GAMESCENES

EVENT: MALITZIN CORTÉS (CNDSD) AND IVÁN ABREU (OCTOBER 1 - 10 2024, ONLINE)

AUTOCONSTRUCCIÓN

digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 13’ 52”, 2024, Mexico

created by Malitzin Cortés (CNDSD) and Iván Abreu

vral.org

 

Originally conceived and performed as a live-coded audiovisual concert and real-time video game animation, Autoconstrucción was collaboratively created by Malitzin Cortés (CNDSD) and Iván Abreu. The project, executed through algorithms and unfolding across four distinct chapters, was performed in Mexico City (2022), Madrid (2023), Utrecht (2023), and Shanghai (2023). The segment presented on VRAL features a generated version of episode 2, entitled Floating City - Floating Population. This episode explores the concept of a transient population inhabiting cities, with AI creating hybrid architectural facades that reflect the empty character of many peripheral cities during the day.

Malitzin Cortés (CNDSD) is a renowned musician, live coder, and creative technologist. Her multifaceted work encompasses live coding, live cinema, installation art, virtual reality, creative coding, sound design, experimental music, and sound art. In 2020, she was awarded the Latin American Prize for Virtual Reality “Realmix” for her immersive piece “Hyper_D.” Malitzin is currently a workshop instructor in live coding with functional programming using Tidal Cycles on the educational platform of CMMAS. She has showcased her work at prominent venues and events including the Multimedia Center, Alameda Art Laboratory, Ex-Teresa Arte Actual, Digital Cultural Center, Medialab Prado, Spain Cultural Center, CMMAS, Vorspiel, Spektrum Berlin, Transpiksel, Aural, Transmediale Berlin, ISEA, CYLAND MediaArtLab Saint Petersburg, ADAF, Ars Electronica, Currents, as well as MUTEK in Mexico, Montreal, and Japan. CNDSD’s soundscapes are crafted for experimental environments, characterized by granular landscapes, algorithmic vocal experiments, hypnotic noise improvisations, live coding, and asymmetric patterns, pushing the boundaries of musical and sonic exploration. Cortés lives and works in Mexico City.

Iván Abreu is an esteemed audiovisual artist and creative technologist based in Mexico City. His interdisciplinary practice spans a diverse array of media, including digital graphics, photography, electronic devices, software development, music and sound experimentation, expanded film and video, and industrial design. Abreu's innovative work has garnered numerous accolades and support from prestigious institutions. These include the Prix Ars Electronica (2012, Linz, Austria), the CINTAS Foundation Award in Visual Arts (2011-12, New York/Miami), and the ZKM Production and Research Residence – Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany (2021). He has also been supported by the National Fund for Culture and the Arts, through the National System of Art Creators (2012-2014, 2017-2019, and 2022-2025, Mexico). Abreu's audiovisual creations have been showcased at prominent international festivals dedicated to sound art, experimental music, and media art. His work has been featured at the International Conference of Live Coding in Madrid, Aural, Transmediale Berlin, MUTEK in Mexico and Montreal, the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), and the Asia Culture Center in Korea.

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GAME ART: AARON BERRY’S FOURTH ERA (2016)

Aaron Berry, Fourth Era, digital video, color, sound, 23' 55", United States, 2016. Made with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim © Bethesda Game Studios

Watching the world go by, the expansive forest, snowy plains and castles fill my view. Wandering the arctic wastes I sit thinking of where to go next, an expanse in front of me. I hear voices and whispers in the wind, shadowy figures hidden in the snow. Something out there is calling me. I come to a town filled with people going about their day, farmers, blacksmiths and guards all turn to me as I arrive. I pause the game to make sure I'm still on track each person is now frozen in time, apart from me, sitting there controller in hand.

Baltimore-based artist and activist Aaron Berry’s Fourth Era created in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, pulls from observational film tradition investigating the digital landscape with earnestness and intimacy. Berry sketches out an impression of Tamerial’s fourth age through bustling towns and isolated valleys. The emperor has died, and the throne sits empty. Authoritarian regimes try to maintain power as bandits, demons and corruption subjugate the general population. Focussing on the details of the landscape Berry attempts to retell the narrative of the game's story. The uncanniness of Skyrim paired with the honesty of the player camera highlights the game's otherness and suggests existence when we are not there.

