GAMESCENES

EVENT: 30 ANOS DE GAME BOY (MAY 22 - OCTOBER 11 2019, SARAGOZA, SPAIN)

30 años de Game Boy: Una consola en el mundo del arte @ ETOPIA
22nd may-11th october 2019 // Centro de Arte y Tecnología
Avenida Ciudad de Soria, 8. Acceso por Avenida Autonomía 7
Zaragoza, Spain

Tres décadas más tarde de que la consola Game Boy fuera objeto de deseo, cuyo fin era el entretenimiento, un ecosistema de pixeles y sonidos que marcaron nuestra infancia, se reúnen en torno a esta exposición a artistas internacionales de distintas disciplinas que enfocan sus creaciones desde una actitud irreverente frente al paso del tiempo, dotando a la exposición de cierta resiliencia tecnológica.

Las obras artísticas que aquí se presentan son procesos complejos multidisciplinares de creación. El telos de la consola ha cambiado; aquí el juego varía de lo objetivo a lo subjetivo, introduciéndose las variantes de la modificación, lo visual, lo sonoro y las adiciones tecnológicas. A través de los diferentes componentes de la consola y su modificación y adaptación, así como de la combinación, se ha conseguido obtener resultados complejos, comportamientos diferentes a nivel de acción en la pantalla, a nivel estético de resultado y a nivel metafórico y semántico.

La recreación, reutilización y reciclaje del soporte tecnológico son afrontados desde una visión holística, donde cada detalle, por pequeño que sea, cuenta, porque forma parte de un sistema semántico de reinterpretación del pasado para generar un nuevo producto artístico, ya no de consumo, sino de deleite estético-crítico.

En este contexto, la exposición reúne obras de los artistas Bubbyflish (Corea del Sur), Daniel Canogar (España), Jean Jacques Calbayrac (Francia), Paul Catanese (EEUU), Clint Enns (Canadá), Gijs Gieskes (Holanda), Maia Koening (Argentina), Raquel Meyers (España), Joey Michalina Mariano (EEUU), Dmitry Mozorov (Rusia), Davit Ruiz (España), Toriena (Japón) e Ira Torres (España).

LINK: 30 ANOS DE GAME BOY  (Thanks to Raquel Meyers)

EVENT: OPEN WORLD: VIDEO GAMES AND CONTEMPORARY ART (OCTOBER 19, 2019 - FEBRUARY 2, 2020, AKRON, OHIO)

Suzanne Treister, Fictional Videogame Still/Q, 1992 (via Akron Art Museum)

OPEN WORLD: VIDEO GAMES AND CONTEMPORARY ART

AKRON ART MUSEUM

ONE SOUTH HIGH

AKRON, OHIO 44308

United States of America

According to a 2015 Entertainment Software Association survey, 155 million Americans play video games. Visual artists are gamers too, yet video games are rarely examined as a major influence on contemporary art. Open World draws attention to this phenomenon through the presentation of artworks including painting, sculpture, textiles, prints, drawings, animation, video games, video game modifications and game-based performances and interventions by makers who self-identify as artists.

The artworks in Open World reference a broad cross-section of games, ranging from early text adventure and arcade games to modern massively multi-player online roleplaying games and first-person shooters. Participating artists are influenced by some of the most beloved video game franchises including Super Mario Brothers, The Legend of Zelda, The Sims and Final Fantasy.

The exhibition’s title refers to open-world video games, which allow a player to roam through a virtual world, freely selecting their objectives. The title also draws attention to the rich opportunities video games offer for creative expression. Through games, artists build immersive, alternate words. They use digital games to create meaning through imagery, music, sound effects, animation and narrative. The rules governing the experience of playing a video game can express a viewpoint and encourage critical thinking or empathy by directing the player’s attention to systems at work within the real world.

As part of Open World, the Akron Art Museum is calling for submissions of video games and table top games from developers, students and game-creators for Open World Arcade, a day-long indie game event held at the museum on Saturday, December 7, 2019. Click here for more Information or to submit your game. 

Tim Portlock, Clone, 2012, inkjet print. (via Akron Art Museum)

LINK: OPEN WORLD: VIDEO GAMES AND CONTEMPORARY ART

BOOK: TRAVELOGUE

TRAVELOGUE

by Matteo Bittanti
Release date: May 15 2019
Features: Softcover, 148 pages, color illustrations
Format: 6×9 in, 15×23 cm
Language: English and Italian
ISBN: 9780368668197
Price: $22.99

I'm very happy to announce that my latest book, TRAVELOGUE, is now available from Concrete Press in bilingual edition (English/Italian).

