GAMESCENES

EVENT: A SHORT HISTORY OF MAPS IN VIDEO GAMES AND VIRTUAL WORLDS (APRIL 2 2024, STANFORD UNIVERSITY)

There, beyond the borders of codes: a history of game maps and glitches

Tuesday, April 2, 2024
2pm to 4:30pm PT
Green Library, Bing Wing, David Rumsey Map Center
459 Lasuen Mall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305

Signaling the border of the Western world, the Pillars of Hercules have for centuries been the symbol of the end of the known and the beginning of a mystery that has always attracted humanity: the promise of an elsewhere where the rules of reality were organized by other demiurges. In the age of satellites, traces of this apparently disappeared human feeling survive within the simulacra of the contemporary age: video games. A short history of maps in video games will explore how they have organized and evolved not only to sort out data and orient players, but also to respond to the mysteries of life and the human condition, hiding Easter eggs, surprises, glitches and soliciting obsessions, funny missions and odysseys of entire online communities, demonstrating how, even on the margins of the digital world, the enigmas of the human being continue to survive, multiply and proliferate.

Starting from the research carried out for the film A Stranger Quest, shot inside the David Rumsey Map Center, Andrea Gatopoulos will talk about his journey within the existential folds of the virtual through video-essays, short films and stories orbiting around maps. Andrea Gatopoulos is a film director and producer. His productions have been presented at the most prestigious festivals in the world, including Cannes, Berlinale, Venice, Locarno, Rotterdam and hundreds of other film festivals around the world. His projects address virtual realities, uncanny valleys and criticisms of progressivism, but maintain their intimate, sweet longing for simple feelings.

Register here

LINK: There, beyond the borders of codes: a history of game maps and glitches

EVENT: MMF MMXXIV (MARCH 11-17 2024, MILAN, ITALY)

press release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Milan Machinima Festival MMXXIV unveils groundbreaking programs for 2024 edition

Milan, Italy - The Milan Machinima Festival MMXXIV is thrilled to announce its highly anticipated programs for the 2024 edition, showcasing the best in machinima art from around the world. The festival will feature four unique programs: Auteur Theory, Game Video Essay, Made in Italy, and Slot Machinima.

This year, a concurrent event is FOTOLUDICA, the first Italian conference on in-game photography (March 14-15 2024). Both are free and open to the public.

The Game Video Essay program will present thought-provoking pieces by Cat Bluemke and Jonathan Carroll, Guilhem Causse, Ekiem Barbier, and Quentin L'helgoualc’h, Gina Hara, and Yemen Liu that explore the intersection of gaming and critical analysis. These works delve into the cultural, social, and political implications of video games, offering fresh perspectives on the medium and its impact on society. The program aims to foster a deeper understanding of the potential of video games as a tool for artistic expression and social commentary. The Game Video Essay program will be screened on Thursday March 14, 2024, in the Sala dei 146 (IULM 6).

Made in Italy will celebrate the ingenuity and craft of young Italian machinima artists. This program features three films that showcase unique aesthetics and styles, highlighting the vibrant and thriving Italian machinima art scene. The featured filmmakers, Alberto Calleo, Simone Fiorentino, and Elia "marasma" Strazzacappa, utilize real-time computer graphics engines to craft artworks that challenge traditional notions of cinema and transgress the boundaries between virtual and real-world spaces. Made in Italy will be screened on Friday March 15, 2024, in the Sala dei 146 (IULM 6).

The Auteur Theory program will highlight three exceptional works by leading machinima creators — Jacky Connolly, Lawrence Lek, and Total Refusal — examining the role of the individual artist in shaping the medium. This program celebrates the unique visions and styles of these artists, emphasizing their distinctive contributions to the field of machinima. The Author Theory program will be screened on Friday March 15, 2024 in the Sala dei 146 (IULM 6).

The Contemporary Exhibition Hall will host Slot Machinima, an immersive program featuring eight video installations that will be presented in a loop from March 11-15, 2024, featuring works by renowned artists such as Adonis Archontides, Steven Cottingham, Kara Güt, Thomas Hawranke, Andy Hughes, Carson Lynn, Stephan Panhans and Andrea Winkler, and Bram Ruiter. This special program is designed to immerse viewers in often absurd and deranged virtual environments within the video game imaginary, showcasing the incredible range and depth of avant-garde machinima.

“We are excited to present these groundbreaking programs that showcase the incredible talent and diversity within the machinima avant-garde community,” said festival director Matteo Bittanti. “The Milan Machinima Festival MMXXIV aims to push the boundaries of what is possible with this medium and inspire both artists and audiences alike. Through these four distinct programs, we hope to foster a deeper appreciation for the art of machinima and its potential to shape our understanding of the world around us.”

