GAMESCENES

CALL FOR PAPERS: GAME ENGINE CULTURE(S) (DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 15 2024)

Project overview

Game engines like Unity and Unreal Engine have transcended their initial confines in video game development, evolving into versatile platforms that now influence a wide array of creative and scientific fields. These powerful tools are not just limited to gaming; they have reshaped Hollywood visual effects, virtual production, and even pre-visualisation of movie sets, as well as contemporary art and architecture. Game engines are also utilised to create training simulations for various industries, including the military. As these engines standardise aesthetic and functional practices, they simultaneously raise critical questions about artistic authorship, expressive diversity, accessibility, environmental sustainability, and the impact of increased digital consumption.

Entitled Game Engine Culture(s), this international research initiative aims to critically examine the contemporary use of game engines within the visual arts. It seeks to explore the convergence of media studies, game studies, platform studies, curatorial practice, and art history. Through in-depth analysis and prototyping under the guidance of artists and practitioners, the project investigates methods to preserve authorship and foster critique within complex digital ecosystems. Our objective is to collaborate with scholars, artists, curators, critics, and practitioners to generate new insights into the social, aesthetic, and technical dimensions of game engines.

Call for papers details

The Department of Art, Media, and Performance “Giampaolo Fabris” at IULM University, Milan, the School of Digital Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University, and the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London, under the guidance of Matteo Bittanti, Valentino Catricalà, and Paolo Ruffino, invite scholars, artists, developers, and practitioners to submit abstracts for a forthcoming publication and series of collaborative research activities centered around the theme of Game Engine Culture(s).

We welcome submissions that explore, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• The transformative impact of game engines on visual culture and artistic expression;
• Critical analyses of aesthetic standardization and homogeneity in production management and 'pipelines' across different fields;
• The circulation of digital assets across diverse fields of cultural production;
• Platformisation tendencies and commercial interests driving game engine development;
• The role of game engines in promoting or hindering diversity and accessibility in digital art and culture;
• Case studies on specific artists (e.g., Ed Atkins, Alice Bucknell, Ian Cheng, Jacky Connolly, Lawrence Lek, Lu Yang and many more);
• ​The use of game engines beyond gaming, including in film, architecture, and other creative industries;
• ​The accessibility of game engines for diverse populations and their role in democratizing digital art creation, including related narratives and discourses;
• The techno-ideologies and geopolitics of game engines;
• Sustainable practices and the challenge of e-waste in the context of game engine proliferation;
• Strategies for preserving artistic authorship and originality within game engine ecosystems.

Game Engine Culture(s) is fully funded by IULM University, ensuring comprehensive support throughout its development. The resulting publication, scheduled to be released in English, will be published by a leading academic publisher, guaranteeing wide dissemination and accessibility within the scholarly community. To accompany the release of the book, we are planning various events, including conferences, talks, screenings, and more.

Important dates

• Abstract submission deadline: September 15, 2024
• Notification of acceptance: October 15, 2024
• Full paper submission deadline: December 15, 2024
• Publication date: 2025

Submission guidelines

• Abstracts: Should be between 300-500 words, clearly outlining the research question, methodology, bibliography, and potential contributions to the field.
• Biographies: Please include a brief biography of the author(s) with the abstract submission.
• Full papers: Should be between 6,000-8,000 words, including references and footnotes, formatted according to MHRA style. Please use British English.
• Format: Submit your chapter as a .docx or .pdf file.
• Submission email: Send submissions to [email protected] with the subject line “Game Engine Cultures Submission”.

Contact information

For further information, please contact:

• Matteo Bittanti: [email protected]
• Paolo Ruffino: [email protected]
• Valentino Catricalà: [email protected]

This call seeks to foster innovative research trajectories both conceptually and methodologically, promoting an original and interdisciplinary approach to studying the impact of game engines on contemporary visual culture. By bringing together experts from various disciplines and creative sectors, this project not only aims to map the state of the art but also to delineate new future research directions.

