GAMESCENES

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 

GAME ART: MARK FINGERHUT'S ART IN FALLOUT (2015)

A delicious twist on the "paintings in video games" trope. 

Mark Fingerhut is an artist, a computer user, a hacker, a performer, a singer, a video-maker, a writer, a juggler, a gamer, and a friend. He worked with Ian Cheng and Peter Burr, among others. He graduated from  Pratt Institute. He lives in New York. He does not maintain an artist's CV.

LINK: Mark Fingerhut

EVENT: FRIENDLY FIRE (OCTOBER 22 - NOVEMBER 11 2019, LINZ, AUSTRIA)

SYMPOSIUM: Desertion from digital war zone

A Symposium on October 24 2019, between 10:20 - 20:00

Art University

Domgasse 1, Room Ex-Post Music, 4th floor

Linz, Austria

free entrance

Exhibition: Friendly Fire

October 22 - November 14 2019

MEMPHIS Artspace

Lower Danube Lands 12, Linz, Austria,

Opening: October 22 at 19:00 

Website

How can video games be used as artistic material as one of the world's largest entertainment medium? What appropriation strategies do artists and communities develop to parasitically reuse the growing cities, war landscapes and worlds of video games?

In an interdisciplinary symposium, the borderland on the digital battlefield will be left behind. Scholars from various disciplines, including cultural anthropology (Ruth Eggel), media and cultural studies (Margarethe Jahrmann, Benjamin Beil, Philipp Bojahr, Helmut Lethen, Leonhard Müllner, Robin Klengel, Michael Stumpf), cultural history (Stephan Schwingeler, Ernst Strouhal) and applied sciences (Ulrich Brandstätter) will discuss the issues from different angles. Furthermore, artistic positions (Jona Kleinlein, Total Refusal) will be integrated into the discussion.

The practical follow-up is the simultaneous exhibition Friendly Fire by the artist collective Total Refusal, which deals with artistic intervention in current video games. The event will be introduced by the performance Wonderboy by Barbi Markovic.

Leonhard Müllner works as an artist in the public and digital space and is currently writing his doctoral thesis at the Linz Art University at the Institute for Art and Cultural Studies.

Robin Klengel works in Graz and Vienna as an interdisciplinary artist, illustrator, cultural anthropologist and vice president of the Forum Stadtpark.

Michael Stumpf studied philosophy at the University of Vienna. He works as an artist, designer and cultural theorist.

Barbi Marković studied German literature in Belgrade, is a writer and artist and lives in Vienna. Wonder boy is a computer game from the year 1986, which was originally developed for gambling halls. In the performance of the same name, literature and computer games meet in a literary walkthrough.

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Symposium: Fahnenflucht aus digitalem Kriegsgebiet & Ausstellung Friendly Fire

Kunst Universität Linz, Österreich, Domgasse 1 (Raum Ex-Postmusik, 4. OG)

Eintritt frei

Ausstellung: Friendly Fire

24.10.2019, 10:20 - 20:00 Uhr

Eröffnung am 22.10., 19:00 Uhr

MEMPHIS Artspace Linz, Österreich, Untere Donaulände 12

Website

Wie lässt sich das Videospiel als eines der weltweit größten Unterhaltungsmedien als künstlerisches Material verwenden? Welche Aneignungsstrategien entwickeln KünstlerInnen und die Community um die wachsenden Städte, Kriegslandschaften und Welten der Videospiele parasitär umzunutzen? 

In einem interdisziplinären Symposium wird das Grenzland am digitalen Schlachtfeld abgegangen. Dabei diskutieren WissenschaftlerInnen aus kulturanthropologischer (Ruth Eggel), medien- und kulturwissenschaftlicher (Margarethe Jahrmann, Benjamin Beil, Philipp Bojahr, Helmut Lethen, Leonhard Müllner, Robin Klengel, Michael Stumpf), kulturhistorischer (Stephan Schwingeler, Ernst Strouhal) und angewandter (Ulrich Brandstätter) Perspektive. Weiters werden künstlerische Positionen (Jona Kleinlein,Total Refusal) in die Diskussion eingebunden.

Den praktischen Anschluss bildet dabei die zeitgleich stattfindende Ausstellung Friendly Fire des Künstlerkollektivs Total Refusal, das sich mit künstlerischer Intervention in aktuellen Videospielen beschäftigt und nun in Linz seine Arbeiten zu diesem medienkulturell so aktuellen Thema präsentiert. Die Eröffnung beginnt mit der Performance Wonderboy von Barbi Markovic.

