GAMESCENES

GAME ART: THE RUSSIANS PWNED THE 17TH BIENNALE OF ARCHITECTURE (MAY 22 - NOVEMBER 21 2021, VENICE, ITALY AND ONLINE)

 

 

In case you are wondering - I know you are - the answer is yes, Open—Russian Federation Pavilion is, by far, the greatest thing that ever graced the Venice Biennial of Architecture (May 22 - November 21 2021), which will end its majestic run in just a few weeks - game over is expected in less than a month from today, so you still have some time. A penetrating examination of the artistic, cultural and social role played by video games and digital environments in our society, the Russian Pavillion features not one, not two, but three outstanding artworks, specifically:

 

Sanatorium Anthropocene Retreat, a post-apocalyptic rendering of the Pavilion building itself, by artist Mikhail Maximov (don't miss the related Let's Play).

The game is set in a post-apocalyptic scenario: awaking to a deserted Russian Pavilion in Giardini, the game stages a fantasy-like performance in which the main character (the player) mutates between human and non-human entities – a robot, a virus, and a humanoid – navigating a derelict digital environment and trying to recollect what has happened.

Its Winter, 2019, a hauntological, first-player simulation of a post-Soviet suburban residential tower block during winter. This amazing sandbox game was developed by Moscow-based poet and musician Ilia Mazo and developer Alexandr Ignatov (aka sad3d).

 

 

Yuha’s Nightmares from Yuliya Kozhemyako (aka Supr). A simulation game about the nightmares that are tormenting the main character, Yuha, the virtual doppelganger of the game designer. This interactive dream disguised as a video game is set in a surreal world  full of strange things and unexpected events. The deeper part of Yua's consciousness is depicted through the "flip side" of the 3D world. The player is frequently stuck in textures, sees through mesh and wanders around at every level in «inappropriate» places. The glitches in the game are accordingly integrated to make for an intense and inusual experience.

 

For the past several months, the Russians also delivered an overwhelming amount of juicy video content, which is freely available on a variety of video streaming platforms including Vimeo, featuring, among other: Federico Campagna with Ilia Mazo, Paolo Pedercini aka Molleindustria, Keiken, and many more as part of their digital takes (DTO) program. There's enough material for three PhD dissertations, seriously.

 

Another highlight is Into the Sandbox, a three-part film program curated by Vladimir Nadein for Open exploring the interconnections between cinema, digital gaming worlds, virtual landscapes, and gamification, featuring modern masterpieces likeSwatted (2018) by Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis, How to Disappear (2020) by Total Refusal, Hotel (2014) by Benjamin Nuel, My Own Landscapes (2020) by Antoine Chapon, The Letters About the End of the World (2021) by Dina Karaman, FeatherFall (2020) by Total Refusal, Swamp City (2021) by Alice Bucknell, AIDOL (2019) by Lawrence Lek, Feel My Metaverse (2019) by Keiken + George Jasper Stone.

The 2021 Russian Pavilion is commissioned by Teresa Iarocci Mavica, director of the V-A-C Foundation; curated by Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli in collaboration with curator’s team (Erica Petrillo, Giacomo Ardesio, Vladimir Nadein, Liza Dorrer, and Dasha Nasonova) and managed by Anastasia Karneeva of Smart Art.

Final score: A sheer display of Game Art super-power. A new benchmark. Actually, no: a brand new paradigm.

 

LINK: Open_Russian Pavillion at the 17th Biennale of Architecture in Venice

 

All images courtesy of The Russian Pavillion, photos by Marco Cappelletti

EVENT: HOMO LUDENS: VIDEOGAMES TO UNDERSTAND THE PRESENT (JULY 20 - OCTOBER 31 2021, MADRID, SPAIN)

Homo Ludens: Videogames to understand the present

July 20 - October 31 2021

CaixaForum Madrid

Paseo del Prado, 36
28014 Madrid, Spain

Curated by Luca Carrubba

Designed by Domestic Data Streamer studio

Produced by Fundación "La Caixa"

Opening Conference: July 20 2021

"The exhibition Homo Ludens proposes an anthropological journey through the playful dimension of human beings through video games, a cultural, aesthetic and artistic phenomenon that is essential in contemporary mass culture. It is currently estimated that more than 2.5 billion people are video game players. Starting from the centrality of the game in our lives, the exhibition's journey approaches video games in a broad and holistic sense, and addresses the role of play as a regulating practice of human activity, both in the history of culture and today. Rather than being a history of video games, the exhibition provides a basically anthropological vision, bringing together culture and technology, industry and art.

