash scenario that would be impossible in the real world producing organic-chaotic shapes in response to the extreme input, coupled with strange twitching movements that afford them a sense of nonhuman liveliness referred to as ‘crashforms’. The title of the show invites the viewer to not only take a moment to view the work but to take a break from the pressure to perform in today’s technologically driven society. Like the crashform, it invites the viewer to allow a certain vulnerability for just a little while.

Brenton Alexander Smith’s practice emerged from an interest in the relationship between humans and machines. His work explores the point of connection and disconnection between humans and the artificial in the cycle of technological renewal. He frequently draws from abandoned and damaged technical artifacts, such as crashed cars, to create works that seek to elicit an affective response in the viewer. Many of his works aim to arouse feelings of sympathy for broken or discarded machines. Smith’s practice takes form in a variety of media. In several works, the residue of car accidents acts as a sculptural material that echoes the organic through mechanical forms. These sculptures are part relic and part creature, inert yet imbued with a faint sense of liveliness. Smith graduated from the Sydney College of the Arts with honours in 2014. Since then, he completed an artist residency in Iceland, where he held his first solo exhibition at the Akureyri Art Museum. The same year Smith received the Freedman Foundation Travelling scholarship. He is currently working on an MFA at UNSW Art and Design in Sydney.

LINK: Brenton Alexander Smith (All images and videos (c) Brenton Alexander Smith)

GAME ART: PEDRO MOREIRA'S THE TRIPPLESAPIENS, PILOT (2018)

The first Tripplesapien, Tlön, is a projection of what the artist regards as the next evolutionary stage of humanity, a being that transcends gender, race, and nationality and exists solely in the the realm of an utopian virtual world. The Tripplesapiens: Pilot, 2018 is the first episode in the Tripplesapiens project, which originated from Moreira's A Level Playing Field (2017) residency. The 17 minute video features Tlön as a guide to the world of the Tripplesapiens, allowing the audience to act as a voyeur to Moreira’s fictional world. The work has been exhibited at MACAO (Milan), Killburn Arches (London), Wozen (Lisbon) and Aarhus Billedkunstcenter (Aarhus).

Pedro Moreira was born in Lisbon, Portugal in the year of 1989. Raised Mormon and constantly relocating with family, Moreira has led a sheltered and restricted existence. The gender-non-binary artists was raised in the United Kingdom from the age of 14, severing their ties to the Mormon church at the age of 18, with the move to London and enrolment in the UAL. It was here that Moreira gained an interest in identity theory, and honed their interest in art installation as a communicative medium with the piece Gender Mirror, 2012. It was also in UAL that Moreira gained an interest in morality and media, writing the dissertation With No Power Comes No Responsibility, 2012, in which they juxtaposed popular super hero narratives with The New Testament, arguing that theological texts are simply incarnations of ‘the basic hero’s journey’ a formula of moral story telling present since the Epic of Gilgamesh. An interview with Moreira is available here.

LINK: Pedro Moreira

EVENT: DIGITAL CITIZEN - THE PRECARIOUS SUBJECT (JAN 24 - JUNE 16 2019, NEWCASTLE, ENGLAND)

DIGITAL CITIZEN - THE PRECARIOUS SUBJECT

24 January – 16 June 2019

Curated by Alessandro Vincentelli

BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art

S Shore Rd, Gateshead NE8 3BA

Newcastle, England

Featured artists: 

James Bridle/Alan Butler/Laura Grace Ford/ Peter Hanmer/Daniela Ortiz/Jonas Staal/Kate Stonehill/Petra Szemán/They Are Here/Alan Warburton

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Basically, the first unmissable Game Art exhibition of 2019, featuring the astounding On Exactitude in Science by Alan Butler and Petra Szeman's The world is contained within the reach of the Yamanote Line among others...

This exhibition draws on the imagination of contemporary artists to inspire a conversation on ideas of citizenship in the digital age. We are said to live in the era of ‘fake news’ – online propaganda which significantly endangers democracy.

Sophisticated AI and CGI technologies have irreversibly blurred the distinction between reality and simulation. We voluntarily subject ourselves to constant surveillance of our online presence, while enjoying the apparent anonymity which grants us the illusion of freedom and encourages the upsurge of internet trolling.

In the time of unprecedented speed of information circulation which has weakened the importance and integrity of the public space, have we lost the ability for informed political action? Are we still able to form a community or has the fragmentation of the present moment deprived us of the capacity of being active enabled citizens? Digital Citizen - The Precarious Subject investigates new possibilities of digital tools and networks for rethinking historical forms of nationalisms and citizenship.