We look forward to receiving your contributions and to fostering rich discussions and insights into the complex nexus of game engines and contemporary visual culture.

image: Game Engine, by Dall-E, 2024

EVENT: ALICE BUCKNELL (AUGUST 2 - 15 2024, ONLINE)

The Alluvials

digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 38’ 05”, 2023, United States of America

Created by Alice Bucknell

 

The Alluvials is a seven-chapter video work — and video game — that delves into the politics of drought and water scarcity in a near-future Los Angeles. The narrative unfolds through diverse more-than-human perspectives, including the Los Angeles River, wildfire, a 400-year-old sycamore named El Aliso, and the ghost of the city’s famed mountain lion, P-22. Combining history, futurism, and speculative fiction, The Alluvials examines the complex interplay between engineered ecology, disaster capitalism, and nonhuman systems shaping Los Angeles. The story is presented across various media, featuring custom-built game environments, modified versions of the fictional city Los Santos from Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto V, 3D scans of LA captured by drone, AI-generated “hallucinations” merging historical images of the River with future development proposals, and visualizations of GIS and pollution data of the LA River. The project acknowledges Indigenous unique relationships to water, particularly those of the Tongva People of the Greater Los Angeles Basin, emphasizing that nature is an intelligent system and a technology in its own right.

Alice Bucknell is a North American artist and writer based in Los Angeles. Working with game engines and speculative fiction strategies, their work explores interconnections of architecture, ecology, magic, and nonhuman and machine intelligence.In 2021, they founded New Mystics, a digital platform merging magic and technology. In 2022, they organized New Worlds, an experimental event series expanding on emergent worlding practices, held at Somerset House Studios in London. They have presented their work internationally, with recent exhibitions at Ars Electronica with transmediale, Arcade Seoul, the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale, Honor Fraser Gallery in Los Angeles, Gray Area in San Francisco, Basement Roma in Rome, Singapore Art Museum, The Museum of Modern Art in Fort Worth, Texas, Fiber Festival in the Netherlands, and Serpentine in London. Their writing appears often in publications including ArtReview, Flash Art, Frieze, e-flux Architecture, and the Harvard Design Magazine. They are currently faculty at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles and an Associate Lecturer in MA Narrative Environments at University of the Arts London. In 2023, they are a Supercollider SciArt Ambassador in Los Angeles, a resident of Somerset House Studios in London, and a resident at transmediale in Berlin. Bucknell studied Anthropology at the University of Chicago and Critical Practice at the Royal College of Art in London.

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GAME ART: BABAK AHTESHAMIPOUR’S THE CRYPTIC ECLIPSE OF AN ENDANGERED GOO (2024)

WARNING: this video may potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised. 

Babak Ahteshamipour’s third machinima in the ongoing series accompanying the release of Violent Violins Exposed is a shocking assault on the senses.

The artist statement is below:

"The Cryptic Eclipse of an Endangered Goo features a video clip that is composed of hyper-processed gameplay footage of Need for Speed: Carbon, meticulously modified to defy gravity, introduce a force field, and spawn cars in perpetuity. Intermittently, the chaotic atmosphere is punctuated by AI-generated sports cars hurtling forward, accelerating, and exploding, creating a vivid, glitch-ridden tapestry that intricately syncs with the intensity of the track.

The title of the track hints towards the depletion and imminent extinction of fossil fuels, a critical resource dominated by the relentless grip of the oil industry, signifying technocapitalism's insatiable accelerated hunger for them. Cars, emblems of fossil fuel consumption with their reliance on gasoline — but also from other construction materials derived from oil and other extracted materials — become representational agents of accelerationism. This symbol is strategically employed to dive into the hastening pace of environmental depletion as a consequence of technocultural acceleration.

The turbulent nature of the track and its video act as echoes of the repercussions caused by overextraction and overconsumption, implying towards the global consequences of such excessive practices: environmental pollution, plastic proliferation derived from oil, and catastrophic incidents like the Sidoarjo mud flow or the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Despite the alarming ecological and ethical crises depicted, the video underscores the paradoxical demand for more resources, highlighting the relentless pursuit within the accelerating trajectory of technocapitalism.

