GAMESCENES

GAME ART: KRISTOFFER ZETTESTRAND'S NEW MINECRAFT PAINTINGS (2024)

Kristoffer Zetterstrand, untitled, pixel art in Minecraft, 2024

Kristoffer Zetterstrand, a celebrated artists who created most of the paintings in Minecraft, recently discussed his artistic process with Mojang. Zetterstrand's approach combines traditional painting techniques with modern 3D software, likening his creative setup to a theatrical stage where he can manipulate elements dynamically. In the game's most recent update, the company has introduced 20 new paintings, 15 of which are Zetterstrand's creations, bringing the total number of in-game art pieces to 46. These new works are larger than the previous ones, allowing for more detailed and complex motifs. Zetterstrand uses classical themes infused with video game elements, pushing the boundaries of pixel art by utilizing the full spectrum of sRGB colors, a luxury not available to early pixel artists. This approach helps in maintaining clarity even when the images are scaled down to fit the game's resolution, a challenge he navigates by focusing on abstract qualities and simplifying details to emphasize light and dark masses, similar to squinting to blur details in traditional painting. Despite the challenges and discarded attempts, the new paintings offer intricate scenes ranging from everyday objects to interactions between characters, including a mandatory skeleton, blending seamlessly into the game's aesthetic. His early video game inspired project works - from 2009, 2008 and 2007 - made history.

The full article is available here: Painting the Overlord

LINK: Kristoffer Zetterstrand 

EVENT: MMF MMXXIV (MARCH 11-17 2024, MILAN, ITALY)

press release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Milan Machinima Festival MMXXIV unveils groundbreaking programs for 2024 edition

Milan, Italy - The Milan Machinima Festival MMXXIV is thrilled to announce its highly anticipated programs for the 2024 edition, showcasing the best in machinima art from around the world. The festival will feature four unique programs: Auteur Theory, Game Video Essay, Made in Italy, and Slot Machinima.

This year, a concurrent event is FOTOLUDICA, the first Italian conference on in-game photography (March 14-15 2024). Both are free and open to the public.

The Game Video Essay program will present thought-provoking pieces by Cat Bluemke and Jonathan Carroll, Guilhem Causse, Ekiem Barbier, and Quentin L'helgoualc’h, Gina Hara, and Yemen Liu that explore the intersection of gaming and critical analysis. These works delve into the cultural, social, and political implications of video games, offering fresh perspectives on the medium and its impact on society. The program aims to foster a deeper understanding of the potential of video games as a tool for artistic expression and social commentary. The Game Video Essay program will be screened on Thursday March 14, 2024, in the Sala dei 146 (IULM 6).

Made in Italy will celebrate the ingenuity and craft of young Italian machinima artists. This program features three films that showcase unique aesthetics and styles, highlighting the vibrant and thriving Italian machinima art scene. The featured filmmakers, Alberto Calleo, Simone Fiorentino, and Elia "marasma" Strazzacappa, utilize real-time computer graphics engines to craft artworks that challenge traditional notions of cinema and transgress the boundaries between virtual and real-world spaces. Made in Italy will be screened on Friday March 15, 2024, in the Sala dei 146 (IULM 6).

The Auteur Theory program will highlight three exceptional works by leading machinima creators — Jacky Connolly, Lawrence Lek, and Total Refusal — examining the role of the individual artist in shaping the medium. This program celebrates the unique visions and styles of these artists, emphasizing their distinctive contributions to the field of machinima. The Author Theory program will be screened on Friday March 15, 2024 in the Sala dei 146 (IULM 6).

The Contemporary Exhibition Hall will host Slot Machinima, an immersive program featuring eight video installations that will be presented in a loop from March 11-15, 2024, featuring works by renowned artists such as Adonis Archontides, Steven Cottingham, Kara Güt, Thomas Hawranke, Andy Hughes, Carson Lynn, Stephan Panhans and Andrea Winkler, and Bram Ruiter. This special program is designed to immerse viewers in often absurd and deranged virtual environments within the video game imaginary, showcasing the incredible range and depth of avant-garde machinima.

“We are excited to present these groundbreaking programs that showcase the incredible talent and diversity within the machinima avant-garde community,” said festival director Matteo Bittanti. “The Milan Machinima Festival MMXXIV aims to push the boundaries of what is possible with this medium and inspire both artists and audiences alike. Through these four distinct programs, we hope to foster a deeper appreciation for the art of machinima and its potential to shape our understanding of the world around us.”