The exhibition revels in digital avatars, game environments and ‘total worlds’ that open up new spaces for creation and fluid gender identities. It asks the question of whether it is still possible to foster new transnational forms of togetherness and activism in the digital realm.

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Alan Butler, On Exactitude in Science, 2017. Two-screen HD video, 5.1 audio. Koyaanisqatsi (© IRE 1983, All Rights Reserved) Courtesy of Godfrey Reggio and the Institute for Regional Education.

Petra Szeman, The world is contained within the reach of the Yamanote Line (2018), still from video

Alan Warburton, Trollolololologram, 2019 Lenticular print. Courtesy the artist.

LINK: DIGITAL CITIZEN - THE PRECARIOUS SUBJECT

Digital Citizen – The Precarious Subject installation view. BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead. Photo: Colin Davison © 2019 BALTIC

GAME ART: ELAINE HOEY'S ANIMATED POSITIONS (2019)

The first true masterpiece of 2019: Elaine Hoey's Animated Positions, which was included in her solo show Surface Tension at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, in Paris, between January 19 - February 19. The exhibition was curated by Nora Hickey:

This work draws reference from 19th century European nationalist paintings and explores the role of art in the portrayal of jingoistic patriotic ideals that have become culturally symbolic in the formation of the nation state. This piece re-animates the war like stances and positions of bodies found within these paintings, using character animation taken from the video game Call of Duty. The work challenges notions of nostalgia for the nation state, creating a contemporary critique of the underlying violence that underpins much of today's nationalistic ideologies.

Elaine Hoey is an Irish New Media Artist working primarily with virtual reality and interactive art. Among her artworks is The Weight of Water (2016) which uses virtual reality technology to project the viewer in the position of a refugee in a boat, suffering through the infamously hazardous journey to Europe.

LINK: Elaine Hoey

GAME ART: ISABELLE ARVERS'S LA MER (2019)

Isabelle Arvers, mer blue rose, machinima, color, sound, 11'17", 2019

Isabelle Arvers, mer violette, machinima, color, sound, 4' 45", 2019

Isabelle Arvers, mer superpink, machinima, color, sound, 4' 45", 2019

Isabelle Arvers's fascinating new machinima series evoke the abstract minimalism of Cory Arcangel's early work. A mesmerizing visual experience. 

ISABELLE ARVERS (b. 1972) is a French media art curator, critic and author, specializing in video and computer games, web animation, digital cinema, retrogaming, chiptune music, and machinima. She curated several exhibitions in France and internationally on the relationship between art, video games, and politics including the seminal Gizmoland the Video Cuts (Centre Pompidou, 2001), the Gaming Room at PLAYTIME (Villette Numérique, Paris, 2002), Tour of the Web (Centre Pompidou, 2003), featuring Vuk Cosic and Miltos Manetas among others, Digital Salon. Games and Cinema (Maison Populaire, Montreuil, 2011), GAME HEROES (Alcazar, Marseille, 2011) and several editions of GAMERZ (Aix-en-Provence, France). She also promotes free and open source culture as well as indie games and art games. A graduate of the Institute of Political Studies in Aix-en-Provence and a Postgraduate Diploma in Cultural Project Management of the Paris 8 University, Isabelle Arvers has been researching and working with new media since 1993. A prolific writer, her critical essays have been included in several catalogs, anthologies, and books. Arvers lives and works in Marseille.

LINK: Isabelle Arvers

GAME ART: KWON HAYOUN'S 489 YEARS (2016)

 

Hayoun Kwon, France, 2016, color, digital, 11'

South Korean's artist Hayoun Kwon uses video games and 3D animation to create stunning digital shorts dealing with geopolitical questions of borders and territoriality .489 Years (2015) is transcribed according to the testimony of a former South Korean soldier. It gives us access to the DMZ, and immerses in the personal memories of a soldier. He tells us his experiences in a research mission and the amazing discovery he made in the field full of mines.

​Born in 1981 in Seoul, Hayoun Kwon lives between France and South Korea. Her work was projected during the “Cinéma du Réel” Festival at the Centre Pompidou (Paris) in 2014, and “Doc Fortnight” at MoMA (New York) in February 2017. Winner of the Prix Découverte des Amis du Palais de Tokyo in 2015, Hayoun Kwon has also been awarded the first Prize of the 62ndInternational Short Film Festival (Oberhausen, Germany, 2016), the Arte Creative Newcomer Award during the European Media Art Festival (Osnabrück, Germany, 2014) and the Prix Jeune Création in 2012. After graduating from Le Fresnoy in 2011, she is now represented by the Galerie Sator, Paris.  

