GAMESCENES

EVENT: RADICAL GAMING – IMMERSION SIMULATION SUBVERSION (02.09.2021 – 14.11.2021)

Radical Gaming - Immersion Simulation Subversion

An exhibition curated by Boris Magrini

September 2 - November 14 2021

Opening: Wednesday, 01.09.2021

HeK
House of Electronic Arts Basel
Freilager-Platz 9
CH–4142 Münchenstein/Basel

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Theo Triantafyllidis, Pastoral, 2019 , screenshot. (Courtesy of the Artist)

This is the most important Game Art exhibition of 2021, by the way.

Press release

The international group exhibition Radical Gaming presents a selection of artists who investigate the structures, technologies and aesthetics of a global gaming industry. Their works are characterised by a particularly unconventional approach to employing the immersion and interaction inherent to video games, whose common narratives and stereotypes they subversively undermine.

This new generation of artists use contemporary game programming technologies to create virtual and augmented reality experiences, immersive environments, interactive stories and multimedia installations. By appropriating the medium for their artistic practice, they create alternative perspectives on identity construction, gender issues and social change. Their refusal to abide by the commercial and recreational logic of video games, sets the scene for their progressive, uncompromising, and thought-provoking works.

Artist: Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Leo Castañeda, Sara Culmann, Debbie Ding, Keiken, Lawrence Lek, Mikhail Maksimov, Cassie McQuater, Sahej Rahal, Nicole Ruggiero, Jacolby Satterwhite, Eddo Stern, Theo Triantafyllidis, Miyö Van Stenis, Lu Yang

LINK: Radical Gaming 

PROJECT: SUPERMOVA

Lera Malchenko, 1/2 of the collective fantastic little splash, has recently launched the project Supermova, a new series of videos focusing on developing media and their impact on human interactions.

""Why are we sometimes so "therapeutically" outspoken on social media; how virtual worlds without moderators push us to invent political solutions? How emotions can become human interfaces? How does the Ukrainian political reality become algorithmic? The goal is to notice and document how we change through our digital communication tools: social networks, computer games, virtual worlds and other interactive digital platforms. The author of the project is journalist and artist Lera Malchenko. Supermova is supported by the European Union under the House of Europe program initiative.

The videos focus on three main areas:

e-bodily practices: "physical sensations and close relationships between distanced people, technological sexuality (Marshall McLuhan), e-corporeality, closeness of constant distancing"
2. emotions as human interfaces as a level of direct interaction between user and other people through social media; ability of the algorithms to retranslate emotional states, disrupt human behavior, and become an additional tool for solidarity ("leaderless revolutions"); fusion at the collective level (Vilém Flusser's concept of "intersubjective dialogue")
3. social e-practices; homo ludens and projections of worlds: games, virtual worlds as a space for inventing other languages and new political implements, potential spaces for projecting alternative configurations."

Episode 3 episode features Austrian Game Art collective Total Refusal and Matteo Bittanti. The main topic is politics and video games.

LINK: Supermova

EVENT: LI ZHU (JUNE 11 - JUNE 24 2021, ONLINE)

Li Zhu

All Beings Are Suffering  

June 11 - June 24 2021

Introduced by Matteo Bittanti

vral.org

All Beings Are Suffering is part of Human Dust, an ongoing project that comprises self-generating scenes of human-like intelligence created by Li Zhu with Unity 3D. These simulated creatures reproduce themselves endlessly, floating in the air and multiplying at a frantic pace. As the artist says, “We don’t know whether such a human-like AI would have consciousness, but its presence will definitely confuse real humans’ consciousness. At least, because I heavily rely on computers to create my artwork, my own consciousness seems to be constantly washed away by algorithms. In a data flood, ‘real’ meanings that may exist in my art quickly decompose. Reality disappears; only a torrent of tumbling image data remains.”

Li Zhu is a Chinese-Canadian artist and scholar who uses new technologies such as video games, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and social media to create novel ways of understanding reality. Li Zhu has an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She received a B.A. in Visual And Intermedia Arts from the University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada. She studied at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris and McGill University. Her work has been exhibited in China, France, Canada, and the United States. Recent exhibitions include I Think (solo, 2017) in Guangzhou, China, ON AURA (group, 2021) in Montreal, and Backyard Stories (group, 2020) in Chicago. She is currently working and living in Chicago.

