GAMESCENES

RESOURCE: HOW TO WIN AT PHOTOGRAPHY ONLINE SUPPLEMENT

Fotomuseum Winterthur new exhibition How to Win at Photography's online supplement is not a replica of the in situ exhibition, but rather an archive of information related to all-things-playful-image-making.

It will grow, so keep an eye on it.

LINK: How to Win at Photography Online Supplement

EVENT: HOW TO WIN AT PHOTOGRAPHY – IMAGE-MAKING AS PLAY (JUNE 5 - OCTOBER 10 2021, WINTERTHUR, SWITZERLAND)

 

How to Win at Photography - Image-Making as Play

June 5 - October 10 2021

Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland

Curated by Marco de Mutiis and Matteo Bittanti 

official site

How to Win at Photography – Image-Making as Play explores the relationship between photography and play. It investigates the notion of image play, creating unexpected connections between the history of photography, the gamification of the visible as well as practices of image making with and within computer games.

The group exhibition How to Win at Photography includes more than forty positions from contemporary and 20th century photography. Through an assemblage of multimedia artworks and vernacular images, the exhibition questions the very meaning and function of photography today.

 

Are we playing with the camera or is the camera ultimately playing us? Are we really in charge or are we mere pawns in larger technical, social, cultural and economic networks? What can a playful photographer achieve on a political and sociocultural level? Who and what is performing the act of seeing and capturing – humans, machines or a combination of both? Who is playing along? And finally, can this game be won? These are just some of the questions posed by How to Win at Photography. The exhibition invites visitors to focus on the playful aspects of photography. It looks at artists and photographers who play with – and sometimes against – the camera, document the environments of video games and question the notion of identity, gender and class.

With works by: Cory Arcangel, Aram Bartholl, Dorothée Elisa Baumann, Justin Berry, Julius Brauckmann, Alan Butler, Claude Cahun, Cibelle Cavalli Bastos, Dries Depoorter & Max Pinckers, Philipp Dorl, Constant Dullaart, Harun Farocki, Christopher Graves, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Beate Gütschow, Jon Haddock, Emily Hadrich, Florence Henri, Roc Herms, John Hilliard, Yuyi John, Rindon Johnson, Andy Kassier, Sherrie Levine, Gloria López Cleries & Sive Hamilton Helle, René Mächler, Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs, Joan Pamboukes, Steven Pippin, Michael Reisch, Tabor Robak, Ria Patricia Röder, Lorna Ruth Galloway, Ed Ruscha, Emma Agnes Sheffer, Cindy Sherman, Guido Segni, Andrew Stine, Petra Szemán, Akihiko Taniguchi, Danielle Udogaranya, Coralie Vogelaar, Tamás Waliczky and Ai Weiwei.

In collaboration with the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University.

There will be several events planned between now and October, some in situ, some online, so stay tuned for more.

LINK: How to Win at Photography

EVENT: JUEGA BAJO TU PROPIO RIEGO. VIDEOJUEGOS EN CLAVE PANDÉMICA (ONLINE)

Curated by Enrique Salmoiraghi, Juega bajo tu propio riesgo. Videojuegos en clave pandémica (Play at your own risk. Pandemic video games) is an international exhibition bringing together the work of artists who use the language ​​of the video game to address emerging issues in contexts of isolation, distancing,and uncertainty. An invitation to play and, in turn, to reflect on the impact of sudden changes in society due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The exhibition is organized by Espacio Byte, an online museum dedicated to digital art established in 2012. A natural environment for the exhibition of artistic works that, created through the use of digital technology, propose new languages, poetics, and aesthetic values. Open 24/7, the museum offers a space for reflection, a source of information to delve into the dimension of digital art and learn about its first manifestations, movements and specific problems. All games featured in the exhibition are free to play. Juega bajo tu propio riesgo. Videojuegos en clave pandémica is only one several exhibitions curated by the Argentinian institution and currently accessible online. 

