GAMESCENES

GAME ART: CARSON LYNN AND GRACE GROTHAUS' PARCHED EARTH (2020)

A collaborative project between artists Carson Lynn and Grace Grothau, Parched Earth examines the ecological tensions embedded in contemporary video games. As Carson writes: 

Both artists have dealt with global warming in their respective practices, so they sought out to create a speculative fiction film depicting a dystopian future where scavengers are rewarded for finding remnants of flora in a ruined landscape. The film combines Lynn's machinima practice and Grothaus' digital seed archive. Lynn utilizes No Man's Sky and a VR headset to create a found-footage-like setting, with Grothaus' documented flora and text serving as a connection to the past (our present).

Carson Lynn is an artist based out of Southern California who through the usage of digital materials, sublime landscapes, and exploration within gamespaces, creates artworks as a queering of heterocentric photographic conventions and game systems. He is working towards receiving his MFA from ArtCenter College of Design with a projected graduation in April, 2020. He received his BFA in Photography and Imaging, also from ArtCenter, in 2015.

Grace Grothaus is a transdisciplinary artist focused on creating moments of reflection about human agency and balance with the built and natural environment. Through physical computing she creates immersive indoor and outdoor installations and performances, as well as interactive paintings and sculptures. Notable exhibitions & projects include the International Symposium of Electronic Art 2018, Trace, a large-scale public artwork for the city of Tulsa, and the 2012 World Creativity Biennale. Her work has been exhibited and/or collected nationwide and abroad on five continents. She was a National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts Merit Award winner and has received an Art365 Fellowship. Her art has been featured on the cover of Art Focus magazine and This Land Press. Grothaus earned a BFA as a double major in Interdisciplinary Arts and Art History at the Kansas City Art Institute and is currently pursuing an MFA from the University of California, San Diego where she resides with her dog and many plants.

LINK: Carson Lynn and Grace Grothau

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.

Click the image below to read more:

OPEN CALL: EXPLORER AWARD AT A MAZE. THE INTERNATIONAL GAMES & PLAYFUL MEDIA FESTIVAL (JAN 1 - FEB 2 2020)

 

Heads up! A MAZE. just launched a call for submission which may be of interest to you all:

 

Ok. First of all, you probably already know that A MAZE. 9th International Games and Playful Media Festival takes place in Berlin from April 22-25, 2020, in Berlin, Germany.

 

Now, the organizers are looking for creative, playful works, and crazy experiments located at the intersection of gaming, video art, and performance that could to compete in the Explorer Award category. Machinima perfectly fits this description, for instance. But also installations, interactive experiences, VR or in-game photography... You name it.

 

Full description below:

Explorer Award

"Go, where nobody has gone before! This is the award for all forms of experiences beyond the boundaries of contemporary ways to play or develop games. Here, we are exploring alternative controllers, interactive installations, creative coding experiments, robotics and tech performances, as well as interdisciplinary teams, collaborations with science, makers, engineers, researchers, theater and writers."

 

The submission fee is 30€ and even if artists don't get nominated, they will receive a 25% discount on the festival ticket and will be asked first for spots in the Open Screens program of the exhibition, so that everyone has the chance to exhibit. Every entry will be visible on the website too. It is also possible to register as Selection Committee to review the submitted works - Here a 25% discount is given out as well, for everybody who reviews 5 or more entries.

Read more about this category by clicking the link below.

 

LINK: EXPLORER AWARD at A MAZE.

GAME ART: TOTAL REFUSAL'S FEATHERFALL (2019)

Total Refusal (Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf), Featherfall, 2019
4 channel video installation (loop) + audio, loudspeaker

Several scholars have compared the logic of video games to dreams (rather than movies or novels) to explain their peculiar nature: Alfie Bown comes to mind (see The PlayStation Dreamworld). Total Refusal explored this analogy by collecting experiences from gamers who share their oneiric visions with each other in online forums. A recurrent trope is the feeling of falling, which becomes the theme of Total Refusal's latest installation, Featherfall. As they write, 

The video installation Featherfall is based on research in online forums in which video players * exchange their dream experiences. It becomes clear how close dream and game worlds can come to each other in the psyche of the users * and what feedback can develop between the two alternative realities. Featherfall ties in with the archetypal nightmare of "falling down", which often occurs during puberty. Falling without ever landing "exists in video games in the form of a recurring programming error - a glitch - through which the avatar falls beneath the surface into the empty, non-programmed space. The glitch as a digital nightmare.

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 (all images and video courtesy of Total Refusal)

GAME ART: EDDIE LOHMEYER'S SCROLLING LANDSCAPES IN 34 NES GAMES (2019)

Eddie Lohmeyer's Scrolling Landscape in 34 NES Games (2019) is an experimental glitch video exploring the relationship among nostalgia and our perception of technologically mediated landscapes, created by "appropriating footage of speedruns of older 8-bit video games and then editing together their scrolling landscapes into a continuously unfolding vista of gameworlds". As Lohmeyer writes:

Here, Scrolling Landscape in 34 NES Games envisions childhood nostalgia for video gameplay as an imaginary environment separated from the mundane in which certain desires and sensory pleasures are taken up within spaces of play. Through the viewer’s interfacing with these sublime visions of technology, the film serves to challenge our embodied reception of the video game medium and the knowledge frameworks that underlie our perception of scrolling motion.