The selection of the term Carbon alludes to the hydrocarbons constituting crude oil. Need For Speed: Carbon becomes more than a video game title; it transforms into a gesture for the accelerated craving for fossil fuels. Speed evolves into an engineered desire that warps the concept of mobility, camouflaging its yearning for inertia." (Babak Ahteshamipour)

LINK: Babak Ahteshamipour

EVENT: FERNANDO PEREIRA GOMES (JULY 19 - AUGUST 1 2024, ONLINE)

Light Study

digital video (1280 x 720), color, sound, 28’ 32”, 2015, Brazil

created by Fernando Pereira Gomes

 

In Light Study, a male avatar from Grand Theft Auto V stands unwavering, gazing into the camera for nearly thirty minutes as weather and light conditions shift subtly yet continuously, painting the scene with an ever-changing palette. The camera remains mostly fixed, with slight movements adding to the contemplative stillness. Dominant wind sounds blend with ambient city noises, creating an immersive backdrop. The artist discovered this scene by accident when the game idled into screen-saver mode. He noticed the light changing on the avatar’s face from morning to night and back. Fascinated by this passage of time, he recorded the scene, furthering his exploration of digital realms and their parallels with our experience of life and time.

Fernando Pereira Gomes was born in São Paulo, Brasil in 1993, currently living and working in Paonia, Colorado. After spending his teenage years in Europe, Gomes moved to New York where he earned his BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts (SVA). In New York, he created a body of street photography depicting life in the city, seeking moments of stillness and poetry within the ever buzzing metropolis. In 2014, his groundbreaking in-game photography series Procedural Generation garnered international attention, both in print and online, culminating in a solo exhibition curated by Alexandra Ungern-Sternberg at Ateliê Alê in São Paulo, Brazil, titled Geração Processual. Additionally, selected images were featured in the group exhibition Transition at the Y Gallery in Minsk, Belarus, also in 2014. Gomes’s work has been presented at prominent venues such as the Noorderlicht Photofestival, Miami-Project, and Photo-LA.

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EVENT: 2GIRLS1COMP (JULY 5 - 18 2024, ONLINE)

Dancing Plague

digital video (1920 x 800), color, sound, 6’ 29”, 2024, Switzerland/Italy

created by 2girls1comp

In Dancing Plague, a mod for Grand Theft Auto V, the game’s traditionally gendered choreography is subverted, forcing every male NPC to dance feverishly whenever the player holds the H key. This intervention spotlights the inherent gender biases within the game’s animation system, where dance moves are primarily designed for female performers, often objectified as sex workers. By redirecting these choreographies to male characters, the mod disrupts the rigid gender binaries coded into the game, creating a spectacle where masculinity is both liberated and challenged. Interestingly, the male NPCs’s hypersexualized dance is mostly ignored by the female characters. Such an outcome becomes a playful and potent critique of the game’s inherent gender politics. To enhance the mod’s immersive experience, Azu Tiwaline, a French Tunisian musician known for blending contemporary electronic music with sub-Saharan trance traditions, was commissioned to create the soundtrack. Her work underscores the mod’s themes of ritual, trance, and liberation, providing a sonic backdrop that deepens the critique of gendered biases in digital spaces.

2girls1comp is a modding duo founded in 2023 by Marco De Mutiis (Italy, 1983) and Alexandra Pfammatter (Switzerland, 1993). Their work changes the logic of video games as an act of creative counter-play, revealing the social and economic fabric in which they are immersed: from reclaiming global digital infrastructures to commenting on free labor within the capitalist ideologies of the gaming industry, to showcasing the way play can influence its subjects through its mechanics. Their projects are distributed within the gaming and modding community, as well as cultural and artistic contexts.

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PROJECT: THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S GUIDE TO LOS SANTOS

In this video, Marco De Mutiis and Matteo Bittanti introduce The Photographer's Guide to Los Santos, an online companion to the eponymous exhibition which took place in the context of Fotofestival Lenzburg between May 22 and June 23 2024 in Lenzburg, Switzerland.