These year’s submission were judged by an international panel of scholars, critics, artists, and curators: Marco De Mutiis, Henry Lowood, Jenna Ng, and Martin Zeilenger.

The poster of the 2024 edition was designed by artist and musician Babak Ahteshamipour. Babak’s vivid new poster design epitomizes the festival’s ethos of propelling machinima into unmapped creative frontiers. Electrifying colors and fantastical shapes blend gaming visuals with mysterious organic shapes, suggesting unexpected artistic dimensions virtual worlds could unlock.

For more information about the Milan Machinima Festival MMXXIV and its programs, please visit the official website at https://milanmachinimafestival.org

About Milan Machinima Festival:

The Milan Machinima Festival MMXXIV is an annual celebration of the art of machinima, featuring works by established and emerging artists from around the world. The festival aims to promote the creative potential of real-time computer graphics engines and foster a global community of machinima creators and enthusiasts.

Contact:

Artistic director: Matteo Bittanti

Communication Manager: Colleen Flaherty

IULM Eventi: Caterina Angeretti

Directions to IULM University

News:

For updates, follow us on Patreon, Instagram, Twitter/X and the Festival’s website.

More:

Would you like to get involved? Drop us a line!

EVENT: GINA HARA (SEPTEMBER 2 - 15 2022, ONLINE)

VALLEY

digital video/machinima (1280 x 720), color, sound, 7’ 06”, Hungary/Canada

Created by Gina Hara

vral.org

 

Inspired by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) software in mental health contexts, Gina Hara uses the world of Minecraft as a backdrop for a series of exchanges with an AI-powered chatbot, called Robin, developed specifically for the project. Both the process and the resulting narrative are documented in this short machinima.

Gina Hara is a Hungarian-Canadian filmmaker and artist. She holds an MA in Intermedia, an MFA in Film Production and worked with film, video, new media, gaming, and design. Waning (2011), her first fiction film, was nominated for a Best Canadian Short award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Your Place or Minecraft (2016), a machinima web series focusing on game studies, is currently available on YouTube. Hara’s full length documentary Geek Girls (2017) explores the notion of subculture from women’s perspective and was screened internationally, including IULM University in 2018 during an event entitled Gender Play. Her artworks have been exhibited by several institutions including the New Museum in New York, the Budapest Kunsthalle and the City of Montreal. Hara lives in Montreal, where she works as Creative Director of the Technoculture, Art and Games Research Centre.

 

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EVENT: NEVER ALONE: VIDEO GAMES AND OTHER INTERACTIVE DESIGN (SEPTEMBER 10 2022 - JULY 16 2023, NEW YORK)

Upper One Games, E-Line Media, and Ishmael Angaluuk Hope. Never Alone (Kisima Inŋitchuŋa). 2014. Video game software. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of E-Line Media. © 2022 E-Line Media

Never Alone: Video Games and Other Interactive Design

September 10, 2022 - July 16, 2023

Museum of Modern Art

11 West 53 Street, Manhattan, New York

Curated by Paola Antonelli, Paul Galloway, and Anna Burckhardt

 

press release

The Museum of Modern Art announces Never Alone: Video Games and Other Interactive Design, an exhibition that will investigate how interactive design informs the way we move through life and conceive of space, time, and connections, well beyond the game screen. On view in the Museum’s street-level gallery from September 10, 2022, through July 16, 2023, the exhibition will bring together notable examples of interactive design from MoMA’s collection, including computer interfaces, icons, apps, and 35 video games, 10 of which visitors will be able to play. This exhibition is grounded in the Museum’s history and commitment to collecting interactive design, from 1960s computer terminals to MoMA’s first selection of video games (acquired in 2012) to the websites of today. Never Alone: Video Games and Other Interactive Design is organized by Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator, Paul Galloway, Collection Specialist, and Anna Burckhardt, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design.

“The interfaces we use to access the digital universe are visual and tactile manifestations of code that both connect and separate us, and shape the way we behave and perceive life,” says Paola Antonelli. “Design is all around us, goes the adage, in everything we touch, use, feel, eat. Ever since digital tools have become ubiquitous, interactive design has become the conduit to systems of all kinds, from communication and information to transportation, supply, and more. It is in the touch commands on the screen of an ATM machine or of a smartphone, and in the interface of an ICU monitor. Interactive design runs a great part of our lives.”

