GAMESCENES

EVENT: BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL PRESENTS LFF EXPANDED (OCTOBER 7-18 2020, LONDON)

London Film Festival Expanded

October 7–18

A new strand of XR and immersive art and virtual exhibition space

Official link

Press release:

LFF Expanded is BFI London Film Festival’s new dedicated strand of XR and immersive Art. Using cinema as a jumping off point, LFF Expanded features virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality and live immersive performance work from bold, innovative creators from around the world, using a range of creative techniques to ensure audiences are not in front of a work of art, a film or a performance, but in the middle of it.

While plans beyond 2020 include a large scale physical installation, the festival has innovated in response to social distancing restrictions this year by commissioning a bespoke, dynamic new virtual exhibition space, The Expanse. This brand new virtual exhibition space houses the LFF Expanded programme curated by Ulrich Schrauth.

The Expanse features a virtual gallery for the LFF’s twenty 360 video and immersive works, plus an auditorium which will house a line-up of live talks and events across the Festival. Audiences will be able to access The Expanse, connect with one another and view the works, using tethered and non-tethered (Oculus Quest) headsets. For those that do not have a headset at home, the Festival will have a number of headsets available for use at the BFI Southbank for attendees to book and experience the platform in-person. There will also be a 2D browser version of the platform for those wishing to explore the virtual space at home. To view the works outside of the platform, attendees can access the Festival’s 360 video programme via Oculus TV and the dedicated LFF 360 Player via WebXR, viewable in mobile VR-headsets or web browser. For tethered headset users, attendees will be able to download the Expanse from Viveport.

 

LFF Expanded will present a number of original and thought-provoking panel discussions and talks around the medium of VR as well as some very special opportunities to meet the artists and explore pioneering new works including Future Rites & Chaotic Body 1, where acclaimed choreographer Alexander Whitley will give an insight into two of his upcoming immersive dance projects; Artist talk: Brave New World with the artists behind Agence (Anna West and David Callahan) and To Miss the Ending (Pietro Gagliano)—two very different projects dealing with the dystopian possibilities of Artificial Intelligence; explore Baff Akoto’s poetic work Leave The Edges in the virtual auditorium and listen to the artist talk about his artistic practice, which combines film and immersive technology and Anti-Gone by Theo Triantafyllidis, offering audiences the chance to experience a new way of hybrid virtual theatre-making.

On Saturday, October 10 London-based artist and designer Es Devlin will talk about her ground-breaking work in an LFF Expanded Screen Talk, and The Immersive Art Revolution sees Rufus Norris, Director and Joint Chief Executive of the National Theatre, Nell Whitley, Executive Producer at Marshmallow Laser Feast and Jane Alison, Head of Visual Arts, Barbican, join BBC journalist and presenter Razia Iqbal to discuss the future of the immersive art sector.

Theo Triantafyllidis, Anti-Gone, 2020

As part of LFF Expanded, the LFF and StoryFutures Academy announced a new XR commission, Laika, directed by the Academy Award and BAFTA winning Asif Kapadia (Senna, Amy, Diego Maradona). Telling the story of the first space dog, Laika is Asif Kapadia’s first foray into immersive and XR filmmaking, and is a collaboration with award winning animation studio Passion Pictures. Laika is due for final completion in 2021.

There will also be an opportunity to experience LFF Expanded at the BFI Southbank exhibition in London. This exhibition must be pre-booked—tickets are free, but limited. Click here to pre-book. LFF Expanded is open throughout the BFI London Film Festival (October 7–18, 2020).