Alvaro Cresping, Regreso a casa, 2020

Moshe Linke, Neo-brutalismo del mañana, 2019

CURATORS' INTRODUCTION

"More than a year since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, we have experienced changes in the ways of interacting with others and with the environment. Confinement and distancing social, extreme disinfection, online study and remote work became part of the everyday scene. These modalities have generated new habits and caused psychological effects that affect directly in all areas of our life, including the way we relate with art. Anguished at the confinement and loneliness, concerned about the economic crisis, wondering about the experimental vaccines; we find ourselves in a labyrinth of uncertainty whose exit has not yet we have found, but when that happens, what will we have learned? This exhibition brings together the work of artists who use video game languages ​​to address these problematic. Works that involve the player directly to recreate these circumstances and be able to observe them from other perspectives. Play at your own risk, it is not only an invitation to play, but also to reflect on the consequences of these sudden behavioral changes in contemporary society"

ARTISTS' LINE UP

Jordan Magnuson

Yuliya Kozhemyako(alias Supr)

Margarita Skomorokh(alias RkkTKK)

Moshe Linke

George Larkwright

Ivan Notaros

Alvaro Cresping

Max Garkavyy

 

LINK: Juega bajo tu propio riesgo. Videojuegos en clave pandémica (Espacio Byte)

Press release: Juega bajo tu propio riesgo - Museo de Arte Digital - Espacio Byte

PROGRAM: "WORLD AT PLAY" SUMMER SCHOOL (JUNE 21-26 2021, ONLINE)

Press release:

The WORLD AT PLAY summer school is a part of a Voluptas research project into the intersection between game design, architecture and ludic pedagogy.

“And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done”

(Bible, Genesis 2:2-3, New King James Version)

This summer school proposes the makings of a new cosmogony: the creation of a playable world in one week. Then we rest.

A limited number of students from different backgrounds (architecture, game design, programming, art, philosophy) will come together to build the genesis of a playable digital world. The elemental ingredients of this world will be provided by the architecture projects produced by the Voluptas design studio: their spaces, mechanics, images and desires.

For one week, the team will evolve towards the common goal by drawing from their specific strengths and individual learning backgrounds, tutored by Pippin Barr, Andri Gerber  and Francisco Moura Veiga.

Starting with a first day of theoretical input by the Voluptas chair,  Tracy Fullerton, Bob Sumner, Emily Short, and Stefano Gualeni students will gain an overview of the week‘s processes and the end goal. the week will continue with a series of daily exercises and discussions with the tutors feeding into the creation of the world. On the last day, the playable world will be presented to a group of architects, game designers, and artists.

Send your applications (a short portfolio and letter of motivation of maximum 4 MB) to Francisco Moura Veiga at [email protected]

Voluptas
Voluptas is the euphoric daughter of its time—the intoxicating offspring of measure and spirit. Amending the millenary Vitruvian ordinances of firmitas, utilitas and venustas, Voluptas initiates a transversal investigation on contemporary issues and sets combinatory dynamics as the channel of proliferating singularities. Its looping trajectory toward a saturation of problem settings aims at the empirical emanation of an alternative view of the urban condition. Enforcing desire as its prevalent agent, Voluptas is the elegiac display of residual energy.

It is the Charbonnet/Heiz design chair at the D-ARCH of the ETH Zurich.

LINK: WORLD AT PLAY

ART GAME: ALAN KWAN AND ALLISON YANG'S FORGETTER (2021)

Alan Kwan and Allison Yang Jing recently completed the experimental game Forgetter in collaboration with DSL COLLECTION. In the game the player works for a tech company that cleans all the trauma or dark memories in dead artist brains, and then recycles and sells these artistic brains to parents who want their newborns to be super creative but pain-free artists. This project combines the form of walking simulator games with a janitor cleaning mechanic to create a weird, artistic interactive experience. 

 

Forgetter looks like a game designed by the ultimate collab: Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Brandon Cronenberg (Possessor).

 

 

Alan Kwan is an artist, technologist, and researcher. He is primarily interested in exploring new artistic and technical possibilities of real-time 3D technologies and game engines that depart from the traditional video game paradigm and typical tech fantasies of AR/VR. His projects, including VR experiences and experimental video games were presented at international venues such as Ars Electronica Center in Austria, ZKM Centre for Art and Media in Germany, Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai, etc. and were featured in media including Discovery Channel, Popular Science, and Boston Globe. Previously, Alan was awarded the first prize of the MIT Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize, Asian Cultural Council Fellowship, and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council Award for Young Artist (Media Art). One of his video games was acquired by the Hong Kong M+ Museum as part of its permanent collection. Alan holds a Master of Science in Art, Culture, and Technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently exploring the construction of impossible architecture and psychological spaces in the virtual world. He also co-founded the independent video game label Sometimes Monastery with Allison Yang Jing to create experimental & emotional art games that also have high production quality, and try to push them to mainstream platforms. Among his projects is the innovative Bad Trip (2012) and Scent (2018). We interviewed Alan a while back. Alan will be giving a talk about his latest project, Forgetter, at IULM University on April 22 2021, as part of the 2021 GAME TALK series.

 

Allison Yang Jing is a writer, curator and designer of video games. She is interested in the intersection between the industry of art and that of game. She is currently based in Hong Kong and making a game called Forgetter with Alan Kwan and DSL Collection. 

 

Founded in 2005 by Paris-based couple Sylvain and Dominique Lévy, the DSL Collection is one of the rare Chinese contemporary art collections in France. Now aided by daughter Karen Levy, the collection continues to explore new ways of reaching audiences across the world through VR technology and gaming media.  

 

Forgetter is available on Steam 

 

LINK: ALAN KWAN (all images courtesy of the artist)

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: A MAZE. / BERLIN 2021: HYPER HYBRID (DEADLINE: APRIL 30 2021)

10th International Games and Playful Media Festival from July 21 – 24, 2021.

Award submissions are open now, until April 30, 2021.

HYPER Birthday, A MAZE. / Berlin!

Press release:

One of the few things that are sure this year? A MAZE. / Berlin is celebrating its 10th birthday with a Hyper Hybrid edition from July 21 - 24, 2021. For this year’s edition, A MAZE. has booked Urban Spree as the festival studio location. The festival is planned in a completely digital version, but if smaller gatherings are allowed this summer, there will be a beautiful space for the 10 years birthday party of A MAZE. / Berlin:

Hyper Birthday. <3

As in the past years, A MAZE. / Berlin invites game designers and artists to submit their games or playful installations until April 30, 2021. People with expertise and interest can also register for the Selection Committee, which helps reviewing all entries. For all the details and the submission, click here

The award show will be streamed live from Berlin on July 23, 8pm. The winner is selected by an interdisciplinary, international and 100% independent jury. A MAZE. / Berlin extended and changed awards in the many years since, the categories are now: “Most Amazing Award”, “Human Human Machine Award”, “Long Feature Award”, “Digital Moment Award”, “Explorer Award” and “Audience Award”. Plus: This is going to be the 4th year of our Diversity Award, the “Humble New Talent Award” in collaboration with Humble Original.

"Since 10 years, A MAZE. is nominating artistic creations from around the globe. Works that underline the rise of interactive arthouse productions. All the A MAZE. Award winners create milestones in the history of independent games and playful media. We love to experience works based on meaning, experiments, story, expression, change, interdisciplinarity, social/cultural/political impact, aesthetics and fun,” says Thorsten S. Wiedemann, artistic director of A MAZE.

Matthias Löwe, head of the A MAZE. / Berlin Awards, adds: “Starting this year, we also want to provide a spotlight to creators who usually can't enter the contest with our new community- sponsored supporter tickets. In addition to better accessibility, we hope to showcase even more hidden gems this way.”

TIMELINE A MAZE. / BERLIN AWARD SUBMISSION

Mar 19: Start of Submissions and Jury-Registration Apr 15: Judging starts

Apr 30: Submission Deadline May 31: Judging ends

Jun 14: Announcement Nominees Jun 15: Final Judges starting reviews Jul 21: A MAZE. / Berlin starts

Jul 23: Award ceremony
 
Submit here: - Submission for the 10th edition of the A MAZE. Awards are open until April 30, 2021

A MAZE. / Berlin 2021 is funded by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and part of gamesweekberlin. Thanks to our sponsors and partners Humble Original, Game - Verband der deutschen Game- Branche, Kickstarter, Leibniz Association.

A MAZE. is a unique and cultural investigating international platform for games and playful media that invites professionals and creatives from various fields to exchange their knowledge and visions, presenting their projects, playing, making contacts to collaborate on future projects. The festival A MAZE. / Berlin represents games beyond the mainstream and celebrates the art-form and the rise of arthouse. 

LINK: A MAZE

EVENT: NOW PLAY THIS! 2021 (MARCH 25-28 2021, ONLINE)

NOW PLAY THIS! A Festival of Experimental Game Design

March 25-28

Online

"This year, Now Play This explores the relationship between play, games and the climate crisis. Due to the pandemic, we are once again running a fully online festival. Join us for a four-day programme of games, workshops and conversations, where each day shifts a different aspect of the festival’s theme into focus!"

A wonderful line-up for one of the best Festivals of Experimental Game Design on this very planet. The 2021 edition is curated by Sebastian Quack, Sophie Sampson, Nick Murray andJo Summers. It features, among other things, Chris Crawford's seminal 1990 simulation Balance of the Planet, Safe Place's Venice 2089, Elizabeth La Pensée's Honour Water, and SCRNPRNT's Garden of Earthly Delights. 

LINK: NOW PLAY THIS!

ART GAME: COSTANTINO OLIVA'S OTOGARDEN (2021)

OTOGARDEN is a musical game about free improvisation designed by Costantino Oliva. Players can explore their musicality in a Japanese garden atmosphere, control a mischievous kappa, a traditional yokai spirit, and feel the musical possibilities of your surroundings. The game was created for research purposes as a tool to demonstrate musicality in digital games. OTOGARDEN is inspired by the musicking concept introduced by musicologist Christopher Small, the works of media artist Toshio Iwai, and the Japanese musical soundscape. The development team included Marvin Zammit (Mighty Box) who did the programming and Fabrizio Calì who worked on Animations and Art.

 

Costantino Oliva is a Lecturer at the Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta, and is intended as a playable support to music and game research. Through an intuitive game interface, OTOGARDEN explores the topic of musical improvisation, "an activity of enormous complexity and sophistication, or the simplest and most direct expression” (Derek Bailey, 1993).

 

 

LINK: Costantino Oliva (all images and videos courtesy of the Artists)

RESEARCH PROJECT: BOURNEMOUTH UNIVERSITY'S PARTICIPATORY WORLDS (2020-2021)

Participatory Worlds was launched in 2020 thanks to an effort by Bournemouth University in the UK and supported by Arts Council England. The project is led by José Blázquez.

"This project investigates three creative practices (‘machinima’, in-game photography and gamics) performed by audience members, normally end-users, which make use of videogame assets to convey stories and produce works of art. ‘Press Start’ aims to raise public awareness of the possibilities of these practices for creative expression and educational purposes by engaging with the general public, artists, scholars and teaching professionals. The project will produce four publications, an art exhibition displaying works from United Kingdom and international artists, practice-based workshops, and a seminar. "

Check their website for resources and activities, featuring artworks by Joshua Lee, JBS Gaming; Logic Films; Beatriz Vigario; CrazyFox; Frans Bouma; Akumath; Megan Miller; Irregular Saturn among others.

LINK: Participatory Worlds

EVENT: ANGELA WASHKO'S POINT OF VIEW (FEBRUARY 18 - APRIL 25 2021, LEUVEN, BELGIUM)

Angela Washko

Point of View

February 18–April 25, 2021

STUK — House for Dance, Image & Sound

Naamsestraat 96, 3000 Leuven, Belgium

STUK.BE

Curator: Karen Verschooren, STUK

STUK is delighted to present the first European survey exhibition of American artist and interventionist Angela Washko (b. 1986).

Angela Washko is devoted to creating new forums for discussions of feminism where they do not exist. She actively seeks out new ways to facilitate or enter into conversation with individuals and communities who have radically different ideas and opinions in an attempt to create spaces for discussion, productive dissent and complexity. Throughout her practice, she investigates how power structures are embedded into our collective consciousness through media. A life-long gamer, her work takes the form of performance (in both virtual and physical spaces), actions, interventions, video games, videos, prints and books.

In her solo exhibition in STUK, Point of View, Washko is presenting four bodies of work: The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft (2012-2016), Heroines with Baggage (2011-2014), BANGED (2015-2017) and The Game: The Game (2016-2019).

In 2012, Washko founded The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft with a goal to facilitate discussions with other players about the misogynistic, homophobic, racist and discriminatory language used within the game space. Instead of just continuing to "go on quests and kill stuff," she created a series of video-documented performances—two of which are included in the show—in which she initiated and facilitated conversations about gender and discrimination within World of Warcraft.

For her video series "Heroines with Baggage," Washko started to replay the 1990s role-playing video games which were formative to her as a child. Upon replaying these games, it became clear to the artist that the women represented were frequently portrayed as collapsing, running scared, afraid of being alone, and always in need of rescue by a male protagonist. By constructing videos featuring only scenes focused on female characters from these games, Washko makes the presence of these stereotypes and oversimplified gender binaries visible and woefully obvious.

"BANGED" is a series of works Washko created around the figure of Roosh V, "the Web’s most infamous misogynist" and a professional pick-up artist. A leader of the manosphere (an online anti-feminist network mobilized around the notion that men are more oppressed than women), Roosh V has written numerous books on how to have sex with women across cultural barriers as quickly as possible. His tales of sexual conquests were widespread, however never giving voice to the women involved. During the process of soliciting stories from these women to create a parallel compilation to his stories and texts, Washko ended up doing a video interview with the manosphere figurehead himself. The interview video along with performances and books about her experience with the manosphere community afterward make up the "BANGED" project.

 

Resulting from continued research into the pick-up artist (PUA) community is the last body of work presented in the exhibition: The Game: The Game. Composed entirely of scenarios, techniques, and language from texts and instructional videos created by pick-up artists, The Game: The Game is a feminist dating simulator video game designed to give players the experience of interacting with a series of infamous pick-up artists and seduction coaches. It is accompanied by a haunting musical score composed by Xiu Xiu.

The exhibition Point of View is part of a series of solo exhibitions in STUK by contemporary visual artists who have a particular affinity for the moving image and spatial video installations. Previous exhibitions in this series include Mircea Cantor - Am I really free?; Sebastián Díaz Morales - TALK WITH DUST; Mika Taanila - THE END; Nevin Aladağ - ROLLIN’; Omer Fast - Appendix; Joachim Koester - Maybe this act, this work, this thing; Emre Hüner - Neochronophobiq; John Akomfrah - Auto Da Fé; and Bjørn Melhus - The Theory of Freedom.

Angela Washko
(b. 1986, Reading, USA)

Angela Washko is an artist who creates new forums for discussions about feminism in spaces frequently hostile toward it. Her practice spans interventions in mainstream media, performance art, digital works, video and video games. She recently finished a documentary film about RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Mrs. Kasha Davis titled Workhorse Queen.

Currently Associate Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University, Washko is the recipient of a.o. the Creative Capital Award and the Impact Award at Indiecade. Her practice has been highlighted in The New Yorker, Frieze Magazine, Time Magazine and more, and her projects have been presented internationally at venues including Museum of the Moving Image (New York), Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Milan Design Triennale, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (Helsinki), and Shenzhen Independent Animation Biennial.

On February 18, Angela Washko will host an online artist talk on the opening night. In the lecture, Angela will walk the audience through her research and practice, focusing on the works in Point of View. The talk will close with a participatory play-through of Washko’s feminist video game about pick-up artists, The Game: The Game, facilitated by the artist. Please register via this link.

LINK: Angela Washko