A machinima film in the style of slow cinema Fourth Era pays tribute to James Benning’s California trilogy. In Benning’s trilogy (El Valley Centro, Los, Sogobi) each film is constructed in the same way 35 shots, 2 minutes and 30 seconds in length on a static 16mm camera. Berry imitates the form with 15 shots all 90 seconds in length (note 1), using this formula in this new untapped, untainted virtual world.

A close-up of jagged ants journeying across the screen, the sharp contours of the polygonal landscape highlighting the world's fabrication. Whispers of merchants selling goods and soldiers repetitively chopping wood, a place of worship atop a mountain - the emptiness and serenity present when the player simply does not play. This stillness pays great respect to the people and the environment of this digital world and makes it feel alive, the wind, the rain breathing life into the artificial land.

An experience known to the Skyrim player base, the role playing game lulls the player into slowing down. There is no mount or way of traversing the landscape other than walking in the initial sense, the game forces you to travel by foot across its landscape. The environment is filled with small details that convey a real alive world, present in each step you take.

Slow cinema is a kind of worship, an image on the screen, the object of our gaze absorbing our devotion: the everyday acts of Jeanne Dielman, the fishing boat in Leviathan, the desert of El Valley Centro. This form being remediated here through machinima, questions the digital environment and the transcendental elements of “nature”.

Aaron Berry, Fourth Era, digital video, color, sound, 23' 55", United States, 2016. Made with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim © Bethesda Game Studios

As Aaron Berry writes,

More than anything, I see a bigger connection between death and life throughout the world. It starts with a shot of the dead elk, and ends on top of a mountain where a dragon circles around the peak. I guess one can see a bit of transcendence or afterlife imagery through that lens. The idea of nature as a transcendence from the struggles of man and closeness to the divine goes back to Thoreau’s Walden. James Benning is fully aware of this, invoking Walden several times throughout his films. At the time of making Fourth Era, I was still an atheist and was fascinated by nature on an aesthetic level. Now, as someone who is more agnostic yet has found solace in African-American spiritualism, I definitely see where the lines of prayer and nature meet. ~ Aaron Berry (note 2)

Within Skyrim there is an overarching religious belief of the Nordic Pantheon made up of various deities, relating to different aspects of the world, gods of birth, death and time. Journeying through these landscapes and towns you can feel their presence within Fourth Era. Each shot feels like an ode to these deities, gods of the digital realm. The empty towns and rolling hills stages for their appearance, which never comes. Without the prophetical main player character “the Dragonborn” these areas of action and miracle are left deserted. Is this world better for it, no divine being, no unquestionable force?

With such earnestness, it is hard to disregard the possibility of their existence, these walking lines of code and fictitious mythologies. Watching the wind blow through these “uninhabited” landscapes feels as if I am searching for something or someone, the way my eyes dart around the screen looking for something. Maybe what I am looking for is something unknown, invisible to my eye.

I know when I turn the game off it stops, but it doesn't feel like it does, the image permeates and continues to play in my mind, on and on.

Harry Bayley

 

Harry Bayley is an artist and curator, blending his expertise in film and screen media with curatorial skills. His diverse experience, from designing CRM systems to curating film programs, reflects his commitment to enhancing audience engagement and his capability to handle both creative and logistical aspects of projects. Currently advancing his academic research in machinima film practice at Birkbeck University London, Bayley contributes to the arts community through his innovative approaches to curation and exhibition management. Bayley works and lives in London

Notes

(1) the final shot exceeds this timing.

(2) personal communication with the author.

LINK: Aaron Berry

CALL FOR PAPERS: GAME ENGINE CULTURE(S) (DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 15 2024)

Project overview

Game engines like Unity and Unreal Engine have transcended their initial confines in video game development, evolving into versatile platforms that now influence a wide array of creative and scientific fields. These powerful tools are not just limited to gaming; they have reshaped Hollywood visual effects, virtual production, and even pre-visualisation of movie sets, as well as contemporary art and architecture. Game engines are also utilised to create training simulations for various industries, including the military. As these engines standardise aesthetic and functional practices, they simultaneously raise critical questions about artistic authorship, expressive diversity, accessibility, environmental sustainability, and the impact of increased digital consumption.