These year’s submission were judged by an international panel of scholars, critics, artists, and curators: Marco De Mutiis, Henry Lowood, Jenna Ng, and Martin Zeilenger.

The poster of the 2024 edition was designed by artist and musician Babak Ahteshamipour. Babak’s vivid new poster design epitomizes the festival’s ethos of propelling machinima into unmapped creative frontiers. Electrifying colors and fantastical shapes blend gaming visuals with mysterious organic shapes, suggesting unexpected artistic dimensions virtual worlds could unlock.

For more information about the Milan Machinima Festival MMXXIV and its programs, please visit the official website at https://milanmachinimafestival.org

About Milan Machinima Festival:

The Milan Machinima Festival MMXXIV is an annual celebration of the art of machinima, featuring works by established and emerging artists from around the world. The festival aims to promote the creative potential of real-time computer graphics engines and foster a global community of machinima creators and enthusiasts.

Contact:

Artistic director: Matteo Bittanti

Communication Manager: Colleen Flaherty

IULM Eventi: Caterina Angeretti

Directions to IULM University

News:

For updates, follow us on Patreon, Instagram, Twitter/X and the Festival’s website.

More:

Would you like to get involved? Drop us a line!

EVENT: HUI WAI-KEUNG (FEBRUARY 16 - 29 2024, ONLINE)

Parallel V

digital video, single-channel-projection, color, sound, 26’ 14”, 2023, Hong Kong

Created by Hui Wai-Keung

World premiere

 

Conceived by Hui Wai-Keung as a tribute to Harun Farocki, Parallel V is a continuation of his seminal Parallel I-IV series investigating the operational logic of computer games. The point of departure for Hui is a statement by the late German director on the computer-controller characters’ tendency to repeat the same actions over and over again: “This tragedy revealed the limitations of human freedom of action”. Hui discovered that all NPCs seem trapped in a time-space bond with the player, a relationship of ontological dependence. NPCs live life-like existences; repetitions are inevitable in their simulated lives. And yet, Hui suggests, the algorithmic bounds of games are not absolute, and NPCs still encounter contingencies. Thus, both NPCs and human beings might be better off following Friedrich Nietzsche’s admonition, embracing rather than rejecting repetition.

Hui Wai-Keung is a Hong Kong-born cross-disciplinary artist currently pursuing a PhD in Art Creation and Theory at Tainan National University of the Arts in Taiwan. Hui received his MFA from the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong and studied at the Hong Kong Art School. In recent years he has focused especially on game art and algorithmic art, exploring visual possibilities in digital hyperspace. Hui has exhibited widely in solo and group shows in Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Germany, Finland, Italy and the USA. Hui has completed artist residencies in Germany, Finland, South Korea, and Japan. Currently based in Taiwan, Hui continues to exhibit and conduct research into narrative, algorithms, possibility, contingency, reenactment, and history.

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GAME ART: ARON MEIER'S THE SKIN THEY PLAY IN (2022)

Aron Meier's investigate the relationship between players and avatars, recontexualizing the very meaning of "skin", which has different connotations in IRL and in gaming lingo. He writes:

Before anyone even heard of the term metaverse, a group of people have long experienced first-hand what it means to live a second life online. Since years, gamers have inhabited and customised different skins in their game of choice. But what does this shape-shifting mean for their identity?

He asked five different Parisian gamers what gaming means to them, how they choose to express themselves virtually versus IRL and what they think about brands venturing into that space.

THE SKIN THEY PLAY IN is part of Morphose, "a digital magazine exploring the influence the Metaverse has on fashion, culture and identity" which "raises questions around inclusivity and accessibility in this new world, but also celebrates it as a playground and fuel for creativity and talent."


See the full project here

CALL FOR ARTWORKS: MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL 2023 (DEADLINE: DECEMBER 30 2022)

The sixth edition of the MACHINIMA FILM FESTIVAL will take place in hybrid form, both online and in situ (Milan, Italy) between March 19 - 26 2023

Filmmakers and video artists engaged in the practice of appropriating, repurposing, and remixing video games are encouraged to send us their work for consideration. All submissions will be judged by an international panel of jurors comprising scholars, curators, and critics. A Critics' Award will be awarded to the most groundbreaking work.

Screenings of selected machinima will be curated around different themes and presented in different sections. The most interesting submissions are those which seek to capture or highlight a specific facet of contemporary life, from politics to art, from violence to creativity, from technology to ideology, through the aesthetic lenses of digital gaming.

The deadline for submissions is December 30, 2022

The full program will be announced in early March 2023

The guidelines and submission rules are available here

click here to begin the submission process

LINK: Milan Machinima Festival

VIDEO: ZKM'S VIDEO PORTRAIT OF TOTAL REFUSAL (2021)

In addition to the ARTE.TV's recent interview with Total Refusal, here's another brilliant portrayal of the gang from ZDK, in English. (Ok, it's The Division, not The Devision, but so what?)

The artist, researcher and filmmakers collective and pseudo-marxist media guerrilla Total Refusal (Susanna Flock, Adrian Haim, Jona Kleinlein, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf) intervenes in current video games and writes papers about games and politics. Since 2018 it has been awarded with 27 prizes (and 11 honorary mentions) like the Diagonale Film Award for the Best Short Doc, the Contemporary Visual Arts Award of Styria Province and Vimeo Staff Pick Award among others. Total Refusal's films have been presented at more than 130 film and video festivals, including Berlinale (2020), Doc Fortnight at MOMA New York and IDFA Amsterdam (2018) and they been exhibited at various exhibition spaces like the Architecture Biennial Venice 2021, the HEK Basel (2020) and the Ars Electronica Linz (2019).

Don't miss the upcoming Screen Walk with Total Refusal (Spet 22 2021, online).

LINK: Total Refusal

VIDEO: ARTE.TV'S PORTRAIT OF TOTAL REFUSAL (2021)

French-German TV channel ARTE.TV's interview with one of the greatest Game Art collectives of all time, Total Refusal, is a must see. Available both in German and French subtitles, the 16 minutes long documentary features and in-depth conversation at the Werkleitz, the Centre for New Media Arts in the city of Halle, Germany, where they are preparing their next artistic performance. ARTE.TV also hosts Operation Jane Walk (2018), one of Collective's most celebrated works so far. [the video file of Total Refusal's portrayal is also available here sans captions). 

The artist, researcher and filmmakers collective and pseudo-marxist media guerrilla Total Refusal (Susanna Flock, Adrian Haim, Jona Kleinlein, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf) intervenes in current video games and writes papers about games and politics. Since 2018 it has been awarded with 27 prizes (and 11 honorary mentions) like the Diagonale Film Award for the Best Short Doc, the Contemporary Visual Arts Award of Styria Province and Vimeo Staff Pick Award among others. Total Refusal's films have been presented at more than 130 film and video festivals, including Berlinale (2020), Doc Fortnight at MOMA New York and IDFA Amsterdam (2018) and they been exhibited at various exhibition spaces like the Architecture Biennial Venice 2021, the HEK Basel (2020) and the Ars Electronica Linz (2019).

LINK: Total Refusal

LINK: ARTE.TV, Court Circuit 

EVENT: CAO FEI. MY FUTURE IS NOT A DREAM. SELECTED WORKS FROM THE COLLECTION (SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 - JANUARY 9, 2022, MUNCHEN)

 i.Mirror by China Tracy (AKA: Cao Fei), Second Life Documentary Film, 2007

Cao Fei. My Future is not a Dream Selected Works from the Collection

September 10, 2021–January 9, 2022

Espace Louis Vuitton München

Maximilianstraße 2a

80539 Munich Germany

Hours: Monday–Friday 12–7pm,

Saturday 10am–7pm

press release

On the occasion of its new exhibition within the framework of the Fondation Louis Vuitton “Hors-les-murs” programme, the Espace Louis Vuitton München presents My Future is not a Dream, a selection of Cao Fei’s works from the Collection. This exhibition carries out the Foundation’s mission to showcase holdings of the Collection to an international audience at the Espaces Louis Vuitton in Tokyo, Munich, Venice, Beijing, Seoul and Osaka.

Born in 1978 in Guangzhou by the Pearl River Delta in China, Cao Fei has made a name for herself with her multimedia installations and videos. She takes inspiration from popular and traditional sources (the cinema, advertisements, manga, and theatre) to explore the relationship between real life, the collective utopia, and the personal aspirations of a younger generation immersed in a new urban culture marked by an industrial and commercial boom and Internet exposure. The economic dynamics of her native region, and its proximity to Hong Kong and Taiwan, gave rise to a generation with a decidedly modern lifestyle. A recurrent theme of her work since Imbalance 257 (1999), Cao Fei captures a world inhabited by her friends, subjugated by entertainment, consumption and television, where adolescents disguise themselves as manga or video game characters to play out a fictional life. Presented here, Whose Utopia (2006), which mixes documentary elements with fiction, explores the contrast between the real life of the workers at a factory and their dreams and aspirations.

Cao Fei, Whose Utopia (2006), video, projection, colour and sound (stereo), 19' 58"

Fascinated by the internet’s endless possibilities, Cao Fei began in 2007 to experiment with the virtual world of Second Life, the 3D-based user-generated content platform created in 2003. There she designed a virtual city (RMB CITY: A Second Life City Planning, 2007) where she settled her own avatar, China Tracy (Live in RMB City, 2009). The spaces she developed mingle some typical symbols of the Chinese culture (bicycles, pandas, a Mao bust etc.) with an unbridled proliferation of international characteristic everyday objects and architecture in an unrelenting flow of traffic, portraying the past, present and future of a community undergoing major change, in a country at the mercy of uncompromising modernization. Isolation, the division of the classes, and the projected decline of international capitalism are key subjects of Cao Fei’s work, which continuously draws on a wide variety of sources from both Western and Eastern worlds.