The Photographer’s Guide to Los Santos is several things at once.

Firstly, it’s a curated archive and expanding resource center documenting the most significant artistic projects created with Grand Theft Auto V in the past decade.

Secondly, it an educational project, introducing students to virtual photography practices through a thematic overview and a series of hands-on exercises.

Thirdly, as an "how to guide", it provides a series of manuals intended to photography and media arts students interested in experimenting with the game.

This online resource currently collects nine projects created by international artists working with Grand Theft Auto V, that is, 2girls1comp, Alan Butler, Raphael Brunk, COLL.EO, Mattia Dagani Rio, Elizabeth Desintaputri, Claire Hentschker, Mascha Negri, and Georgie Roxby Smith, which were all featured in the very first themed exhibition.

The repository is expected to expand substantially over the next few months.

In this video, the curators discuss the nine notable works currently featured in the online archive.

Explore the The Photographer's Guide to Los Santos

EVENT: VRAL #89: EKIEM BARBIER, GUILHEM CAUSSE, QUENTIN L’HELGOUALC’H (JUNE 21 - JULY 4 2024)

Ekiem Barbier, Guilhem Causse, Quentin L’helgoualc’h

Marlowe Drive

digital video, sound, color, 34’, 2017, France

vral.org

 

In Marlowe Drive, an avatar named Adam Kesher embarks on an unconventional journey through Los Santos, a meticulously rendered virtual replica of Los Angeles in Grand Theft Auto V. Adam is crafting a pioneering game video essay, not merely documenting the game and its players, but filming entirely within the game’s landscapes. This ethnographic endeavor blurs the boundaries between reality and fantasy, between players and their digital personas, while exploring the sociocultural dynamics of the simulation. Adam’s quest for a metaphorical bridge linking real-world experiences with virtual realities introduces him to characters and locations within the game that mirror broader societal themes such as ambition, identity, and self-expression. Marlowe Drive invites viewers to reassess the interconnections between gaming and cinema, between tangible realities and our collective imaginations.

Ekiem Barbier is a versatile composer and filmmaker who completed his education in drawing and video at the Montpellier Fine Arts School, graduating in 2017. His creative portfolio includes short fiction and animation films, and he has contributed to various collective exhibitions. Barbier’s directorial works include ANENT (2017) and Marlowe Drive (2017). His most recent project, Knit’s Island (2023), was a collaborative effort with Guilhem Causse and Quentin L’helgoualc’h, and premiered at Visions du Réel and since then screened worldwide, to great critical acclaim. 

Quentin L’helgoualc’h is an artist whose work spans the realms of cinema, drawing, digital imagery, and sculpture, exploring the interplay among these mediums. His artistic inquiries reflect on the societal role of the artist, interlaced with personal fantasies and challenges posed by new technologies. L’helgoualc’h co-directed Marlowe Drive (2017) and Knit's Island (2023), with Ekiem Barbier and Guilhem Causse.

Guilhem Causse explores the intricate relationship between image and sound. Influenced by science fiction, photography, and concrete music, Causse crafts immersive environments characterized by void and resonance, populated with enigmatic forms. He co-directed Marlowe Drive (2017), and Knit's Island (2023), with Ekiem Barbier and Quentin L’helgoualc’h.

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EVENT: JORDY VEENSTRA (JUNE 7 - 20 2024, ONLINE)

Regression 5

digital video 4096 x 1716 (4k Scope), color, sound (Stereo, -16LUFS; Stereo), 23’ 14”, 2024, The Netherlands

Created by Jordy Veenstra

 

Regression 5 marks a significant evolution in Jordy Veenstra’s acclaimed machinima series, following the groundbreaking technical upgrades introduced in Regression 4. This installment presents a 23-minute experimental “fly-on-the-wall” visual study of the Grand Theft Auto V map through the perspective of a volatile taxi driver. The film’s unique approach mirrors the submarine exploration seen in Regression 4, but shifts to the dynamic, ever-changing surroundings and weather experienced from a taxi cab. By following the taxi driver over several days, the film explores various locales, streets and corners across San Andreas.