Entitled Game Engine Culture(s), this international research initiative aims to critically examine the contemporary use of game engines within the visual arts. It seeks to explore the convergence of media studies, game studies, platform studies, curatorial practice, and art history. Through in-depth analysis and prototyping under the guidance of artists and practitioners, the project investigates methods to preserve authorship and foster critique within complex digital ecosystems. Our objective is to collaborate with scholars, artists, curators, critics, and practitioners to generate new insights into the social, aesthetic, and technical dimensions of game engines.

Call for papers details

The Department of Art, Media, and Performance “Giampaolo Fabris” at IULM University, Milan, the School of Digital Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University, and the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London, under the guidance of Matteo Bittanti, Valentino Catricalà, and Paolo Ruffino, invite scholars, artists, developers, and practitioners to submit abstracts for a forthcoming publication and series of collaborative research activities centered around the theme of Game Engine Culture(s).

We welcome submissions that explore, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• The transformative impact of game engines on visual culture and artistic expression;
• Critical analyses of aesthetic standardization and homogeneity in production management and 'pipelines' across different fields;
• The circulation of digital assets across diverse fields of cultural production;
• Platformisation tendencies and commercial interests driving game engine development;
• The role of game engines in promoting or hindering diversity and accessibility in digital art and culture;
• Case studies on specific artists (e.g., Ed Atkins, Alice Bucknell, Ian Cheng, Jacky Connolly, Lawrence Lek, Lu Yang and many more);
• ​The use of game engines beyond gaming, including in film, architecture, and other creative industries;
• ​The accessibility of game engines for diverse populations and their role in democratizing digital art creation, including related narratives and discourses;
• The techno-ideologies and geopolitics of game engines;
• Sustainable practices and the challenge of e-waste in the context of game engine proliferation;
• Strategies for preserving artistic authorship and originality within game engine ecosystems.

Game Engine Culture(s) is fully funded by IULM University, ensuring comprehensive support throughout its development. The resulting publication, scheduled to be released in English, will be published by a leading academic publisher, guaranteeing wide dissemination and accessibility within the scholarly community. To accompany the release of the book, we are planning various events, including conferences, talks, screenings, and more.

Important dates

• Abstract submission deadline: September 15, 2024
• Notification of acceptance: October 15, 2024
• Full paper submission deadline: December 15, 2024
• Publication date: 2025

Submission guidelines

• Abstracts: Should be between 300-500 words, clearly outlining the research question, methodology, bibliography, and potential contributions to the field.
• Biographies: Please include a brief biography of the author(s) with the abstract submission.
• Full papers: Should be between 6,000-8,000 words, including references and footnotes, formatted according to MHRA style. Please use British English.
• Format: Submit your chapter as a .docx or .pdf file.
• Submission email: Send submissions to [email protected] with the subject line “Game Engine Cultures Submission”.

Contact information

For further information, please contact:

• Matteo Bittanti: [email protected]
• Paolo Ruffino: [email protected]
• Valentino Catricalà: [email protected]

This call seeks to foster innovative research trajectories both conceptually and methodologically, promoting an original and interdisciplinary approach to studying the impact of game engines on contemporary visual culture. By bringing together experts from various disciplines and creative sectors, this project not only aims to map the state of the art but also to delineate new future research directions.

We look forward to receiving your contributions and to fostering rich discussions and insights into the complex nexus of game engines and contemporary visual culture.

image: Game Engine, by Dall-E, 2024

EVENT: 2GIRLS1COMP (JULY 5 - 18 2024, ONLINE)

Dancing Plague

digital video (1920 x 800), color, sound, 6’ 29”, 2024, Switzerland/Italy

created by 2girls1comp

In Dancing Plague, a mod for Grand Theft Auto V, the game’s traditionally gendered choreography is subverted, forcing every male NPC to dance feverishly whenever the player holds the H key. This intervention spotlights the inherent gender biases within the game’s animation system, where dance moves are primarily designed for female performers, often objectified as sex workers. By redirecting these choreographies to male characters, the mod disrupts the rigid gender binaries coded into the game, creating a spectacle where masculinity is both liberated and challenged. Interestingly, the male NPCs’s hypersexualized dance is mostly ignored by the female characters. Such an outcome becomes a playful and potent critique of the game’s inherent gender politics. To enhance the mod’s immersive experience, Azu Tiwaline, a French Tunisian musician known for blending contemporary electronic music with sub-Saharan trance traditions, was commissioned to create the soundtrack. Her work underscores the mod’s themes of ritual, trance, and liberation, providing a sonic backdrop that deepens the critique of gendered biases in digital spaces.

