Game Art: Sebastian Blank's "A Dialogue between Art and Society I-III" (2008-2009)

In his machinima trilogy, Sebastian Blank explores the relationship between art and society.

"It's not about what art can do for society, it's about what society can do for art."(Sebastian Blank)

A Dialogue between Art and Society I (top video) is about the reception of art within society. Sebastian Blank has used hacking-techniques to place “art-objects” into the inworld of a computergame, and observes its inhabitant’s reaction to it. Rather than worshipping the sublime, the computer-driven inhabitants react differently, never giving up the struggle to understand. Their lack of artificial intelligence may be a metaphor for our own incapability to realize art as art in a public, thus normally non-art context. (Sebastian Blank)

Blank was born in Saskatoon, Canada, in 1977, but lives and works in Koln, Germany. His work has been presented at FILE (Brazil) and Platine (Germany).

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Submitted by Matteo Bittanti