Event: Jon Rafman's "You Are Standing in an Open Field" show (May 29 - Oct 26, 2013, Zach Feuer Gallery, NY)
Installation view (images: Zach Feur Gallery, NY)
From the press release:LINK:
"In A Man Digging, a virtual flaneur undertakes an evocative journey through the uncanny spaces of video game massacres in Max Payne 3. In a re-visioning of the game, Rafman radically changes the role of the player, as the goals of the game give way to a meditation on the game as landscape. Rafman confronts both the danger of passively aestheticizing the "wreckage" of the past and the romantic fixation on death as a placeholder for meaning. As the narrator drifts through nostalgic recollections of his fragmented past, Rafman takes us through the gleaming surfaces of memory to the far edge of the real.
In the film, Codes of Honor presents pro video-gamers vivid accounts of their most intense experience; whether it be the prized moment when they master a game or the despairing moment after they have been defeated by an arch-rival. Our narrator is devastated over the loss of the time. Solidarity, honor, and achievement defined his life. However, the lack of tradition and history inherent to the video game blocks his path to generate new meaning in his life after the glory of championship is no longer." (Zach Feur)
Jon Rafman @ Zach Feuer Gallery
Submitted by Matteo Bittanti (all images courtesy of Zach Feuer Gallery)