2girls1comp is a modding duo founded in 2023 by Marco De Mutiis (Italy, 1983) and Alexandra Pfammatter (Switzerland, 1993). Their work changes the logic of video games as an act of creative counter-play, revealing the social and economic fabric in which they are immersed: from reclaiming global digital infrastructures to commenting on free labor within the capitalist ideologies of the gaming industry, to showcasing the way play can influence its subjects through its mechanics. Their projects are distributed within the gaming and modding community, as well as cultural and artistic contexts.

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PROJECT: THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S GUIDE TO LOS SANTOS

In this video, Marco De Mutiis and Matteo Bittanti introduce The Photographer's Guide to Los Santos, an online companion to the eponymous exhibition which took place in the context of Fotofestival Lenzburg between May 22 and June 23 2024 in Lenzburg, Switzerland.

The Photographer’s Guide to Los Santos is several things at once.

Firstly, it’s a curated archive and expanding resource center documenting the most significant artistic projects created with Grand Theft Auto V in the past decade.

Secondly, it an educational project, introducing students to virtual photography practices through a thematic overview and a series of hands-on exercises.

Thirdly, as an "how to guide", it provides a series of manuals intended to photography and media arts students interested in experimenting with the game.

This online resource currently collects nine projects created by international artists working with Grand Theft Auto V, that is, 2girls1comp, Alan Butler, Raphael Brunk, COLL.EO, Mattia Dagani Rio, Elizabeth Desintaputri, Claire Hentschker, Mascha Negri, and Georgie Roxby Smith, which were all featured in the very first themed exhibition.

The repository is expected to expand substantially over the next few months.

In this video, the curators discuss the nine notable works currently featured in the online archive.

Explore the The Photographer's Guide to Los Santos

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: PROJECT SPACE AT VISUAL STUDIES WORKSHOP (ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, DEADLINE: APRIL 5 2024)

Image: Joel Dow in the Project Space at VSW

 

Image: Re: The Operation, video sculpture, 2019. © Peggy Ahwesh.

 

Call for Applications: Project Space at Visual Studies Workshop

 

Visual Studies Workshop (Rochester, NY, USA) currently has a call for its artist-in-residence program, the Project Space, for Fall 2024 - Spring 2025 residents.

 

Rooted in VSW’s mission to provide support to experimental photo, film, video and new media artists, the goal of the Project Space Residency is to provide time, space, and resources for artists so they can create.

The 4 week residencies are open to artists at any stage of their career and take place at VSW in Rochester, NY. Project Space Residents receive 24/7 access to a private studio, digital printing equipment and an analog darkroom. They also receive a stipend of $1000, plus $250 for supplies, and a $500 travel budget for those traveling from outside the Rochester region.

We provide accessible housing for national/international artists in an apartment within walking distance to VSW. All of our Residents receive the support of VSW’s digital printing technician, program assistants, consultations with curators on staff and research support in VSW’s collections. The Project Space Residency also provides opportunities for artists to engage with the public through public lectures and Open Studios. 

 

Deadline: April 5 2024

 

More info      

 

Application

 

via Nilson Carroll

RESEARCH: GAME ENGINE CULTURE(S) (2024)

Theo Triantafyllidis, Radicalization Pipeline, live simulation, 2021 (still) Courtesy of the artist

GAME ENGINE CULTURE(S)

Principal investigators: Matteo Bittanti (Dipartimento di Arti, Media e Spettacolo “Giampaolo Fabris”, Università IULM, Milano), Valentino Catricalà (School of Digital Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University), Paolo Ruffino (Department of Communication and Media, University of Liverpool)

Description: Game engines such as Unity and Unreal Engine have undergone significant evolution over the past decade, transitioning from tools primarily designed for digital video technology to versatile instruments in various creative and scientific domains. Initially conceived for 3D digital simulation, these engines now offer the capability to produce interactive three-dimensional renderings and simulations in a broad range of settings. This transformation reflects the influence of Hollywood's visual effects on disciplines like architecture and fashion, indicating the pervasive impact of contemporary visual culture on the modern film industry.