The content of the exhibition combines examples of video games with contemporary artworks by the following artists: Rasheed Abueideh, Anna Anthropy, Matteo Bittanti and the collective IOCOSE, Ricardo B. Brasilero, Daniel Canogar, Robbie Cooper, Jake Elliott, Bruno Federico, Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn, Roc Herms, Agustina Isidori, David Jaumandreu, Ge Jin, Tamas Kemenczy and Ben Babbitt, Josep Lago, Jorge Paris, Nadège Mazars, MesquitaFMS, Hamilton Mestizo, Juan Naharro Gimenez, Roman Pilipey, Everest Pipkin, David Ramos, Linnea Rheborg, Mario von Rickenbach and Christian Etter, Pietro Righi Riva, Monica Rikić, Skawennati, Octavi Serra, Bill Viola and USC Game Innovation Lab, and Robert Yang.

In the exhibition, themes such as the anthropological roots of the game that are transferred to the video game, its million-dollar industry, the influence of video game aesthetics in other disciplines such as art and design, identity in a world where the real coexists with the virtual, among other issues.

The exhibition invites to an interactive and participatory tour in which the viewer acts as a gamer, although without playing at any time with the video games on display. The viewer chooses the itinerary from a central square that acts as an antechamber and distribution space of the exhibition. The visitor can interact with the exhibition through a device -the Coin-, an object that allows the viewer to build his or her opinion as he or she answers a series of questions. The answers also allow a collective knowledge of the participation of all visitors. On the large screen installed in the last room of the exhibition, a community of avatars is projected, representing, in real time, the accumulated data of all the visitors to the exhibition.

In this way, the exhibition provides a new perspective on the concept of the gamer and shows a gamified world in which life and play merge and in which we are all, in one way or another, gamers. This hypothesis, based on the work of sociologist and game scholar Daniel Muriel, is reflected in the video essay "Gameworlds: the video-gamification of the real" by Luca Carrubba and Daniel Muriel, directed by LaviniaNext and produced by "La Caixa" Foundation.

The exhibition also includes a catalog (in Spanish) that presents in detail all the works installed and proposes a reflective framework for their interpretation. This publication, which I had the pleasure of thinking, coordinating and writing, also includes texts by guest authors such as Oliver Perez La Torre, Flavio Escribano, Luján Oulton, Eurídice Cabañes, Carlos Scolari and Daniel Muriel.

The exhibition will be traveling during the next  four years touring all major cities in Spain. So if you do not have time to get to Madrid you can see the exhibition soon in Barcelona, Sevilla, Zaragoza, Valencia, Palma, Tarragona, Girona." (Luca Carrubba)

LINK: Homo Ludens

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: VECTOR FESTIVAL 2020 (DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 1 2020)

VECTOR FESTIVAL 2020: AFTER GAMIFICATION

TORONTO, ON | JULY 16-19, 2020

OPEN CALL FOR ARTWORKS AND CURATORIAL PROPOSALS 

Vector Festival is an annual media arts event dedicated to showcasing experimental art works that engage critically with digital technologies.
The festival is proudly participatory and community-oriented. Hosted by InterAccess and co-curated by Katie Micak and Martin Zeilinger, Vector Festival takes place at arts venues and in public spaces across the City of Toronto.

Since its inception, Vector Festival has been innovative in its inclusion of game-based digital art alongside other new media disciplines. Continuing this focus for the 2020 edition, the festival’s curators pose a deceptively simple question: what comes after gamification?

Now that game culture and game technologies have become so pervasive in popular culture, how do experimental media artists respond critically to the rampant gamifying of everyday life? From online social interaction to digital finance, from education to military conflict, from politics and environmental issues to the ways in which humans (and machines) express themselves creatively, what comes after gamification?