Taking its name from the newly rereleased video game Never Alone (Kisima Inŋgitchuŋa) (2014), the exhibition will be organized into three sections: the Input, the Designer, and the Player. The first section, the Input, will focus on users’ physical interactions with the digital world through tangible objects like keyboards, joysticks, and touchscreens. The second section will examine the Designer’s impact on players’ experiences through early apps like John Maeda’s The Reactive Square (1994) and video games like Lucas Pope’s Papers Please (2014). These first two sections explore different aspects of the interface–where the user meets the machine—making clear that the design of the tangible object and digital experience are fundamental to the success of any interactive design, especially video games. In the third section, the exhibition will explore how the Player’s performance, choices, and interpretation define and reshape games and apps. Video games such as SimCity 2000 (1993) and Minecraft (2011) will be on view as examples of how players can create their own personalized worlds. These works demonstrate that a great part of the success of a game might depend on the player, not only on the designer.

The objects, interfaces, icons, and video games featured in this exhibition were selected as trailblazing examples of interactive design. The criteria for selecting video games were based not only on the aesthetic and narrative quality of each, but also on many other aspects—from the elegance of the code to the choreography of the player’s behavior—that pertain to interactive design. The criteria also focus on how the digital space is designed, flows, and morphs in time; how the game receives and conveys instructions and information via screens and input devices; and how a person interacts with them, whether digitally or physically.

The accompanying publication, Never Alone: Video Games as Interactive Design, written by Paola Antonelli, Anna Burckhardt, and Paul Galloway, explores the impact of interactive design by examining 35 video games created between 1972 and 2018—from Space Invaders (1978) and Pac-Man (1980) to The Sims (2000) and Minecraft. An overarching essay presents the pioneering criteria by which MoMA has selected these video games for its collection, as well as the protocols for their acquisition, display, and conservation. The richly illustrated plate section is divided into three sections that analyze input devices, game designers, and players.

Toru Iwatani. Pac-Man. 1980. Video game software. Published by NAMCO LTD. (currently BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Inc.). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. PAC-MAN TM & © 1980 BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Inc.

Bennett Foddy. Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy. Video game software. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the designer. © 2022 Bennett Foddy

Lucas Pope. Papers, Please. 2013. Video game software. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the designer. © 2022 Lucas Pope

Markus “Notch” Persson. Minecraft. 2011. Video game software. Published by Mojang. The Museum of Modern Art. New York. © 2022 Mojang

Jenova Chen (Xinghan) Chen. Flower. 2012. Video game software. Published by thatgamecompany. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC. © 2008 Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC. “Flower” is a registered trademark of Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC. Developed by thatgamecompany

LINK: Moma

EVENT: HOW TO WIN AT PHOTOGRAPHY (JUNE 23 - SEPTEMBER 25 2022, LONDON)

How to win at Photography

Photographer's Gallery

June 23 - September 25 2022

16-18 Ramillies Street, London

W1F 7LW England

How to Win at Photography will open June 23 2022 at The Photographer's Gallery in London and will remain open until September 25. A "multimedia exhibition" featuring 30+ artists, How to Win at Photography, "questions the very meaning and function of photography today". Expect a plethora of collateral events regarding all things post-photography - including in-game photography - starting with a killer conversation featuring John Hilliard and Justin Berry on June 24 202 about the ever-changing nature of photography.

Featured artists: Cory Arcangel, Aram Bartholl, Justin Berry, Alan Butler, Gloria López Cleries & Sive Hamilton Helle, Joan Pamboukes, Tabor Robak, Constant Dullaart, Yuyi John, Emma Agnes Sheffer, Coralie Vogelaar, Jon Haddock, Roc Herms, Sherrie Levine, Lorna Ruth Galloway, Ed Ruscha, Ai Weiwei, Harun Farocki, Dorothée Elisa Baumann, Dries Depoorter & Max Pinckers, Christopher Graves, John Hilliard, Steven Pippin, Ria Patricia Röder, Akihiko Taniguchi, Claude Cahun, Cibelle Cavalli Bastos, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Andy Kassier, Cindy Sherman, Petra Szemán, Danielle Udogaranya.

Read more

Check out the online supplement

EVENT: SJORS RIGTERS (APRIL 22 - MAY 5 2022, ONLINE)

The Virtual Frontier

digital video, color, sound, 3’, 2020, The Netherlands

Created by Sjors Rigters

vral.org

The popular video game Minecraft exemplifies the inner contradictions of the digital age. Lauded by many pundits as a highly creative form of entertainment, the so-called “digital LEGO” is a powerful vessel for neoliberal ideologies and hyper-capitalistic imperatives, with its frenzy of accumulation, extraction, circulation, production, and exploitation. An effective indoctrination tool now pervasive in thousands of US elementary schools, Minecraft is a techno-dream of endless growth, a manifesto for the perpetuation of devastating patterns of consumption, competition, and destruction. Informed by colonialist principles, its gameplay elevates numbing grinding routines into a recipe for the good life, casting the player as both a conqueror and an entrepreneur. In his video The Virtual Frontier, Dutch designer Sjors Rigters brings to the foreground the toxic message of one of the most successful video games of all time.