LINK: Hayoun Kwon

GAME ART: THEODORE DARST & COLLIN LEITCH, ALL MANNER OF THINGS SHALL BE WELL (2018)

Theodore Darst & Collin Leitch, All Manner Of Things Shall Be Well, 2018, 2-Channel HD Video, 9.45 minutes, Dimensions Variable

All Manner of Things Shall Be Well by Theodore Darst and Collin Leitch is a vertical video framed across two HD televisions about religion's aesthetics and ideology. The video incorporates footage from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. and 3D animation. As Ida Pruitt writes on the Brooklyn Rail:

Religious imagery punctuates the video’s landscape, which was partially built with footage lifted from the role-playing video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. This open-world game allows players to freely explore its virtual realm and shape their own narratives, a feature Darst and Leitch exploited in the tradition of Machinima (a filmmaking technique where players use the graphics engine of a game to capture footage for a cinematic production). The artists are in dialogue with this practice, but elaborate on the richly textured aesthetic of Skyrim with originally rendered 3D graphics, manipulated video sourced from the internet, digital painting, and other techniques too inventive to pin down. The result is a frenetic montage of imagery that either fragments or evolves as soon as it begins to make sense.

Theodore Darst & Collin Leitch, All Manner Of Things Shall Be Well, 2018, 2-Channel HD Video, 9.45 minutes, Dimensions Variable, installation view. King's leap Projects

Collin Leitch (b. 1993) is an artist and filmmaker living and working in New York. He earned a BA in Film & Electronic Arts at Bard college in 2016. He has participated in screenings internationally including Channels Video Art Festival in Melbourne (2017), Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn (2017), The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016), and has had a solo presentation of his work at Mothership, Woodstock (2016).

Theodore Darst (b. 1986) is an artist living and working in Manhattan. In 2017 he presented a solo show Cult Trash at Magenta Plains, NYC. Recently, Darst has presented work in “THIS KNOWN WORLD” at The Museum Of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, CA; and the Artists’ Film Biennial at Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, England. Darst has exhibited his work in New York at East Hampton Shed, 83 Pitt, Microscope, The Museum of the Moving Image and in Chicago at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Roots and Culture, Public Works, and MANA Contemporary. His first book, Cult Trash, was published by Soft City Publishing on the occasion of his exhibition at Magenta Plains.

LINK: Collin Leitch & Theodore Darst 

GAME ART: JERON BRAXTON'S GLUCOSE (2017)

Not your typical short. Glucose is a surreal journey through the dream of video game character who has been K.O. during a match, featuring low-poly and glitch-art aesthetics. It was awarded the top prize at the 2018 Sundance film festival in the Animation category by a jury comprised of Garbage lead vocalist Shirley Manson, cartoonist Chris Ware, and filmmaker/tv director Cherien Dabis (Amreeka, The L Word, Empire). Trivia: Jeron Braxon's brand is modeled after Sony PlayStation' iconic logo.

Jeron is a 24-year-old American filmmaker living and working in New York.

LINK: Jeron Braxton

GAME ART: JONNE HANSSON'S THE CONVENIENCE STORE (2018)

The Convenience Store, 2018, machinima from Grand Theft Auto V in-game editor (PC), voice-over by Jonne Hansson, August Bällgren and Evelina Maria Odette Jönsson, sound design by Agatha Lewandowski, special thanks to Mattis Lindmark and Jon Svensson (HUMlab, Umeå University)

In Jonne Hansson's latest machinima, three recently graduated artists who attended Umeå Academy of Fine Arts in Sweden move to the fictional city of Los Santos (a virtual replica of Los Angeles) hoping to make it big in the Artworld. But the American dream soon turns into a nightmare: they all hit a brick wall. One day, they accidentally meet each other in a convenience store. A meta-referential conversation among simulacra ensues. 

A few months ago, we spoke to Jonne on the theme of absurdity in machinima.

LINK: Jonne Hansson

NEWS: THE GUARDIAN CALLS MACHINIMA "CUTTING EDGE VIDEO ART"

Named after the late experimental film director Derek Jarman, the Jarman Award celebrates and supports UK-based artists working with moving image and celebrates the spirit of experimentation, imagination and innovation in the works. The 2018 nominees include Larry Achiampong and David Blandy, who made the groundbreaking series Facing Fanon with Grand Theft Auto V, and Lawrence Lek, who uses gaming engines and 3D software to make his production. The £10,000 prize will be awarded on 24 November. The Guardian calls these productions "cutting edge video art". It's about time critics recognize machinima for what it is: a true avant-garde.

Read the full article here.

LINK: Jarman Award