The Festival will take place between July 16-19, 2020, with the flagship exhibition extended until August 22, 2020.

Please note that Vector Festival does not charge submission fees to artists applying to participate.

All artists and curators selected for participation will receive fees in accordance with the up-to-date CARFAC Fee schedule, as well as support to apply for external funding.

We invite art submissions of digital – and post-digital – works for the following festival categories:

Flagship Exhibition
Digital and post-digital art works including interactive installations, experimental game mods, sculptural work, screen-based work, sound art, etc.

Online Projects
Web-based projects and digital artworks that can be presented online, including experimental interactive and time-based digital projects.

Festival Screening
Experimental film/video/machinima works.

Performance
Performance-based proposals including chiptune, sound art, live coding, A/V performances, and telematic performances for virtual and public spaces.

Site-Specific Outdoor Screening
To be presented on two large-scale (4.88 x 8.64 m) outdoor LED screens for a public audience of all ages.

GIFs
Animated GIFs intended for presentation on public screens across Toronto.

Curatorial Submissions
This year, we also invite curators/curatorial collectives to submit proposals for machinima screenings (on a theme of your choosing). If you are considering a curatorial submission, we encourage you to contact the Vector Festival team for additional practical details.

Deadline: February 01, 2020

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Please submit the following details using our online application form:

• Project description (approximately 300 words)
• Documentation (maximum of five images, and/or link to audio/video documentation)
• Description of technical requirements (please outline materials provided by the artist and materials required from the exhibiting venue)
• Artist biography (approximately 100 words)
• Please indicate if your work has a thematic, conceptual, or historical connection to Toronto, or if you have a biographic connection to the Greater Toronto Area
• Current CV

If you have questions about submitting your application please contact [email protected].

About Vector Festival
Vector Festival is a participatory and community-oriented initiative dedicated to showcasing experimental media art practice. Presenting works across a dynamic range of exhibitions, screenings, performances, lectures, and workshops, Vector Festival acts as a critical bridge between emergent digital platforms and new media art practice. Vector Festival was founded in 2013 as the “Vector Game Art & New Media Festival” by an independent group of artists and curators: Skot Deeming, Clint Enns, Christine Kim, and Katie Micak, who were later joined by Diana Poulsen and Martin Zeilinger. In 2015 Vector Festival announced that longtime presenting partner, InterAccess, would be taking over responsibility for the festival as part of its regular programming.

About InterAccess
Founded in 1983, InterAccess is a non-profit gallery, educational facility, production studio, and festival dedicated to emerging practices in art and technology. Our programs support art forms that integrate technology, fostering and supporting the full cycle of art and artistic practice through education, production, and exhibition. InterAccess is regarded as a preeminent Canadian arts and technology centre.

For more information contact:
Festival Curators, Katie Micak and Martin Zeilinger
[email protected]

Follow us for updates!
facebook.com/VectorFestivalTO
twitter.com/VectorFestival
instagram.com/interaccessto

LINK: VECTOR FESTIVAL

GAME ART: ANDY HUGHES' PLASTIC SCOOP (2019)

Andy Hughes' monumental Plastic Scoop examines the relationship between virtual environments and ecological issues though the filter of GTA V. Created using the Rockstar Editor, Plastic Coop mixes images from the videogame with found footage and archival moving image. The video opens with the soothing atmospheres of an ocean at sunset, but the voiceover - extolling the merits of nuclear weapons and plastic ("plastic... plastic... plastic...") - and rockets penetrating the surface soon disrupt the tranquility. Suddenly, an astronaut emerges from the water...

Plastic Scoop draws on contemporary narratives to express the ways in which our anxiety and fears about ocean pollution, plastic waste and global heating are presented. The film features gleaned archival moving image material and cinema footage from early ocean exploration, including nasa sound recordings with his own created and directed in-game Grand Theft Auto machinima. Working in cooperation with Dr Mandy Bloomfield and the English faculty students at the University of Plymouth through discussion and workshops the film was co-developed through the exchange of ideas and concepts.

Hughes’ photographic work explores the littoral zone and the politics of waste. In 2013 he traveled to Alaska, invited as part of an international team of artists and scientists to work on the project Gyre: The Plastic Ocean. This project was a world first and unique project that explored the integration of science and art to document and interpret the issue of plastic and human waste in the marine and coastal environment. 

