GAME ART: BABAK AHTESHAMIPOUR’S THE CRYPTIC ECLIPSE OF AN ENDANGERED GOO (2024)
WARNING: this video may potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised.
Babak Ahteshamipour’s third machinima in the ongoing series accompanying the release of Violent Violins Exposed is a shocking assault on the senses.
The artist statement is below:
"The Cryptic Eclipse of an Endangered Goo features a video clip that is composed of hyper-processed gameplay footage of Need for Speed: Carbon, meticulously modified to defy gravity, introduce a force field, and spawn cars in perpetuity. Intermittently, the chaotic atmosphere is punctuated by AI-generated sports cars hurtling forward, accelerating, and exploding, creating a vivid, glitch-ridden tapestry that intricately syncs with the intensity of the track.
The title of the track hints towards the depletion and imminent extinction of fossil fuels, a critical resource dominated by the relentless grip of the oil industry, signifying technocapitalism's insatiable accelerated hunger for them. Cars, emblems of fossil fuel consumption with their reliance on gasoline — but also from other construction materials derived from oil and other extracted materials — become representational agents of accelerationism. This symbol is strategically employed to dive into the hastening pace of environmental depletion as a consequence of technocultural acceleration.
The turbulent nature of the track and its video act as echoes of the repercussions caused by overextraction and overconsumption, implying towards the global consequences of such excessive practices: environmental pollution, plastic proliferation derived from oil, and catastrophic incidents like the Sidoarjo mud flow or the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Despite the alarming ecological and ethical crises depicted, the video underscores the paradoxical demand for more resources, highlighting the relentless pursuit within the accelerating trajectory of technocapitalism.
The selection of the term Carbon alludes to the hydrocarbons constituting crude oil. Need For Speed: Carbon becomes more than a video game title; it transforms into a gesture for the accelerated craving for fossil fuels. Speed evolves into an engineered desire that warps the concept of mobility, camouflaging its yearning for inertia." (Babak Ahteshamipour)
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