Unity and Unreal Engine have become indispensable tools for a growing number of contemporary artists. Their advanced computer graphics functionalities enable the creation of intricate virtual worlds, fostering new forms of interaction and artistic expression. These engines are particularly notable in the realm of immersive 3D site-specific installations, where they facilitate experiences of virtual reality and augmented reality. Prominent artists such as Lawrence Lek, Cao Fei, LaTurbo Avedon, Rachel Rossin, Mario Klingemann, Jakob Kudsks Steensen, and Theo Triantafyllidis have leveraged these platforms to pioneer a new expressive tradition in modern and contemporary art, one that is inherently transmedial and transcultural.

However, it's essential to acknowledge the specific aesthetic and commercial interests of leading brands like Unity and Epic Games. Their commitment to simplifying and standardizing the 3D creative process plays a critical role in the industry. By attracting a diverse range of artistic expressions, these game engines foster new paradigms of creativity while navigating the complex interplay between technological innovation and artistic vision.

Ian Cheng, Emissaries, 2015-2017, live simulation, 2022 (still) Courtesy of the artist

Goals: The GAME ENGINE CULTURE(S) research project integrates fieldwork and data collection to examine the role of game engines in contemporary visual culture. This collaboration between Università IULM di Milano, Manchester Metropolitan University, and the University of Liverpool includes panels and workshops aimed at advancing research and exploring the impact of game engines on visual arts, both nationally and internationally.

The first event is on December 1, 2023 at the University of Liverpool, with similar workshops following at IULM and Manchester Metropolitan. These events serve as catalysts for research within the program.

A key outcome is an Italian publication offering original contributions from academics, curators, artists and critics specializing in digital and visual culture. This volume provides an updated overview of art influenced by game engines, including critiques and visions for the field. The publication reinforces IULM's position as a leading research center on digital aesthetics and emerging cultural practices.

The program critically examines game engines' influence on visual arts, considering computer graphics' pivotal role. It addresses crucial questions around authorship, accessibility, and sustainability in digital artistic production.

This international collaboration among IULM, Liverpool and Manchester Metropolitan represents a significant contribution to contemporary art discourse by exploring creative possibilities and conditions of artistic expression within game engines.

The project's primary goal is to critically map the current use of game engines in visual arts. This approach, at the intersection of media studies, game studies, platform studies and contemporary art, involves both analysis and prototype creation under artist and practitioner guidance. The investigation aims to preserve artistic integrity within the global digital ecosystem by engaging artists, curators and critics in comprehensive dialogue.

LINK: GAME ENGINE CULTURE(S)

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English above

GAME ENGINE CULTURE(S)

Team e ricercatori: Matteo Bittanti (Dipartimento di Arti, Media e Spettacolo “Giampaolo Fabris”, Università IULM, Milano), Valentino Catricalà (School of Digital Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University), Paolo Ruffino (Department of Communication and Media, University of Liverpool)

Jakob Kudsks Steensen, Dome of Gated Ecologies, 2017, VR, duration 3 minutes

Descrizione: I motori dei videogiochi come Unity e Unreal Engine si sono evoluti significativamente nell’ultimo decennio: da strumenti pensati esclusivamente per lo sviluppo di videogiochi sono oggi diventati piattaforme versatili onnipresenti nelle arti digitali. Originariamente progettati per snellire lo sviluppo 3D delle simulazioni digitali, questi motori forniscono ora potenti capacità di rendering tridimensionale interattivo e simulazione che sono state adottate da una vasta gamma di settori creativi e di ricerca scientifica. Dagli effetti visivi di Hollywood all’architettura e alla moda, i motori di gioco stanno ora plasmando molteplici aspetti della cultura visiva contemporanea. Unreal Engine e Unity sono diventati strumenti indispensabili per un numero crescente di artisti contemporanei. Queste piattaforme software forniscono funzionalità di computer grafica avanzate che permettono di generare mondi virtuali interattivi e coinvolgenti.
Molti artisti stanno adottando Unreal Engine e Unity per creare installazioni 3D immersive site-specific oppure esperienze in realtà virtuale e aumentata; tra gli esempi più significativi spiccano Lawrence Lek, Cao Fei, LaTurbo Avedon, Rachel Rossin, Mario Klingemann, Jakob Kudsks Steensen, Theo Triantafyllidis e molti altri. In sintesi, il linguaggio interattivo e generativo reso possibile da questi motori sta aprendo inedite traiettorie espressive per l’arte moderna e contemporanea, in direzione transmediale e transculturale.
Tuttavia, attori leader come Unity ed Epic Games veicolano anche specifiche inclinazioni estetiche e interessi commerciali. La promessa di semplificare i processi 3D promuove omogeneità stilistica se applicata acriticamente. In altre parole, i motori di gioco rischiano di appiattire la diversità espressiva artistica nonostante abilitino nuovi paradigmi creativi.