LINK: LFF Expanded

GAME ART: SHING YIN KHOR'S THE ARTIST IS PRESENT IN ANIMAL CROSSING (2020)

In the last four weeks, countless artists have used Animal Crossing: New Horizons as a space for artistic re-enactments. On of the most interesting examples were produced by Shing Yin Khor who transformed her Animal Crossing island into an exhibition space where she recreated artworks and performances by Barbara Kruger, Jeanne-Claude, Chris Burden, and Marina Abramović. Abramović’s iconic piece The Artist is Present, which originally took place with audience attendees at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City has been recontextualized in Animal Crossing. Abramović’s piece was also remade by Pippin Barr a few years ago. 

shing yin khor (@sawdustbear), March 30 2020

Khor also made a text piece inspired by Barbara Kruger’s Untitled, which, instead of “your body is a battleground”, reads, “your turnips are a battleground”. Khor has also remade Jeanne-Claude’s installation piece The Umbrellas and Chris Burden’s Urban Light, a large-scale sculpture made of repurposed streetlights from the 1920s and 30s currently on display at the LACMA, in Los Angeles. As for all the others artists involved in such projects, documenting the work is done through Instagram. 

shing yin khor (@sawdustbear), April 4 2020

Shing Yin Khor is a cartoonist and installation artist that is exploring personal narrative, new human rituals, and collaborative worldbuilding through graphic memoir and science fiction, and large scale art structures. I'm obsessed with building universes and collections filled with awkward creatures and yearning people trapped in a world of heroic futility. Her themes are inspired by old museums, cabinets of curiosities, pre-Linnaean taxonomy, and the quiet horror of colonial era collecting.

LINK: Shing Yin Khor

ART GAME: ONE LIFE REMAINS' A CONSTANT MOVE FORWARD (2015)

Inspired by James Turrell's work, A Constant Move Forward is a playful experience designed by the French collective One Life Remains that goes from boredom to frantic interactivity and back. The collective, funded more than a decade ago by Roy Brice, is inspired by hardcore gaming as well as philosophy. As Brice wrote in an email, the fil rouge linking their practice is an investigation of "the relation between players and spectators, the question of the digital medium’s obsolescence, the link between games and gesture or between games and performing, along with the theme of control."

Considering video game as a major medium, the Paris based collective One Life Remains works towards exploring its properties since 2010. This approach influenced by radical design as well as hardcore gaming and philosophy results in a series of objects that pushes the boundaries of the medium. These creations can take several forms (ephemeral art, monumental installation, concept game) and provide different types of game experience (party play, intellectual play, sensorial play. The collective ‘s main axes of research are the relation between players and spectators, the question of the digital medium’s obsolescence, the link between games and gesture or between games and performing, along with the theme of control. The collective has shown numerous pieces around the world: Museum of Technology (Moscow), Art Science Gallery (Dublin), Galerie K11 (Wuhan), Cmoda (Shanghaï), La Gaïté Lyrique (Paris), Vector Festival (Toronto), etc One Life Remains currently comprises four members: André Berlemont, Kevin Lesur, Brice Roy and Frank Weber. 

LINK: One Life Remains (All videos and images courtesy of One Life Remains)

ART GAME: STUDIO OLEOMINGUS'S THE INDIFFERENT WONDER OF EDIBLE PLACES (2020)

Studio Oleomingus is on fire. Their latest project - The indifferent wonder of edible places - is an iteration of an artwork that was developed for an exhibition at Phoenix gallery in Leicester in 2019 and later displayed at the Videogame Art Gallery in Chicago at the Notes in the Margins of History exhibition. For this installation, Langoors in the Labyrinth is split into two halves displayed simultaneously; both connected but designed to be played separately. It is a meditation on memory, and explores how stories and histories are formed and documented.

The indifferent wonder of edible places is meant as

an examination of the violence of erasure and completion. Of complete memory and perforated form. Of edible history and perforated reality. It is a repository that ebbs and flows when explored, and simulates the arduous process of generating meaning from the material dregs of time. In its single player manifestation it is a story about a municipal building eater, consuming a tower at the edge of an unnamed town.

Studio Oleomingus's games are available on itchio. 