Leonhard Müllner works as an artist in the public and digital space and is currently writing his doctoral thesis at the Linz Art University at the Institute for Art and Cultural Studies.

Robin Klengel works in Graz and Vienna as an interdisciplinary artist, illustrator, cultural anthropologist and vice president of the Forum Stadtpark.

Michael Stumpf studied philosophy at the University of Vienna. He works as an artist, designer and cultural theorist.

Barbi Marković studied German literature in Belgrade, is a writer and artist and lives in Vienna. Wonder boy is a computer game from the year 1986, which was originally developed for gambling halls. In the performance of the same name, literature and computer games meet in a literary walkthrough.

LINK: Friendly Fire

GAME ART: TOTAL REFUSAL'S SWINGS DON'T SWING (2019)

The latest work by Total Refusal (Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf) is a 4-channel video installation that brings to light the intrinsic contradictions of video game environments, i.e. the designers' obsession to achieve photorealism and the Potemkin Village-like syndrome which informs their representational logic. Far from being functional, several simulated elements are just props: they look "real", but they do not perform as one might expect. Specifically, the collective underlines the complete lack of usability of playground structures within shooter games, where the function of swings and slides is purely decorative. Hence, swings don't swing, slides don't slide and carousels don't... well, you get the idea. Far from being interactive, virtual playground spaces are "dead space". Swings don't swing was conceived as an installation in which four screens literally swing in the gallery room as to compensate for the counterintuitive stasis of their digital replicas. As they write in their accompanying text, "They document different attempts to interact with the dysfunctional objects, showing how difficult it is to actually play within a video game." It is somehow ironic that, in a shooter, playful structures are stripped of their playful affordances. The playground thus becomes an arena for violent conflict. Or artistic subversion, like in this case. In other words: if a video game totally refuses to play, Total Refusal plays with the video game. 

Total Refusal is Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, and Michael Stumpf.  In their practice, they critically analyze and appropriate digital game spaces and put them to new use. Moving within games but ignoring the intended gameplay, Total Refusal allocates these resources to new activities and narratives, in order to create “public” spaces imbued with critical, even subversive potential.

Leonhard Müllner works as an artist in the public and digital space and is currently writing his doctoral thesis at the Linz Art University at the Institute for Art and Cultural Studies.

Robin Klengel works in Graz and Vienna as an interdisciplinary artist, illustrator, cultural anthropologist and vice president of the Forum Stadtpark.

Michael Stumpf studied philosophy at the University of Vienna. He works as an artist, designer and cultural theorist.

LINK: Total Refusal

GAME ART: SU HYUN NAM'S SURROGATE_ BEING II (2019)

A fascinating take at simulation vs. representation, memory vs. concreteness. 

Surrogate Being is an interactive virtual environment exploring possibilities of affective relationships between humans and machines and mindful approaches in the computation process for their sustainable coevolution of human and technology. This work negotiates the discrepancy between memories and digital data of a nostalgic place through the process of recreating the artist’s hometown in Korea. The heterogeneity of algorithmic digital images and affective memories are interwoven in the 3D environment.

This virtual space bridges my mind and digital technology and invites participants to explore the mediated landscape with curiosity. As memories remain indistinct and disintegrated until we recollect, the landscape is destructed when no participant is engaged. If a participant is approached to the fragmented image and stand in front of it, it turns into a navigable landscape. As s/he moves her/his head to look at the other side of the landscape, the virtual camera in the scene changes its direction responding to the participants' movement. This interaction suggests a potential depth in the digital landscape we can look into, thus the monitor or the projected image becomes a portal into the mediated memory space.

As the virtual environment is transformed based on input data of participants' movement, the participant's body is affected by reactive virtual images again. In this way, their interaction begins to flow in the feedback loop and ultimately makes the human mind and algorithmic process indistinguishable.

Su Hyun Nam investigates the complex emerging identity and implicit conflict of a foreign being by reconstructing familiar landscapes as uncanny digital images. Living as an immigrant, I experience and observe multiple incongruities in the seemingly coherent public world - generated by competing social norms and clashing cultural perspectives, and my digital images mediate those fragmented heterogeneous experiences of the society. In this process, digital technology inspires my own personal searching in a creative and mindful way, and consequently, the computation process becomes meditative beyond the canonical rule-driven approach.

LINK: Su Hyun Nam

GAME ART: BIG PAUPER'S RENTAL CAR, OAHU 2007 (2012)

A multimedia piece made by Big Pauper within a hacked Sega Saturn gaming environment.

Drew McIntyre (known as Big Pauper in some parts of the world) is a multimedia artist, toolmaker and sound designer based in Portland, OR.   Drew’s own artwork engages with the mercurial moods of his own modified technologies, presumed dead media & cultural artifacts left by the wayside of history.  His video work and their corollaries are distinctively disorienting, and their mysterious humor belies subtle (and not-so-subtle) censure of our novelty driven consumer culture.  Drew also designs glitch video circuitry as BPMC.

LINK: Big Pauper

EVENT: GAMES FOR WINDOWS (OCTOBER 4 - NOVEMBER 17 2019, ROCHESTER, NY)

Games for Windows: Experiments with Game Footage

Curated by Nilson Carroll

The Liquor Store

128 W. Main St.

Rochester, New York

Games for Windows: Experiments with Game Footage is a new exhibition curated by Nilson Carroll. Expanding the tradition of cinema and games, these artists use various gestures of play to create experimental video art from video game footage. This event is part of the Rochester's Current Seen, an art biennial that takes place in small venues. 

Participating Artists:
Sandra Araújo (Brazil) 
Jordan Baruch (Long Island, NY)
Rob Cigna (Rochester, NY)
Heidi E. Cooper (Vietnam)
Kasey Edgerton (Rochester, NY)
Cody Filardi (Rochester, NY)
Kara Gut (Ohio)
Thomas Hawranke (Germany)
Alex Hovet (New York, NY)
Matthew Keff (Brooklyn, NY)
Ryan Keller (Long Island, NY)
Robin Mendoza (Albany, NY)
Drew Mounce (Long Island, NY)
Karl Munstedt (Brooklyn, NY)
Tara Nelson (Rochester, NY)
Joshua Thorson (Rochester/Brooklyn)
Bloody Noes (Rochester, NY)

LINKS: Games for Windows

EVENT: GAME ON: EL ARTE EN JUEGO 2019 (NOVEMBER 22-30 2019, BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA)

Game On! El arte en juego, Sixth Edition

November 22 - 30 2019

Cultural Center San Martín

Sarmiento 1551, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Entrance is free and open to the public

The sixth edition of Game On! will take place from November 22 till 30 2019 at the Cultural San Martin in Buenos Aires, within the framework of the Festival of Digital Culture Electronic November. Game On! is the only exhibition in Argentina addressing the artistic and cultural impact video games. The exhibition will feature more than 40 international works, including machinima, interactive experiences, experimental art and video games, alternative controls and more. 

Game On! El arte en juego celebrates its tenth anniversary, coinciding with the rise of festivals and exhibitions of experimental art and video games globally. To celebrate such impressive achievement, within the framework of the event GAIA (Game Arts International Assembly) will take place the first think tank at the international level bringing together 20 curators and producers recognized and alternative festivals worldwide, including the creators of exhibitions in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and festivals such as Berlin's A MAZE and many more. 

For this sixth international edition a team of Diego Maté (Bachelor Critique of Arts, PhD in Arts from the UNA, researcher, critic and teacher), Agustin Perez Fernandez (developer of independent video games, multimedia artist and selected curatorial committee was created by the experimental Gameplay Workshop of the Game Developers Conference 2011) and María Luján Oulton, director and curator of Game on! since its inception.

The first edition was held in 2009 and has established itself across five different editions and traveling exhibitions in the country and in the rest of the region. In these ten years, more than 200 Argentine and foreign artists presented their works to an audience of over 60,000 visitors, cultural venues such as San Martin Cultural Center, Planetarium Galileo Galilei, the CCK, the Recoleta Cultural Center, Technopolis, the CCEBA and Subject to the gallery, among others. Game On! It is directed by María Luján Oulton, specializing in game art curator.

Features artists and designers of the 2019 edition include Ignacio Puccini, Juliàn Palacios, Gerrònimo Pellicer, Mario von Rickenbach and Michael Frei, and Ip Yuk-Yiu, Pippin Bar, Paolo Pedercini, Laura Palevicino, Daniel Benvergui and Jeremias Babini, Joaquin Castro, Connor Sherlock, Douglas Wilson and David Kanaga, Alejandro Cura, Ida Toft and Amani Naseem, Robin Baumgarten, Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux, Paloma Dawkins, Ashley Obscura & Casa Rara Studio, Gabe Cuzzillo, Aruna Collective, Papacorps Team, Nicolás Recabarren, Nicolás Saraintaris and Fernando Martínez Ruppel, JRPG Combat Systems, Moshe Linke, Johan, Gorm, Marco And Martín, Moshe Linke and Aaron Oldenburg, Alex Myers, Sam Barlow, Mez Breeze, Accidental Queens, Jonne Hansson, Lorenzo Redaelli, Romina Luna and Elizabeth Lapenséé, among others. 