Lawrence Lek, Thetha, CGI video, 12’, stereo sound, 2022 (still) Per gentile concessione dell’artista

Approfondimenti: Il progetto GAME ENGINE CULTURE(S) prevede una ricerca sul campo e la raccolta di dati che si svolgerà simultaneamente presso l'Università IULM di Milano, la Manchester Metropolitan University e la University of Liverpool. In ciascuno degli atenei verranno organizzati panel e workshop per facilitare il dibattito con esperti di rilievo nazionale e internazionale sui temi dell'influenza dei motori di gioco nella cultura visiva contemporanea.
Il primo di questi eventi è previsto per il 1 dicembre 2023 presso la University of Liverpool; successivamente saranno replicati workshop simili presso la IULM e la Manchester Met. Questi incontri fungeranno da catalizzatori di riflessione critica durante il progetto di ricerca.
I risultati della ricerca sul campo confluiranno nella pubblicazione di un volume in lingua italiana che raccoglierà contributi originali non solo degli studiosi delle tre università ma anche di curatori, artisti e critici indipendenti impegnati sui temi del digitale e della cultura visuale. Il volume ambisce a fornire una mappa aggiornata sullo stato dell’arte dell'utilizzo dei motori di gioco nelle arti, individuando sfide critiche e traiettorie future. La pubblicazione costituirà un unicum nel panorama italiano e consoliderà la posizione di IULM quale centro di ricerca all'avanguardia su digitale, estetica e pratiche culturali emergenti.
È dunque giustificata un’analisi critica dell'influenza di queste piattaforme sulle arti visive, considerando il loro ruolo centrale nella computer grafica moderna. In effetti la loro diffusione
solleva interrogativi rilevanti circa autorialità, accessibilità, sostenibilità nella produzione artistica digitalizzata.
Questo progetto di ricerca internazionale tra IULM, University of Liverpool e Manchester Metropolitan University esamina il potenziale a doppio taglio dell’onnipresenza dei motori grafici nell’arte contemporanea. Se da un lato essi espandono le possibilità creative, i loro condizionamenti estetici e funzionali standardizzano anche l'espressione artistica in modi raramente esplorati.
L’obiettivo fondamentale del progetto è mappare criticamente l’uso attuale di questi strumenti nelle arti visive, attraverso un approccio di ricerca che si colloca all’intersezione tra media studies, game studies, platform studies e arte contemporanea. Inoltre, tramite analisi e creazione di prototipi sotto la supervisione di artisti e praticanti, il progetto investiga come preservare l'autorialità artistica all’interno di complessi ecosistemi digitali, coinvolgendo artisti, curatori, critici.

LINK: GAME ENGINE CULTURE(S)

GAME ART: DORIJAN ŠIŠKO AND SARA BEZOVŠEK

Sara Bezovšek and Dorijan Šiško are two young Slovenian artists who often collaborate on multimedia and game-based art projects. Their works demonstrate an interest in internet culture, social media, and exploring relevant socio-political themes through speculative worldbuilding.

Sara Bezovšek is a visual artist, active in the fields of new media, experimental film and graphic design. Her artistic practice is characterized by the exploration, collection and storage of mostly pop-cultural visual references from various online platforms, films and TV series. Using the cut/copy-and-paste technique, she combines the found digital material into web pages, collages, mashup videos, and the likes thus creating new narratives through appropriation and its documentation (see, for instance, www.false-utopia.com). In doing so, she is interested in what people view and share on social networks, how visual material travels the internet, how it changes and how it affects users. The dense amount of short clips from popular series and films, animated GIFs, internet memes, videos and other images from online platforms creates a multilayered infrastructure as the viewer can read a number of parallel, complementary and alternative narrative. Her expansive interactive projects like SND. An interactive story game and Life of Its Own immerse participants in apocalyptic and cinematic universes built out of the over-saturation of recognizable pop culture icons.