Studio Oleomingus was created by Dhruv Jani and Sushant Chakraborty. A game and arts practice studio, based in Chala, India, Studio Oleomingus' work is situated at the intersection of post colonial writing and interactive fiction, and they use videogame spaces as sites of discourse, resistance and record. With our games they attempt to study colonial power structures and the histories that they occlude and how interactive fiction might be used to pollute a single reductive record of the past or of a people.

LINK: Studio Oleomingus (alla images and videos courtesy of the Artists)

EVENTS: NOW PLAY THIS: A FESTIVAL OF EXPERIMENTAL GAME DESIGN (2020, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM)

The 2020 edition of NOW PLAY THIS: A festival of experimental game design at Somerset House in London curated by Marie Foulston features all kinds of artworks looking at games that relate to a theme of ‘Breaking Point’. “Games are the aesthetic forms of systems, and we were looking at works that break or subvert them in interesting and creative ways.” The IRL festival could not go ahead because of the pandemic and it has been postponed. The amazing lineup features, among others, Paolo Pedercini, A.M Darke, IP Yuk-Yiu, Ian MacLarty, Studio Oleomingus, Alistair Aitcheson, Danielle Udogaranya, Patrick LeMieux, Stephanie Bouk, and Matteo Bittanti whose How to get rid of homeless is featured in the selection.

LINK: NOW PLAY THIS 

GAME ART: FOCI+LOCI'S BOUNCING MOON (2017)

Another formidable work by foci+loci, Bouncing Moon is an algorithmic music device built in LittleBigPlanet 3. Truly avantgarde. 

As the Brooklyn-based duo explains:

The user trigger emission of a triangle in any of four rows- percussion, droplets, bass and piano- by pressing buttons on the controller. Each triangle has three possible notes and plays whichever one lands point-down in the slot it finds. The moving white light indicates what step the sequencer is on. As it passes each triangle, it triggers a note. The user can also, 'reset' any row by thrusting them back upwards to resettle as they fall. The tempo is also controllable.

Treating the map editors in video games as virtual sound stages, foci + loci create immersive electro-acoustic spaces with virtual instruments and timed audiovisual events. Saving and replaying digital game data, camera movement in space can be disassociated from time, changing traditional filmic relationships. foci + loci is Tamara Yadao and Chris Burke.

LINK: foci+loci

EVENT: MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL 2020 (MARCH 09-13 2020, MILAN, ITALY)

We are delighted to announce the full program of the 2020 MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL.

The event takes place between March 09-13 2020 at IULM University in two separate locations: the Contemporary Exhibition Hall and the Sala dei 146, both located in the IULM Open Space building. Both venues are open to the public, but we kindly encourage attendees to register for the screening on Friday March 13 2020 in the Sala dei 146 as seats are limited.

Please note that each day features a different program. The festival is bookended by two sections titled GAME VIDEO ESSAY A (March 09 2020) and B (March 13 2020), after a successful run in the 2019 event of the4 same title. From Tuesday until Thursday we will present an indepth look at four artists whose daring, groundbreaking, unclassifiable work has redefined the aesthetics of machinima: Larry Achiampong, David Blandy, Jacky Connolly, and Oscar Wagenmans in the context of the Contemporary Exhibition Hall.

The festival concludes on Friday March 13 with The Weird, The Eerie, and The Unreal, which includes a selection of the most impressive works submitted this year and evaluated by our international jurors. During the screening, we will announce the 2020 Critics’ Award.

SCHEDULE

Monday March 09 2020

GAME VIDEO ESSAY A

Contemporary Exhibition Hall (IULM OPEN SPACE)

09:00 - 19:00 Free Entry

 

Tuesday March 10 2020

FOCUS: SAVEME OH

Contemporary Exhibition Hall (IULM OPEN SPACE)

09:00 - 19:00 Free Entry

 

Wednesday March 11 2020

FOCUS: JACKY CONNOLLY

Contemporary Exhibition Hall (IULM OPEN SPACE)

09:00 - 19:00 Free Entry

 