TRAVELOGUE is a survey of audiovisual artworks made with or inspired by video games. Using machinima and interactive installations, fifteen artists examine the virtual automobile as medium, message, technological commodity, status symbol, interface, and prosthetics. Created through a process of appropriation and remix, these works lie at the intersection of fiction and documentation, performance and simulation, video art and experimental cinema.

This book is an extended catalogue of the exhibition TRAVELOGUE that I curated between September 7- 11 2016, in Mantua, Italy as part of Festivaletteratura 2016, featuring artworks by Max Almy and Teri Yarbrow, Hugo Arcier, Dave Ball, William Beaudine, Bob-Bicknell Knight, COLL.EO, Clint Enns, Matthew Hillock, JODI, Kristin Lucas, Victor Morales, Leonardo Sang, Palle Torsson. Available in bilingual edition (English and Italian) TRAVELOGUE is the follow-up to MACHINIMA. 32 conversazioni sull'arte del videogioco, which was released in 2017.

You can purchase a copy of TRAVELOGUE on Blurb orAmazon US It will soon be available on Amazon Italy.

TRAVELOGUE è una rassegna di opere audiovisive – machinima ed installazioni – realizzate per mezzo dei videogiochi. Quindici artisti internazionali esplorano l’automobile virtuale, ivi intesa come mezzo e messaggio, tecnologia e status symbol, interfaccia e protesi. Frutto di appropriazione e remix, queste opere si collocano all’intersezione tra narrazione e documentazione, performance e simulazione, videoarte e cinema sperimentale. Questo libro è il catalogo ampliato della mostra TRAVELOGUE curata da Matteo Bittanti nel settembre 2016) a Mantova, nell’ambito di Festivaletteratura 2016, con opere di Max Almy e Teri Yarbrow, Hugo Arcier, Dave Ball, William Beaudine, Bob-Bicknell Knight, COLL.EO, Clint Enns, Matthew Hillock, JODI, Kristin Lucas, Victor Morales, Leonardo Sang, Palle Torsson.

LINK: TRAVELOGUE

EVENT: AN UNREAL UNITY (MAY 16-30 2019, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA)

Game Design...the Game: Welcome to Inspiration, Now finish the damn game!. PC game, created in Unreal Engine. Courtesy UCLA Design Media Arts.

An Unreal Unity

May 16–30, 2019 

Opening: May 16, 5pm 

UCLA New Wight Gallery 
Broad Art Center, Suite 1100 
240 Charles E. Young Drive
Los Angeles, CA 

An Unreal Unity features screen-based and interactive artwork, large-scale installations, and immersive projection. Themes include the Anthropocene, corporeal estrangement, speculative interventions, and emotional inquest. Participating artists are Hye Min Cho, Kit Kirby, Sara Drake, Isabelle Chen, Lena NW, Phazero, Maru Garcia, Carlos “L05” Garcia, Sam Congdon, Julian Stein, and Paul Carlo Esposito.

Opening reception Thursday, May 16 at 5pm. The exhibition will be open weekdays from 10am to 5pm through May 30.

This event is free and open to the public.

LINK: AN UNREAL UNITY

EVENT: RUPTURES IN VIDEO GAME CULTURE (MAY 15 2019, TORONTO, CANADA)

Ruptures in Video Game Culture

May 15 2019

From 7 to 10 PM

Toronto Media Arts Centre, 32 Lisgar St

Toronto, Canada

As part of the Unfeeling Capitalism series at the Toronto Media Arts Centre, this evening talk brings together game workers, players and artists confronting capitalism, white supremacy, and misogyny in real and virtual worlds. Presented in collaboration with Hand Eye Society, Dames Making Games, Toronto Media Arts Centre, Unifor National, and Game Workers Unite, Ruptures in Video Game Culture features Paolo Pedercini, Gaby Aveiro, SpekWork, and Jordan Sparks.

LINK: Ruptures in Video Game Culture

GAME ART: FERNARDO VILLELA'S DAMN, TIME FLIES (2018)

Fernando Villela, Damn, Time Flies, Installation video, shot, edited, and displayed on a cracked iPhone SE, 2018.

A new work by Fernando Villela, the artist behind Procedural Generation, an in-game photography project developed with Grand Theft Auto V.