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Del 22 al 30 de noviembre en el Cultural San Martín, dentro del marco del Festival de Cultura Digital Noviembre Electrónico, se realizará la sexta edición de “Game On! El arte en juego”, única exhibición en Argentina dedicada a abordar los videojuegos artísticos - culturales.

La exhibición se alojará en las salas A/B del Cultural San Martín y desplegará más de 40 obras nacionales e internacionales, entre las que se encuentran videos machinima, instalaciones lúdicas interactivas, videojuegos artísticos y experimentales, controles alternativos y variedad de piezas y actividades relacionadas con los campos del arte y los videojuegos

“Game On! El arte en juego” festeja 10 años desde su creación, coincidiendo con el auge de los festivales y exhibiciones sobre videojuegos artísticos y experimentales a nivel internacional. Para celebrarlo, dentro del marco del evento se desarrollará GAIA (Game Arts International Assembly), el primer think tank a nivel internacional que reunirá a 20 curadores y productores de festivales reconocidos y alternativos de todo el mundo, incluyendo a los creadores de exposiciones en el Victoria & Albert Museum de Londres, y festivales como A MAZE de Berlín y Print Screen de Israel, entre otros.

Para esta sexta edición internacional se creó un comité curatorial integrado por Diego Maté (Licenciado en Crítica de Artes, doctorando en Artes por la UNA, investigador, crítico y docente), Agustín Perez Fernandez (desarrollador de videojuegos independientes, artista multimedia y seleccionado por la Experimental Gameplay Workshop de la Game Developers Conference 2011) y María Luján Oulton, Directora y curadora de Game On! desde sus inicios.

“Game On! El Arte en Juego” se exhibirá del 23 al 30 de noviembre, de 15:00 a 21:00 horas, en el Centro Cultural San Martín, Sarmiento 1551, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. La entrada es libre y gratuita.

Acerca de Game On! El arte en juego: se trata de la única exhibición en Argentina de videojuegos como una expresión artística. La primera edición fue realizada en el año 2009 y se ha consolidado a través de 5 ediciones y diversas muestras itinerantes en el país y en el resto de la región. En estos diez años más de 200 artistas argentinos y extranjeros presentaron sus obras para un público de más de 60.000 visitantes, en espacios culturales como el Centro Cultural San Martín, el Planetario Galileo Galilei, el CCK, el CC Recoleta, Tecnópolis, el CCEBA y la galería Objeto a, entre otros. Game On! es dirigido por María Luján Oulton, curadora especializada en videojuego artísticos.

LINK: GAME ON 2019

EVENT: PLAYMODE (SEPTEMBER 11 2019 - FEBRUARY 17 2020, LISBON, PORTUGAL)

PLAYMODE

 

11 September 2019 - 17 February 2020

Curated by Filipe Pais and Patrícia Gouveia

MAAT

Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology

Av. Brasília, Central Tejo

1300-598 Lisboa

Open from 11 AM to 7 PM

Closed on Tuesdays

The artists understood early on the transformative power of play, and began integrating it into their works for various purposes – escaping reality, social construction and transformation, subversion or as a criticism of game and play mechanisms themselves. The exhibition Playmode offers a reflection on these aspects and on the era of ludification that contemporary societies are now experiencing, bringing together pieces by several artists, such as Brad Downey, Gabriel Orozco and Ana Vieira, who incorporate the theme while exploring new ways of seeing, participating and transforming the world, using gaming in a critical light.

Participating artists:

The Pixel Hunt, Pippin Barr, Aram Bartholl, /////////fur//// art entertainment interface, Gabriel Orozco, Priscila Fernandes, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Mary Flanagan, Harun Farocki, Molleindustria, Bill Viola and USC Game Innovation Lab, Samuel Bianchini, Eva and Franco Mattes, Lucas Pope, Joseph DeLappe, Brent Watanabe, Filipe Vilas-Boas, Shimabuku, Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn, Tale of Tales, David Shrigley, André Gonçalves, Isamu Noguchi, Ana Vieira, Miltos Manetas, David OReilly, Brad Downey, Dunne & Raby with Michael Anastassiades, Os Espacialistas, CADA.

LINK: PLAYMODE