LINK: Andy Hughes (All images and video courtesy of the Artist)

GAME ART: KARA GUT'S INTIMACY MOD SUPERCUT (2019)

Intimacy's Mod is a series of mods by Kara Gut created with the aid of the “Immersive Lover’s Comfort” by flexcreator for Skyrim. By using this mod, the artist distorts the games' original narrative and replaces it with an in-game performance carried out by the Gut herself (via her avatar) and one NPC (Non Player Character). Through the Intimacy Mod, Gut wanted to highlight the "cynicism and brutality (unintended or otherwise) of modding culture as a metaphor for our post-digital society at large, creating arresting situations of forced intimacy within a hyper-real space." The project began in 2016 and recently Kara released a supercut video. 

Kara Gut (b. 1989) is a multidisciplinary artist with an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She is the recipient of the Peter MacKendrick Endowment for Visual Artists, and her work has been collected by Cranbrook Art Museum as well as numerous private collections. Her work was recently featured by Refigural Magazine, The Unstitute, and the Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography. Kara currently lives and works in Columbus, Ohio. She investigates the new shape of human intimacy formed by internet lifestyle, constructed detachment from reality, and the power dynamics of the virtual. Using image and screen-based media, she explores the necessity of certain digital spaces. She is specifically interested in how the patriarchal conversation within these spaces can be subverted to generate new meaning.

LINK: Kara Gut 

EVENT: JENNA NG, MACHINIMA AND THE ALLURE OF EPHEMERALITY (MARCH 13 2019, MILAN, ITALY)

JENNA NG

MACHINIMA AND THE ALLURE OF EPHEMERALITY: GAMEPLAY, LIVE STREAMS & DIGITAL CULTURE

GAME TALK #2

March 13, 2019

Aula 135, IULM 1

Università IULM

Via Carlo Bo, 1

20143 Milan Italy

In this talk, Jenna Ng will address the explosion of interest in the live streaming of gameplay as witnessed in the popularity of Twitch, whose latest number of daily active users has reached 15 million, as well as other major platforms such as YouTube Gaming, Mixer, and Facebook Live. Specifically, the talk will link the current phenomenon of video game live streams with machinima and its origins in game demos and captured videogame play, arguing not only for live streams to be the next logical evolution for machinima, but also for a critical theorisation of screen media that pursues a realist trajectory, one which potentially works its way from neorealist cinema to drone culture.

Jenna Ng first trained as a finance lawyer in Singapore and London before switching to film studies, in which she obtained a PhD from University College London (UCL), and currently teaches film and interactive media at the University of York, UK. She is the editor of Understanding Machinima: Essays on Filmmaking in Virtual Worlds (Bloomsbury, 2013) and her current book project, Undoing the Screen: Space, Spectacle, Surface (Palgrave), explores the effacing of screen boundaries in relation to contemporary display technologies and the resulting erasure between images, objects, surfaces and spaces.

Click here to register

Game Art: Joseph Delappe's Elegy: GTA USA Gun Homicides (2018)

Joseph Delappe's new project - developed in collaboration with Albert Elwin (coding) and James Wood (consultant), Elegy: GTA USA Gun Homicides, is a self-playing version of Grand Theft Auto V that - starting each midnight CST (Central Standard Time) - reenacts/recounts/represents the entire body count to date from January 1st 2018 in-game. 

 

In other words, the project visualizes real life gun-related homicides in the United States of America though the filter of a video game. (As NRA fanatics love to say, "Guns don't kill people, video games do.")

Each daily update represents - in a graphic, literal way - the body count reported by a gun violence website. The next day, the program scrapes the new data and starts again, in a perverse Groundhog Day-sort of way, while "God Bless America" - both the original version by Irving Berlin (1918) as well as Kate Smith's iteration (1938) - plays in the background. 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the composing of this song.

 

"From the mountains

To the prairies
To the oceans
White with foam
God bless America
My home sweet home"

 

As the camera slowly recedes - a peculiar "kill cam" - all is left on the screen is trail of blood and agonizing avatars. Launched on July 4, 2018, Delappe's intention is to run Elegy 24/7 until July 4, 2019.