WATCH NOW

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: GWENI LLWYD AND OWEN DAVIES (MAY 28 - JUNE 10 2021, ONLINE)

Gweni Llwyd and Owen Davies

Becoming a Legend

May 28 - June 10 2021

Introduced by Luca Miranda

vral.org

 

The practice of customizing characters and assets in video games has a long tradition within vernacular as well as avant-garde subcultures. In fact, artists have often pursued this route to create their artworks. Few, however, reach the meta playful levels of Becoming a Legend which introduces the imperious character of Da Man!, a post-human, virtual übermensch, a diabolical, green-haired “divin codino”. Created with/in the popular video game Pro Evolution Soccer, Da Man! embodies the notion of toxic masculinity and the neoliberalist mantra of self-optimization.

Gweni Llwyd (she/her) is a Welsh artist based in Cardiff. Her practice reflects on a human condition caught between tactile physicality and intangible digital realms. Predominantly working in video, 3D animation, and installation, Gweni creates abstracted rhythms and narratives, mirroring the often chaotic, disjointed nature of the contemporary world by collecting, modifying and rearranging the most disparate sources and materials, including first hand and found footage, game engines and concrete artifacts. She is also co-founder of RAT TRAP, a collective of artists and musicians that find their own routes through the maze of protocols and ways of doing things.

Owen Davies (he/him) is a Welsh filmmaker based in Cardiff. Mainly working in live-action narrative film, his work revolves around the limits of human connection and interaction. Owen’s upcoming short film Arwel’s House, funded by Ffilm Cymru and the BBC, is shooting in July and will air on BBC4 in the UK later this year. The film follows the mother of a dead YouTube star as she gives tours of his childhood home in South Wales to fans from around the world. In 2018, he was shortlisted for the Armani Laboratorio where judge David Kajganich (Suspiria, The Terror) described his script Money Now as “just fantastic — a kind of moral emergency for the modern age that left me both queasy and totally fascinated.” 

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EVENT: CASSIE MCQUATER (MAY 14 - 27 2021, ONLINE)

Cassie McQuater

HALO

May 14 - 27 2021

Introduced by Gemma Fantacci

vral.org

 

In these six animated paintings presented as a single channel video, the artist reenacts situations and motifs from the first-person shooter series Halo and the erotic videogame Dream Stripper. Conceived as a dynamic, virtual collage, HALO shows short stock animation loops of characters dying over and over, with koi, dining chairs, asteroids, guns, flowers, torches, pinball machines, candles, and discarded pillows floating around them, creating a hypnotic motion.

Cassie McQuater is an American artist working with digital media, developing and designing video games and other interactive pieces and installations. Her practice involves hours of surfing the net, mining for digital artifacts, and repurposing them as a way to reflect on and reinvent our relationship with interactive storytelling. McQuater won the Nuovo Award (plus an honorable mention for Excellence in Design) at the 2019 Independent Games Festival for her browser-based game Black Room. Her work has been exhibited internationally. McQuater lives and works in Los Angeles.

WATCH NOW

EVENT: THE FIELDS OF ALGORITHMS (MAY 13 2021, ONLINE)

The Fields of Algorithms

Curated by David Blandy

Thursday 13 May 2021, 8PM

Online event 

The One Minutes Series for May and June explores how video games turn gamers into filmmakers with The Fields of Algorithms, a mixtape of poetic machinima, curated by David Blandy. The British artist will stream himself on Twitch playing video games while talking about game culture and its influence on his art practices and his live. The screening of The Fields of Algorithms will be followed by an open discussion with artists Benjamin Hall, Alejandra Morote Peralta and Alvaro Bretel, Ali Razzak, Iain Douglas, Adonis Archontides, Andy Nizinskyj, Petra Szemán, Chris Wicker and the audience on Twitch.

LINK: The One Minutes_The Fields of Algorithms

EVENT: FLORIAN HOFNAR KREPČIK (APRIL 30 - MAY 13 2021, ONLINE)

Florian Hofnar Krepčik

Is it real Love? Of course not!

