Game Art: Rindon Johnson's Away with You (2016)
Rindon Johnson investigates the notion of representation in video games by using 2K Games' NBA 2k16' facial recognition tool. The result is Away with You, a critical study of the ideologies embedded within the in-game editor. As Johnson writes:
NBA 2k16's facial recognition software can not accurately read and output a black male face. I scanned in my own face to see what sort of man I could become. All faces in NBA 2k16 are malleable. Away with You considers this invisibility and malleability using ASMR guided meditation.
Johnson recommends the viewers to watch the videos on a cell phone or with a VR headset and/or to use the arrow keys in the top left to navigate around the videos.
The work also exists as a projection and installation (see below).
Rindon Johnson (b. 1990, San Francisco) makes sculptures, videos, paintings, photos, poems and drawings. By studying sign processes, signification and communication, Johnson wants to amplify the astonishment of the spectator by creating compositions or settings that generate tranquil poetic images that leave traces and balances on the edge of recognition and alienation. Rindon Johnson currently lives and works in Berlin.
(source)Documentation: