GAMESCENES

GAME ART: BEN WERTHER'S WHEN YOU CAN NO LONGER SPEAK, SING ME A SONG (MAY 30 - JULY 7 2024, NEW YORK)

Ben Werther’s debut exhibition at No Gallery (105 Henry St. #4 NYC NY), "When you can no longer speak, sing me a song," offers a compelling fusion of reality and fiction, underscored by a visual style that strikingly resembles video game aesthetics. At first glance, his photographs might be mistaken for screenshots from a war-themed video game, capturing the chaos and intensity of battle in hyper-realistic detail. However, these images are not derived from actual wars but from Werther’s participation in Military Simulation (MilSim) games, a form of Live Action Role Play (LARP) that eschews historical accuracy for a continuous creation driven by participants' fantasies and personal conceptions of violence.

Ben Werther, When you can no longer speak, sing me a song, installation shot. Image courtesy of the artist and NO GALLERY

Werther’s approach in these multi-day events over three years was dual: he was both a participant immersed in the simulated combat and a documentarian capturing the experience from a first-person perspective. This immersive practice blurs the lines between reality and fiction, drawing viewers into a world that is at once familiar and disorientingly fabricated. The result is a body of work that borrows from the visual language of objective reporting, mockumentary, and found footage horror films, challenging the viewer's perception of authenticity and narrative while evoking the graphic realism of video games.

Ben Werther, When you can no longer speak, sing me a song, installation shot. Image courtesy of the artist and NO GALLERY

MilSim, unlike traditional war reenactments bound by historical events, is a fluid and dynamic environment where the action is continuously redefined by the players. Werther’s photographs reflect this ever-changing landscape, capturing moments that feel both intensely real and wholly constructed, much like the dynamic scenarios found in video games. The images serve as a commentary on the nature of violence, memory, and media, exploring how personal and collective fantasies shape our understanding of conflict.

Ben Werther, “The hero, the narcissist”, 2023 – dye sublimation print on aluminum – edition of 3 – 11 x 8 x 1½ in. Image courtesy of the artist and nononogallery

Werther’s practice extends beyond photography. An impulsive collector from a young age, he frequently incorporates found materials into his work, recontextualizing them as social artifacts. This methodology is evident in "When you can no longer speak, sing me a song," where the photographs are not just images but artifacts of an imagined reality. They prompt viewers to question the nature of documentation and the role of personal narrative in constructing history.

Ben Werther – “Hyper-luxury”, 2023 – dye sublimation print on aluminum – edition of 3 – 7 x 11 x 1½ in. Image courtesy of the artist and nononogallery

Born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1998, Werther received his BFA from Cooper Union in 2020. His work is represented by Amanita, NYC, and this exhibition marks his first collaboration with No Gallery. Located in the Lower East Side, Manhattan, No Gallery was established in 2019 with a mission to push the boundaries of contemporary art programming. The gallery’s focus on nuanced explorations of social, personal, and cultural paradigms makes it a fitting venue for Werther’s complex and thought-provoking body of work.

LINK: Ben Werther's When you can no longer speak, sing me a song

EVENT: THE SEASHORE OF ENDLESS WORLDS (NOVEMBER 1 - 19 2023, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND)

 

The Seashore of Endless Worlds – Art & jeux de société

 

Le Commun, Geneva, Switzerland

exhibition: from 1st to 19 novembre 2023

online symposium: 20, 21 November

 

featured artists: 0x Salon, Ahmed Isam Aldin, David Blandy, Joshua Citarella, Crude Futures, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Simon Denny, Andreas Dobler, Giulia Essyad, Axelle Grégoire, Half Earth Socialism, Olivia Hernaïz, Rok Kranjc, Paul Loubet, Finn Massie, Constanza Mendoza, Cullen Miller, Moving Castle, Nicolas Nova, OMSK Social Club, Sara Rutz, Kirill Savchenkov, Sammy Stein, Trickster-p, Ilaria Vinci, Elsa Werth, Paulo Wirz

 

press release

 

The Seashore of Endless Worlds considers games as a decisive global and current phenomenon, and calls for societal issues to be put into play by exploring the current conditions, arising from game theory and gamification, of widespread and planetary crises. Beyond mere entertainment and distraction, we see games as a process capable of probing and understanding the world. Not only do games make up a major part of the cultural industry and generate popular aesthetics, they are also now recognised for their powers of simulation, training and generating physical, social, economic and political realities. Between movement and constraint, participation and subjection, identity and avatar, the deployment and mutual redefinition of these terms is open to research by artists, collectives and researchers. The participants are working on different ways of using games to make present-day situations and issues tangible: diversity, the economy, the environment, geopolitics, digitisation, etc. Their games are a dynamic way of exposing and rethinking the rules and shared goals that shape society.

 

As the title suggests, in reference to Rabindranath Tagore’s poem about children playing on the shore, play conjures up potential spaces where the imaginary and the real inform each other as creativity, solidarity and care. Games accompany the fundamentally trans-human process of hominisation, reinscribing the existing in extension with its outsides through which it invents itself - materials, technical objects, more than human… Rather than constituting a category of defined objects or fixed, universal and timeless features specific to all cultures, games enable them to evolve through realities that they both describe and shape.

 

While games support the construction of worlds as sets of relationships and systems of rules - more or less arbitrary, contingent and changing - they are also set in motion by processes that open them up (room for maneuver) or even go beyond them (off-games, hidden rules) and put in tension as world-engine and meta-games. What games are being played? Who produces the rules? Are the players being played? At the intersection of materialism and speculation, instruments of power but also engines of emancipation, they allow us to expose and question logics and rationalities that have become increasingly polemical and deterministic, and proceed from eminently aesthetic questions and resolutions.

 

FTW, Christian Bili & Samuel Wagen-Magnon, 2 October 2023

 

Click the image below to access a set of resources related to the exhibition

 

 

LINK: The Seashore of Endless Worlds (special thanks to Christian Bili)

EVENT: ARNE VOGELSESANG'S LET'S PLAY INFO WARS (FRIDAY NOVEMBER 12 2021, ONLINE)

Arne Vogelgesang

IMPACT21 // Let’s play info wars

Friday November 12 2021 7 PM CET

As part of IMPACT21

At PACT and streamed online live. In English

ACT Zollverein

Choreographisches Zentrum NRW Betriebs-GmbH

Bullmannaue 20a
D-45327 Essen, Germany

register here

online stream here

Commonly, we speak of 'gamification' when typical elements of gameplay mechanics are employed as motivators in non-game contexts. While this technique has been used economically for bolstering customer retention and employee productivity, it has also become an increasingly important aspect of political culture. Especially internet savvy communities use game elements and game-like entertainment formats for shaping and structuring their relationship with reality – and thus their political practice.

This talk looks at the game metaphor as a legitimizing and galvanizing frame in more or less recent activities of reactionary and far-right communities. On the one hand it shows some examples of a broader tendency to “game” parts of political discourse, to reframe it as entertainment and also to gamify political mobilization. On the other hand – and in preparation for the following workshop – it questions the roles that art and artistic practices can play in societies which are giving up on a shared grasp of reality.

LINK: IMPACT21

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: TIMES OF HANDS – GAMIFICATION VS PLAY (JUNE 11-12 2021, ONLINE)

Times of Hands is a two day event online initiated by Akademie der Künste der Welt (Academy of the Arts of the World (ADKDW) Cologne, in cooperation with Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), School of Environment and Architecture Mumbai (SEA), Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM). The symposium took place on Twitch on June 11-12 2021.

It was organized by SAM HOPKINS, UBERMORGEN (HANS BERNHARD, LIZ HAAS)

with KAGONYA AWORI, CYNTHIA CHEPKEMOI, HYESEON JEONG, STEFFEN KÖHN + NESTOR SIRÉ, BETHUEL MUTHEE, OSCAR PEÑA

"One of the many effects of digitalization is the growing presence and significance of games. On the one hand we see them on mobile phones and laptops, as recreational activities and as a career, as a global practice. On the other hand gamification is used as a means of increasing productivity and efficiency and as a tool for learning. Considering how ubiquitous it is as a practice, it raises the question of whether games and gaming are not less a consequence of digitalization as they are much more a precondition for its success: is it possible to imagine contemporary digital fields – whether economic, social, cultural, or political – without playful, game-like features?

Defining the framework of the symposium are a broadened concept of digital work – i.e. every work that is produced through digitalization is digital work – and a new perspective on games. Nairobi is both a source of inspiration and the focus of these investigations. As an African tech hub, embedded in global finance and knowledge networks and rich in idiosyncratic digital practices, Nairobi is a space with complexity and contradictions in abundance.

The symposium examines themes like the global influence and local practices of Silicon Valley rhetoric, the presence of Chinese tech ideologies in the South and the North, the practice of offline file sharing in Nairobi, the emergence of the transcontinental professional gaming industry and the explosion of the ride-hailing industry in East Africa."

LINK: Time of Hands

LINK: Time of Hands on Twitch