Jordy Veenstra is a video editor, experimental filmmaker, machinima artist, and front end developer based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In his practice, Veenstra connects video games, experimental narratives and technology through the medium of machinima and his practice of distortion framework, consisting of rules and values that revolve around the distortion of otherwise clear video-game generated images and audio, with the intent of moving away from perceiving the film as a product from a videogame and more as a product of cinema”by using various values found in traditional cinema such as cinematic resolutions and aspect ratios, 24 frames per second, color grading, motion blur and grain. Veenstra’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the 2020 and 2022 editions of the Milan Machinima Festival.

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EVENT: ELIZABETH DESINTAPUTRI (MAY 24 - JUNE 6 2024, ONLINE)

Elizabeth Desintaputri

Ascending Men

digital video, color, sound, 1’ 44”, 2024, Indonesia

May 24 - June 6 2024

introduced by Matteo Bittanti

vral.org

 

In Ascending Men, Elizabeth Desintaputri exploits the virtual topography of Grand Theft Auto V as a canvas for digital experimentation, interweaving modding techniques with the capabilities of Rockstar Editor. This approach not only challenges the boundaries of the game’s inherent visual and technical capacities but also recontextualizes the medium itself as a tool for artistic creation. The work is a digital simulacrum, where the interface between player and creator blurs, reflecting on the fluidity and permeability of contemporary digital identities.

Elizabeth Desintaputri is a photographer and digital media artist born and raised in Indonesia, now based in Lucerne, Switzerland. Her work intricately weaves together cultural, political, and social themes, with a particular focus on social commentary. Desintaputri’s artistic inquiry extends into the capabilities and societal impacts of digital media, exploring and challenging the cultural and social aspects embedded within it. Currently, she is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Camera Arts at Hochschule Luzern (HSLU) in Design, Film und Kunst, with an expected graduation year of 2024. Prior to this, she completed a foundational course at Zürich Hochschule der Künste (ZHdK) in 2021, where she began to hone her skills in visual storytelling and digital arts.

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EVENT: STEFFEN KÖHN (MAY 10 - 23 2024, ONLINE)

Platform

digital video (1920 x 1080, Arri Alexa), color, sound, 16’ 20”, color, sound, 2021, Germany.

Created by Steffen Köhn

 

Platform draws from documentary interviews with freelancers on online delivery platforms, weaving their real-life experiences with elements from Neal Stephenson’s seminal 1992 cyberpunk novel, Snow Crash, which has gained iconic status in Silicon Valley. The film examines how the dystopian capitalist visions depicted in the novel mirror current capitalist dynamics. The narrative seamlessly blends the true stories of the research participants with fictional scenarios inspired by Snow Crash, creating a cyclical storyline that blurs the lines between documentary and fantasy. This technique plunges viewers into the complexities and paradoxes of modern work environments. Departing from traditional documentary styles, the film stages the drivers’ stories within a sci-fi framework, portraying their daily work struggles, prerogatives, and aspirations. Platform utilizes machinima to juxtapose live-action footage with video game based animations. This stylistic choice not only highlights the fading distinction between work and leisure but also prompts a deeper reflection on immaterial labor and value creation in today’s digital economy.

Steffen Köhn is a filmmaker, video artist, and assistant professor of multimodal anthropology at Aarhus University. He utilizes ethnography to delve into contemporary socio-technical landscapes. Köhn is the author of Mediating Mobility. Visual Anthropology in the Age of Migration (Wallflower Press, 2016). In his video and installation works, Köhn collaborates locally with gig workers, software developers, and science fiction writers to probe alternative models of technological access and power distribution. His works have been exhibited at prestigious venues including the Warsaw Biennial, Academy of the Arts Berlin, Kunsthaus Graz, Vienna Art Week, Hong Gah Museum Taipei, Lulea Biennial, The Photographers’ Gallery, and the ethnographic museums of Copenhagen and Dresden. Additionally, his films have been featured at major international festivals such as the Berlinale, Rotterdam International Film Festival, and the World Film Festival Montreal.

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