 

Cao Fei, RMB City: A Second Life City Planning by China Tracy (aka: Cao Fei), Color video, with sound, 6 min.

The three works presented here, which belong to the Collection, were displayed at Fondation Louis Vuitton in 2016 for the exhibition Bentu. Chinese Artists in a time of turbulence and transformation.

About the Fondation Louis Vuitton

The Fondation Louis Vuitton serves the public interest and is exclusively dedicated to contemporary art and artists, as well as 20th-century works to which their inspirations can be traced. The Collection and the exhibitions it organises seek to engage a broad public. The magnificent building created by the Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, and already recognized as an emblematic example of the 21st-century architecture, constitutes the Foundation’s seminal artistic statement. Since its opening in October 2014, the Fondation has welcomed more than six million visitors from France and around the world. The Fondation Louis Vuitton commits to engage in international initiatives, both at the Fondation and in partnership with public and private institutions, including other foundations and museums such as the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg (Icons of Modern Art: The Shchukin Collection in 2016 and The Morozov Collection in 2021), the MoMA in New York (Being Modern: MoMA in Paris), and the Courtauld Gallery in London (The Courtauld Collection. A Vision for Impressionism) among others. The artistic direction also developed a specific “Hors-les-murs” programme taking place within the Espaces Louis Vuitton in Tokyo, Munich, Venice, Beijing, Seoul and Osaka, which are exclusively devoted to exhibitions of works from the Collection. These exhibitions are open to the public free of charge and promoted through specific cultural communication.

LINK: Cao Fei. My Future is not a Dream

PROJECT: SUPERMOVA

Lera Malchenko, 1/2 of the collective fantastic little splash, has recently launched the project Supermova, a new series of videos focusing on developing media and their impact on human interactions.

""Why are we sometimes so "therapeutically" outspoken on social media; how virtual worlds without moderators push us to invent political solutions? How emotions can become human interfaces? How does the Ukrainian political reality become algorithmic? The goal is to notice and document how we change through our digital communication tools: social networks, computer games, virtual worlds and other interactive digital platforms. The author of the project is journalist and artist Lera Malchenko. Supermova is supported by the European Union under the House of Europe program initiative.

The videos focus on three main areas:

e-bodily practices: "physical sensations and close relationships between distanced people, technological sexuality (Marshall McLuhan), e-corporeality, closeness of constant distancing"
2. emotions as human interfaces as a level of direct interaction between user and other people through social media; ability of the algorithms to retranslate emotional states, disrupt human behavior, and become an additional tool for solidarity ("leaderless revolutions"); fusion at the collective level (Vilém Flusser's concept of "intersubjective dialogue")
3. social e-practices; homo ludens and projections of worlds: games, virtual worlds as a space for inventing other languages and new political implements, potential spaces for projecting alternative configurations."

Episode 3 episode features Austrian Game Art collective Total Refusal and Matteo Bittanti. The main topic is politics and video games.

LINK: Supermova

EVENT: VRAL #11_FANTASTIC LITTLE SPLASH (OCTOBER 16 - OCTOBER 29 2020)

FORWARD, UPWARD, IN ALL DIRECTIONS

digital video (1980 x 1080), color, sound, 19’ 16”, 2018 (Ukraine)

Created by fantastic little splash

Introduced by Matteo Bittanti

VRAL

 

Both poetic and prosaic, Forward, upward, in all directions is a psychedelic trip inside VRChat, a free-to-play massively multiplayer online virtual reality environment created by Graham Gaylor and Jesse Joudrey. Introduced in early 2017, VRChat has gained popularity in the last few years thanks to the incessant activities of live streamers. Evocative of virtual worlds of the early Zeroes like Second Life but enhanced by virtual reality immersion, VRChat has now spawned several paratexts, including a weekly online newspaper, talk shows, and podcasts. Players create their own avatars based on popular characters from video games, television, anime and movies and hang out online. Forward, upward, in all directions depicts a neo-tribal community interacting through technology, focusing on the rituals of a growing subculture.

fantastic little splash is a collective comprising  journalist, filmmaker and visual artist Lera Malchenko and artist and director Oleksandr Hants, whose artistic practice examines the nature and flow of information: its generation, distribution and transmutations. Fantastic little splash is especially interested in alternative realities, the collective imaginary, the notion of utopia and dystopia. Their work is situated at the crossroads of media studies, architecture, and anthropology. Established in 2016, are based in Dnipro city, Ukraine.

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