Thursday March 12 2020

FOCUS: LARRY ACHIAMPONG & DAVID BLANDY

Contemporary Exhibition Hall (IULM OPEN SPACE)

09:00 - 19:00 Free Entry

 

Friday March 13 2020

GAME VIDEO ESSAY B

Sala dei 146 (IULM OPEN SPACE)

09:00 - 19:00 Free Entry

 

Friday March 13 2020

THE WEIRD, THE EERIE, THE UNREAL

Sala dei 146 (IULM OPEN SPACE)

18:00 - 20:00 Please RSVP

 

Click here to read the full program

 

LINK: MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL

OPEN CALL: NOW PLAY THIS 2020 (DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 3 2020)

Now Play This 2020 – Open Call

Now Play This is returning to Somerset House in London from April 3rd – 5th as part of London Games Festival. Ahead of this year’s festival we’re once again opening up a call for playful makers and creators to tell us about their work.

The submission deadline for the open call will be midnight, 3rd February.

As a festival of experimental games and playful media we welcome the submission of games, installations, workshops, photography, films, performances or works in other mediums that directly connect to the subject of play. You can view festival line-ups from previous years here which will help provide an insight into the range of works we have showcased previously. 

The theme for the festival this year is ‘breaking point’. We are looking for works which break or subvert rules or systems. 

This might include games or works which… 

– subvert, disassemble or break real world systems
– hack, remake, remix, modify existing games or works
– that foster creation through destruction or subversion 

We are open to other interpretations of the theme, but do ask that you demonstrate clearly how work submitted connects to it. 

To submit works please complete the open call form here.

If you have accessibility concerns regarding the form or the deadline please email [email protected] 

Additional information: 

• We strongly welcome submissions from marginalised and underrepresented creatives within games and playful media. 
• The festival pays a £75 honorarium for exhibited works and provides all hardware required for display (where applicable). We can also cover any additional expenses required to showcase work. 
• Creators are not required to attend the festival for their work to be exhibited. If a work is dependent on your presence to be shown, e.g. a performance, then we will cover travel and accommodation expenses. 
• We will respond to all submissions by late February. Due to the volume of submissions we receive we sadly cannot provide individual feedback. 

If you have any other queries, comments or feedback then please email [email protected] 

LINK: NOW PLAY THIS

EVENT: GAME CHANGERS: VIDEO GAMES & CONTEMPORARY ART (FEBRUARY 22 - APRIL 19 2020, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS)

Juan Obando, Pro Revolution Soccer, 2019

Game Changers: Video Games & Contemporary Art

February 22 to April 19 2020 Free entry

MassArt Museum (MAAM)
Sandra & David Bakalar Gallery
Free and open to the public

621 Huntington Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02115 United States

 

Curated by Darci Hanna, this group exhibition explores artists working at the confluence of contemporary art and video games. Whether highlighting under-explored narratives, pushing technological boundaries, or imagining alternative worlds through game aesthetics, the artists featured in Game Changers are discovering new possibilities for what game-related art can be and do.

 

Nyamakop, Semblance, 2018

Featured artists

Cao Fei, Paloma Dawkins, Tracy Fullerton, Dan Hernandez, Nyamakop, Juan Obando, Momo Pixel, Skawennati, Brent Watanabe

LINK: Game Changers

NEWS: MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL 2020: IT'S WEIRD, EERIE, AND UNREAL

The theme of the 2020 MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL is The Weird, the Eerie, and the Unreal. Inspired by Mark Fisher’s last book, The Weird and the Eerie (2017), the theme tries to capture the essence of machinima, like the previous two, Aesthetics of game-based cinema (2018) and Uncanny (2019).

The poster and the full program will be revealed in the upcoming weeks.

Click here to read the full description.

The MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL is organized in collaboration with GAMESCENES. Art in the age of video games and the M.A. in Game Design at IULM University. An official event of the Milano Digital Week, the MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL takes place between March 09 - 13 2020 at IULM University, in Milan.

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