Fernando Villela is a photographer from São Paulo (b.93), currently living and working in New York. A diligent observer, his subject matter is the everyday, the living experience, the shared existence. He believes it is here to be witnessed, to be observed. With interests in existentialism, urban life, and the systems that operate (the invisible hands that orchestrate), Fernando looks and aims his camera to the action unfolding around him, surveying the sidewalk, the buildings, the day and its inhabitants.

LINK: Fernando Villela

EVENT: PLAY.GROUND II: VIDEO GAME ART FROM HONG KONG (MAY 10-AUGUST 18, CHICAGO)

PLAY.GROUND II: Video Game Art from Hong Kong
Curated by IP Yuk-Yui
May 10 - August 18, 2019

VIDEO GAME ART GALLERY

2418 W Bloomingale Ave Apt 102
Chicago, IL 60647

Opening Reception Friday, May 10, 6-9pm

With its distinctive urban landscape and rich cultural legacies, Hong Kong has always been a great source of creative inspiration for video games. Hong Kong is one of the most frequently depicted locations in video games, alongside New York City and Tokyo. As both a physical place and a cultural icon, Hong Kong unquestionably occupies a unique position in the video game imaginary.

Against this cultural context, PLAY.GROUND II features a collection of video game and game-inspired artworks by five Hong Kong-based media artists: HUI Wai-Keung, IP Yuk-Yiu, Vvzela KOOK, Alan KWAN and Edwin LO, providing an extended showcase and a creative overview of the distinctive state of Hong Kong video game art and its recent development. Originally shown in Tokyo Arts and Space, this is the first exhibition of its kind to tour to North America.

LINK: VIDEOGAME ART GALLERY

GAME ART: LETTA SHTOHRYN'S ALGORITHMIC ORACLE (2018-2019)

stills from Algorithmic Oracle, 9 channel moving image installation on screens or tablets or a single channel video., 2018 -2019, 8:12 min

In one of the most sophisticated projects with The Sims (the third chapter, to be precise) since Angela Washko's Free Will Mode (2014-2017) and Jacky Connolly's Anhedonia (2017), Letta Shtohryn tackles algorithmic narratives and what if? scenarios:

Algorithmic Oracle attempts to grasp multiple realities at the same time. Letting a simulation game algorithm decide according to its own standards how a real-life event could have unfolded. One of the scenarios was witnessed IRL. SIMS3 used here as a way to employ a "higher" algorithmic power to find out possible "what-if" scenarios of the experienced event. All the players in the video are crafted to fit their real characteristics and looks. The game starts every scenario with the single directed action, controlled by the player. After the action is completed the game runs scenarios based on its own probability algorithm without interference resulting in a multitude of outcomes. The work is available on Daata Editions.

Letta Shtohryn works predominantly with media art,sculpture, installation, text and intervention. Her academic background is in Photography (Art School Vienna); Philosophy and Sociology (University of Vienna); MFA Digital Art (University of Malta, 2016).

LINK: Letta Shtohryn

GAME ART: IP YUK-YIU'S S FOR SISYPHUS (2015)

A contemporary update and a creative reworking of Albert Camus’s “The Myth of Sisyphus”, S for Sisyphus is an experimental video game project by Ip Yuk-Yiu that explores, meaning, and human intentionality via a simple animated and playable experience. It consists of two related but standalone versions: S for Sisyphus ¬ (playable version) and S for Sisyphus ∞ (machinima version), each articulating the key theme with a slightly different accent and experience.

LINK: IP YUK-YIU

EVENT: BRENTON ALEXANDER SMITH'S I FEEL LIKE A NERVOUS WRECK (APRIL 1-30 2019, ONLINE)

Brenton Alexander Smith

I feel like a nervous wreck

Closed on Monday gallery 

April 1-30 2019

Closed on Monday Is an online gallery that is experienced like a video game. It is a 3D space that the ‘player’ can move around in to experience the works. You can visit the gallery right now at closedonmondaygallery.com. Brenton Alexander Smith's exhibition I feel like a nervous wreck is showing in the gallery until the end of the month, and will likely be accessible in the archive section of the website afterwards. Here, his crashforms have been extracted from the environment of BeamNg.drive and placed into the new context of this gallery. These crashforms begin to move as you approach them, returning an element of interactivity to how they are experienced. 

LINK: Brenton Alexander Smith