Dorijan Šiško, Critical Hit, 2022, installation shot Aksioma, Liublijana 

Dorijan Šiško, Critical Hit, 2022,video game

 

Šiško is a multimedia graphic designer and artist working heavily with games, VR, animation, and installations. His neon bright, layered style often remixes disparate elements into speculative worlds where he probes topics like fake news, internet radicalization, tribalism, gamification, and science fiction visions of the future. Šiško collaborated with Bezovšek on the installation What’s Your Truth: Tipping Point (2023) an interactive game space filled with ideological memes that aimed to encourage reflection on how the filter bubbles and biases we operate in can distort perception of truth.Another remarkable project is Critical Hit (2022), a "speculative video game that draws gallery visitors into a post-virtual vision o parallel reality", a kind of psychedelic walking simulator. Šiško is also active in the Freštreš art collective organizing joint exhibitions and the Nimaš Izbire music collective putting on events. He is the recipient of two awards of the Brumen Foundation: for the newspaper Tribuna and for the book Freštreš 10. His work has been exhibited in such institutions as Osmoza, KUD Kibla, Kino Šiška, Slovenian National Museum, Modern Gallery Ljubljana, MGLC, GT22, Jakopič Gallery, Out to See Festival in New York, etc.

Together, Bezovšek and Šiško’s collaborative new media art practice demonstrates an interdisciplinary interest in exploring the influence of internet culture and video games on society. By appropriating the visual language of social media and gaming and constructing interactive spaces filled with references to online phenomena, their works aim to reveal deeper truths about our digitally-mediated realities. Their critical, at time sinister, and yet playful style invites participation in collective meaning-making around relevant contemporary issues.

LINK: Sara Bezovšek

LINK: Dorijan Šiško

All images and videos courtesy of the Artists

EVENT: BABAK AHTESHAMIPOUR’S HEY PLASTIC GOD PLEASE DON’T SAVE THE ROBOTIC KING… (DECEMBER 8 - 21 2023, ONLINE)

Hey Plastic God please don’t save the Robotic King, Let him drown in Acidic Anesthetic

single-channel digital video, color, sound 5’ 33”, 2023, Iran/Greece

Created by Babak Ahteshamipour



Hey Plastic God please don’t save the Robotic King, Let him drown in Acidic Anesthetic explores the mental disintegration of a cyber-king plagued by hallucinations fueled by narcissism, megalomania, and a relentless desire for power and grandeur who finds himself spiraling into a self-created abyss. The video juxtaposes Ahteshamipour’s real-life paintings with digital landscapes from Super Mario 64 and Super Mario 64 DS video games, thus blurring the lines between physical and digital realities. This artistic choice symbolizes the ever-growing influence of digitalization on our daily lives and challenges the separation between these two realms, and the predominant androcentric narratives in gaming culture.

Babak Ahteshamipour is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and musician based in Athens, Greece with a background in mining and materials engineering. His practice is based on the collision of the virtual vs the actual, aimed at correlating topics from cyberspace to ecology and politics to identity, exploring them via gaming, online and pop subcultures with a focus on themes of coexistence and simultaneity. Ahteshamipour’’s work has been presented at festivals, venues, galleries and spaces, museums and institutes such as Centre Pompidou, New Art City, The Wrong, Neo Shibuya TV, University of North Texas, The Networked Imagination Laboratory (McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario), Biquini Wax ESP, Experimental Sound Studio, Milan Machinima Festival, [ANTI]MATERIA, ArtSect Gallery, and Ametric Festival. Ahteshamipour has released music on the independent cassette label Industrial Coast and on the cassette label Jollies. His music has been played on radio stations such as Fade Radio, Radio Raheem, and Radio alHara. He has performed and shared the stage with artists such as HELM, Zoviet France, The Nam Shub of Enki, Gaël Segalen, Sister Overdrive, and Kiriakos Spirou. He has created video clips for artists such as Fire-Toolz, Digifae, and B.MICHAEEL. His work has been featured on magazines such as CTM Festival’’s magazine, KIBLIND, VRAL (Milan Machinima Festival), und. Athens, Our Culture Magazine and ATTN: Magazine.

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EVENT: ARE YOU FOR REAL. RITUALS OF NASCENT WORLDS. PHASE 2 (AUGUST 2 2023 - DECEMBER 31 2024, ONLINE)

The Rodina, Poring the Ecocide, 2023 (Courtesy of the Artist)

ARE YOU FOR REAL
Phase 2: Cosmo-clusters on computation, agency, and magic

2 Aug 2023 - 31 Dec 2024
Web-based project: areyouforreal.ifa.de

IFA BERLIN

press release

Are you for real? It would be an odd question to ask if we didn’t have technologies at hand capable not only of representing but generating realities. Computation propels a shift in our understanding of what "real" is, and how it should be distinguished from the merely possible, the virtual, and the actual.
 