 

Eddie Lohmeyer is currently an Assistant Professor of Digital Media at the University of Central Florida. He received his Ph.D. from North Carolina State University in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media. His research explores aesthetic and technical developments within histories of digital media, with an emphasis on video games and their relationship to traditions of the avant-garde. Additionally, his art considers embodied experience through processes of play and defamiliarization. Using deconstructive approaches such as glitch, physical modifications to hardware, assemblage, etc., his installations, sculpture, and video stage bizarre encounters with media as a means to unveil our normal attitudes and perceptions toward technologies.

LINK: Eddie Lohmeyer

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: VECTOR FESTIVAL 2020 (DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 1 2020)

VECTOR FESTIVAL 2020: AFTER GAMIFICATION

TORONTO, ON | JULY 16-19, 2020

OPEN CALL FOR ARTWORKS AND CURATORIAL PROPOSALS 

Vector Festival is an annual media arts event dedicated to showcasing experimental art works that engage critically with digital technologies.
The festival is proudly participatory and community-oriented. Hosted by InterAccess and co-curated by Katie Micak and Martin Zeilinger, Vector Festival takes place at arts venues and in public spaces across the City of Toronto.

Since its inception, Vector Festival has been innovative in its inclusion of game-based digital art alongside other new media disciplines. Continuing this focus for the 2020 edition, the festival’s curators pose a deceptively simple question: what comes after gamification?

Now that game culture and game technologies have become so pervasive in popular culture, how do experimental media artists respond critically to the rampant gamifying of everyday life? From online social interaction to digital finance, from education to military conflict, from politics and environmental issues to the ways in which humans (and machines) express themselves creatively, what comes after gamification?

The Festival will take place between July 16-19, 2020, with the flagship exhibition extended until August 22, 2020.

Please note that Vector Festival does not charge submission fees to artists applying to participate.

All artists and curators selected for participation will receive fees in accordance with the up-to-date CARFAC Fee schedule, as well as support to apply for external funding.

We invite art submissions of digital – and post-digital – works for the following festival categories:

Flagship Exhibition
Digital and post-digital art works including interactive installations, experimental game mods, sculptural work, screen-based work, sound art, etc.

Online Projects
Web-based projects and digital artworks that can be presented online, including experimental interactive and time-based digital projects.

Festival Screening
Experimental film/video/machinima works.

Performance
Performance-based proposals including chiptune, sound art, live coding, A/V performances, and telematic performances for virtual and public spaces.

Site-Specific Outdoor Screening
To be presented on two large-scale (4.88 x 8.64 m) outdoor LED screens for a public audience of all ages.

GIFs
Animated GIFs intended for presentation on public screens across Toronto.

Curatorial Submissions
This year, we also invite curators/curatorial collectives to submit proposals for machinima screenings (on a theme of your choosing). If you are considering a curatorial submission, we encourage you to contact the Vector Festival team for additional practical details.

Deadline: February 01, 2020

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Please submit the following details using our online application form:

• Project description (approximately 300 words)
• Documentation (maximum of five images, and/or link to audio/video documentation)
• Description of technical requirements (please outline materials provided by the artist and materials required from the exhibiting venue)
• Artist biography (approximately 100 words)
• Please indicate if your work has a thematic, conceptual, or historical connection to Toronto, or if you have a biographic connection to the Greater Toronto Area
• Current CV

If you have questions about submitting your application please contact [email protected].

About Vector Festival
Vector Festival is a participatory and community-oriented initiative dedicated to showcasing experimental media art practice. Presenting works across a dynamic range of exhibitions, screenings, performances, lectures, and workshops, Vector Festival acts as a critical bridge between emergent digital platforms and new media art practice. Vector Festival was founded in 2013 as the “Vector Game Art & New Media Festival” by an independent group of artists and curators: Skot Deeming, Clint Enns, Christine Kim, and Katie Micak, who were later joined by Diana Poulsen and Martin Zeilinger. In 2015 Vector Festival announced that longtime presenting partner, InterAccess, would be taking over responsibility for the festival as part of its regular programming.

About InterAccess
Founded in 1983, InterAccess is a non-profit gallery, educational facility, production studio, and festival dedicated to emerging practices in art and technology. Our programs support art forms that integrate technology, fostering and supporting the full cycle of art and artistic practice through education, production, and exhibition. InterAccess is regarded as a preeminent Canadian arts and technology centre.

For more information contact:
Festival Curators, Katie Micak and Martin Zeilinger
[email protected]

Follow us for updates!
facebook.com/VectorFestivalTO
twitter.com/VectorFestival
instagram.com/interaccessto

LINK: VECTOR FESTIVAL

GAME ART: GAMEGIRLPOWER'S MUSCLE GIRLS (2019-)

Phenomenal, uncanny stuff from GameGirl Power: muscle fetish, femdom fandom, and virtual steroids like it's raining. She has been making short films of female muscle and strength fantasies since 2013. As she writes: "What started with mods of Street Fighter and others games has since become a real filmmaking effort." She originally dedicated her YouTube channel "to strong women in video games and art, hoping to demonstrate that there is beauty in physical strength, and that there is an alternative to portraying female characters as skinny dolls." Eventually, she began producing at least four videos per month on Patreon, working with other artists and developers; each production is "scored, edited, choreographed and in beautiful 4K UHD definition." What's not to love?

LINK: GameGirlPower (all images and videos (c) GameGirlPower).

GAME ART: JORDAN BARUCH'S MIDNIGHT RAINS (2019)

In Jordan Baruch's machinima, "a farmer, enticed by the appearance of a mysterious figure in his town, discovers his existence is arbitrarily criminalized by a militant policeman who chases him into poverty and isolation." Shot entirely with/in GTA V and edited with Premiere Pro, Midnight Rains was created by a New York-based screenwriter, filmmaker and video artist Jordan Baruch.

LINK: Jordan Baruch