April 30 - May 13 2021

Introduced by Matteo Bittanti

vral.org

Is it real love? Of course not! is a unique film entirely shot with/in Driver: San Francisco, a 2011 video game by Ubisoft set in the Bay Area. Organized around seven musical themes imbued with philosophical references and poetic gravitas, this hybrid movie is a distillation of magical moments. By layering images, sounds, and spoken words, the artist creates an unforgettable audio-visual experience. The “story” takes place in the chasm between spaces and characters: massive buildings, multi-lane roads, spectacular bridges, and anonymous pedestrians. Presented at several international festivals and exhibitions — including MU Hybrid Art House (2013), TENT Rotterdam, the Hamburg International Short Film Festival (2014), and HMKV, Dortmund Germany (2014) — Is it real love? Of course not! was also selected for the Best of Graduates 2013 exhibition at Ron Mandos gallery in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

A self-described film composer, Vienna-born artist Florian Hofnar Krepčik draws inspiration from opera, music, film, and theatre. After graduating in 2013 from St. Joost, Den Bosch in the Netherlands, Krepčik created a series of films informed by the logic of music and poetry, including Two Monasteries (2015). His audiovisual productions often follow the structure of a music composition. His stated intention is to recontextualize the cinematic through different media.

WATCH NOW

EVENT: THE FIELD OF ALGORITHMS (MAY 13 2021, ONLINE)

Press release:

The One Minutes Series of May/June is ‘The Fields of Algorithms’ and is curated by David Blandy. ‘The Fields of Algorithms’ is a mixtape of poetic machinima lasting exactly one minute. The 23 selected videos were sent in from Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and United States. Five works were produced in a workshop at Sandberg Instituut, Masters of Art and Design in Amsterdam (NL).

Het Nieuwe Instituut will present the online premiere Thursday 13 May at 8pm CEST. David Blandy, Julia van Mourik (director of The One Minutes Foundation) and the participating artists will be (virtually) present on Twitch. Open discussion with the public is encouraged.
live.hetnieuweinstituut.nl

»When I originally asked for people’s poetic machinima, the pandemic was just beginning. Since then, the online world has increasingly become part of many people’s reality, some discovering the virtual space for the first time, others becoming even more immersed, as outside spaces become gated off. Machinima takes many forms, from the 3D swooping virtual cameras made possible in games like Red Dead Redemption 2 to the bold pixel graphics of early videogames. Video games are often dismissed, but as they become more ubiquitous it’s natural that these spaces become a place where we wonder at a vision of nature, or a suitable subject for a poem. Video games turns us all into directors, creating stories with our actions inside these gated realms, both a place for encounters with the sublime and a space to forge community. As the screening came together, it appeared there were two intertwined themes; of the political; and of personal identity. The virtual space is a place to reassess and to reform, both the self, and our vision of society. These products of capitalism, vessels of thousands of hours of labour, can become a space for satire and deconstruction, and the space to imagine and enact radical alternatives.« David Blandy

David Blandy is an artist working with pop-cultural spaces such as video games, tabletop RPGs and Twitch streams. He lives in these worlds to think about the stories that create our sense of self, and how these spaces can propose different models for collectivity, either in their narratives or in the cultures that surround them.

Participating artists:

Benjamin Hall
Yorgos Papafigos
Tessa Garland
Adonis Archontides and Androula Kafa
Andy Nizinskyj
Lila Catalina Rene Michelle
Peter Martin
Lena Windisch
Jamie Jankovic
Ali Razzak and Perry Heath
Iain Douglas
Benjamin Hall
Petra Szeman
Rene Francis McBrearty, Lila Bullen-Smith, Michelle Mildenberg and Catalina Reyes
Zuzana Banasinska and Noé Cottencin
Chris Wicker
Derk Over
Cesar Majorana, Mylou Oord, Sigrún Sveinsdóttir and Mateo Vega
Seren Lewis
John Powell-Jones
Alejandra Morote Peralta and Alvaro Bretel
Marian Rosa van Bodegraven, Siomara van Bochove, Eva Bosveld, Jeroen Exterkater and Allison Heniquez

‘The Fields of Algorithms’ was made possible by Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, Pictoright Fund and Sandberg Instituut.

The One Minutes Foundation produces and distributes one-minute videos from an artistic point of view, offering an international stage for people to create, engage and connect.
Every two months, The One Minutes Foundation puts out a new series of 60-second films that investigate how we perceive and engage with moving image. Museums and cultural organisations around the world subscribe to the series.

LINK: ONE MINUTES FOUNDATION: The field of algorithms