 

The message is clear: in the US, everyday is The Purge.

 

 

Delappe is live streaming Elegy on his Twitch channel.

There's a dash of Hugo Arcier's 11 Executions and a bit of Brent Watanabe's San Andreas Deer Cam.

 

Joseph DeLappe is Professor of Games and Tactical Media in the Division of Games and Art (School of Design and Informatics) at Abertay University in  Dundee, Scotland. He's also a bold, daring, and uncompromising American artist. 

LINK: Joseph Delappe

Event: CONTINUE? The Philosophy of Japanese Arcade Culture (May 31 2017, Los Angeles)

Oliver Payne, 2017. Photo: Curtis Buchanan

CONTINUE? The Philosophy of Japanese Arcade Culture
Wednesday May 31, 2017 7:30PM
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Free entry and open to the public
Parking: Under the museum, $6 flat rate after 6 p.m. Cash only.

"Having recently collaborated with Japanese Pop art legend Keiichi Tanaami, Oliver Payne discusses Japanese arcade culture, specifically the manic and psychedelic “bullet hell games.” These niche arcade games—often considered the purest form of video games—follow a chaotic, complicated system of rules and patterns. Payne considers labor, play, identity, and art in gaming culture, and how it all informs his work."

The event is related to this exhibition, Hammer Projects: Oliver Payne and Keiichi Tanaami, on view until August 27.

Oliver Payne (b. 1977, London) lives and works in Los Angeles. As a duo with Nick Relph, his work has been shown internationally at such venues as Serpentine Gallery, London; Kunsthalle Zurich; and the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York; NANZUKA, Tokyo and Hong Kong; STUDIOLO, Zurich; and Galleria Federico Vavassori, Milan.

LINK: CONTINUE? The Philosophy of Japanese Arcade Culture (via Things To Do In Los Angeles)

Webmagazine: The Art of Gaming (Arté)

"Professional gamers Melek Balgün and Trinity invite artists, scientists and enthusiastic gamers in each episode of ART OF GAMING to play and discuss computer games. Which emotions do computer games provoke? What is special about games compared to other art forms? What do we feel when we play? What is the impact of interactivity on aesthetic, artistic and psychological experiences? ART OF GAMING is a new online magazine that considers video games as works of art. There is a theme for each episode that is approached by the gamers and experts. Inspired by “Lets Play” every episode completely immerses us into the world of gaming – the only art form in which you have to act in order to be able to talk about it."

The first episode, on REALISM, is available now.

LINK: arté

Interview: foci + loci

TREATING MAP EDITORS FOUND IN VIDEO GAMES AS VIRTUAL SOUND STAGES, FOCI + LOCI CREATE IMMERSIVE ELECTRO-ACOUSTIC SPACES WITH VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTS AND TIMED AUDIOVISUAL EVENTS.

foci + loci (Tamara Yadao and Chris Burke) are a duo living and working in New York. Saving and replaying digital game data, camera movement in space can be disassociated from time, changing traditional filmic relationships. They are are interested in exploring the topological treatment of time and space afforded by game engines. They received a NYSCA grant in 2013 for their game performance installation Bal(l)ade and have given workshops at 8static in Philadelphia, the Babycastles Summit at the Museum of Arts and Design (NYC) as well as lecturing on game sound and mashup culture at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University and the New School. Among others, Chris and Tamara have performed at Babycastles, Centre Pompidou, Cluster New Music festival, CultureHub, DistENDed Cinema at Outpost, Diapason Gallery, Peter Kirn’s Handmade Music series, Joe’s Pub, Secret Project Robot, The Stone, Vector Game + Integrated Arts Festival in Toronto and Game Play Festival 2011 at the Brick Theater in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The video interview was produced by the students of IULM's Master's Program in Arts, Markets, and Cultural Heritage. Editing and Subtitles: Mariacristina Maffeo

foci + loci' F.T. Mari0netti is currently on display in the ASSEMBLAGE level of GAME VIDEO/ART. A SURVEY.

Watch more interviews from Season 6 here.

LINK: foci + loci