Realities can be constructed by calculating machines as much as by the scientific activity that shapes how we perceive our digital and analog life-worlds. The understanding that computation and scientific investigation are two main forces that define our realities lies at the core of ARE YOU FOR REAL Phase 2. In arriving at this second phase, areyouforreal.ifa.de becomes a platform for investigating how computation and the sciences relate to reality—the full potential of their roles in generating new worlds—through the work of artists.
 
Artworks commissioned for or otherwise featured on the platform converge into thematic clusters, manifesting as planetary systems, to disclose a new cosmology of interpretations of the digital sphere. The intention is to show the irreducible entanglement of real and digital and to transpose fundamental questions present in our terrestrial life to the online sphere. 

The artists featured on ARE YOU FOR REAL use computers as tools, as collaborators, and as agents of world creation. They increasingly base their works on the results of scientific research, while also borrowing and transforming its methods in their investigations.
 
In recent decades computation has reached a planetary scale: its infrastructure now interconnects and forms the Earth. Because the ARE YOU FOR REAL artworks are held up by the stack of computation, the digital cosmos they create cannot be interpreted separately from the infrastructure it relies on.
 
The first cluster of artworks reflects on infrastructural issues. They engage with the manifold ways in which the virtual worlds generated by computation depend on the planet, but they also feed on its ecosystem’s imagery, relations, and data as they imagine alternatives for the world from which they emerge. 
 
The second cluster speculates on what never was but might have been; these artworks imagine the regenerative power of the virtual and its possible impacts on real-world scenarios, ecosystems, and non-human and interspecies alliances. They are collaborative human-machine explorations that provide counternarratives around technology and around artificial and natural agency.

The makers of the works in the third cluster interlace reality’s warp and weft, reconstructing it through combinations of technology and magic, reformulating ancient traditions. As its foundations begin to crumble under the pressure of technology, we can see ever more clearly that reality is not an unchangeable given, but a weave in a state of constant becoming. 

Rituals of Nascent Worlds closes the first year of Phase 2 releases by weirding our understanding and experience of reality through magic, as an alternative system competing with technic and as a generative tool that weaves "the ineffable" (Federico Campagna) into reality, manifesting and actualizing in digital worlds. By claiming the critical and generative potential of magical thinking, the artists featured in this third cluster reimagine our alliances with technology, queer our belief systems, and engage in collaborative practices. They obstruct and restructure perception, representation, and narrative by infusing them with alternative thought in dynamic and evolving environments. The third cluster of works is premiering a newly commissioned virtual space by Sahej Rahal: Azalabad.
 
ARE YOU FOR REAL Phase 2 aspires to situate and question a multiplicity of cosmotechnics (to pick up Yuk Hui’s term) shaped by a diverse and decentralized community of artists through a sequence of cosmological propositions, alternating between planetary and terrestrial, ecological and technological, magical and decolonial. They enable us to grasp various aspects of digitalization, and to explore a reality now irreducibly entangled with the online sphere.
 
Visitors enter the website from a point of view experienced in real life only by astronauts. Navigating the platform, visitors may leap from planet to planet but also enter them, shifting between planetary and terrestrial perspectives. They surf among configurations of clustered planets, visiting commissioned and featured works as well as selected contributions to ARE YOU FOR REAL Phase 1. 

Artists
Nolan Oswald Dennis
Can Karaalioglu
Nushin Isabelle Yazdani
Zheng Mahler
Rasheedah Phillips

The project features further contributions by
Ibrahim Cissé & Asmaa Jama,
João Renato Orecchia Zúñiga,
Nelly Y. Pinkrah,
Ainslee Alem Robson & Kidus Aailesilassie
Michelle M. Wright
Dior Thiam, George Demir, Luïza Luz, Mathias Becker
Ruben Susanne Bürgam, Gertruda Gilyte, Théo Pożoga, Andi Teichmann
Marcel Heise, Yuyen Lin-Woywod, Zaidda Nursiti Kemal and
Xiaoyu Tang & Sayaka Katsumoto

Curators
Julia Grosse
Yvette Mutumba
Paula Nascimento

LINK: ARE YOU FOR REAL