Sjors Rigters (b. 1995) is a graphic designer specializing in visual identity and editorial design. After receiving his BA in Graphic Design at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, he opened his own studio. Sjors lives and works in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

 

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EVENT: MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL MMXXII NOW LIVE (MARCH 21-27 2022, ONLINE AND IN SITU)

MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL MMXXII

EVERYTHING MUST CHANGE FOR EVERYTHING TO STAY THE SAME

March 21-27 2022

Milan, Italy and online

 

The MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL MMXXII returns with a hybrid format —both online and in situ screenings — after a long disruption in the face of an unprecedented global crisis. The festival program is now online: 25 works of machinima and game video created by 21 artists representing 9 countries are featured in two distinct sections — EVERYTHING MUST CHANGE (March 26 2022, IRL) and FOR EVERYTHING TO STAY THE SAME (March 21-27 2022, online) — for a total of 11 programs.

Below is a breakdown of all the features:

EVERYTHING MUST CHANGE (Museum of Interactive Cinema, Milan, March 26 2022): MACHINEMA (MACHINE CINEMA), BRAND NEW YOU ARE RETRO, and MADE IN ITALY

FOR EVERYTHING TO STAY THE SAME (March 21-27 2022, online): THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE AI, BAD TALES, SONG TO SONG, GAME VIDEO ESSAY, IDENTITIES/INTIMACIES, HISTORIES/HERSTORIES, NO DRAMA, PLEASE, and GAME OVER PRESENTS: THIS IS NOT A GAME.

Artist line-up: Lorenzo Antei (Italy), Nicolas Bailleul (France), David Blandy (England), Beatrice Carpina (Italy), Sam Crane (England), Federica di Pietrantonio (Italy), Marie Foulston and The Grannies (England/Australia), Jamie Janković (England), Steffanie Padilla (United States), Juan Poyuan (Taipei), Giulio Piacentini (Italy), Kelly Rabbachin (Italy), Phil Rice (United States), Sjors Rigters (The Netherlands), Sara Sadik (France), Paolo Santagostino (Italy), Jordy Veenstra (The Netherlands), Cris Ubermann (France), Arne Vogelgesang (Germany), and Mathias Wolff (Germany).

This year the curators are unlocking the online various features gradually, like levels of a video game. The online section comprises seven back-to-back features and one special screening.

The first two — THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE AI — featuring works by Phil Rice (US) and Beatrice Carpina (IT) — and SONG TO SONG - featuring machinima by Paolo Santagostino (IT) and Lorenzo Antei (IT) are now available.

For more updates, keep an eye on the festival's Twitter account.    

LINK: MMF MMXXII

VIDEO: KRISTOFFER ZETTERSTRAND: A VIDEO ESSAY

An in-depth look at Kristoffer Zetterstrand's practice. The Swedish painter has been exploring the boundaries between art and paintings for more than a decade. As he explains on his website,

For some years I have experimented with virtual still lifes, often in the form of stage design in which I explore how two-dimensionality (and painting) relates to computer-generated 3D worlds. I am interested in visual spaces created online, in computer games and 3D programmes, and especially in what happens when the illusion is shattered and the underlying construction emerges - like when there is a bug in a computer game. I am interested in visual failures, which I try to use in my painting. Among other things, I have produced paintings based on the landscapes that you can see only if you are “dead” in the online game Counter-Strike, and paintings with motifs created by crashed landscape generators used in film and computer game production.

This long video essay by Solar Sands provides illuminating insights into his craft.

LINK: Kristoffer Zetterstrand

Game Art: Lu Yang's hysterical game worlds

"In late October 2017, M WOODS welcomed visitors to the world of Lu Yang, an ambitious solo exhibition comprising three new commissions and a constellation of previous works that include sculpture, video, installation, computer programming, and video games. A leading figure among a young generation of new media artists, Lu Yang’s creative practice often satirizes efforts to demystify human experience through scientific theory, dismantling them with humor and fluency in the language of popular culture. Citing knowledge gleaned from the realms of neurology and biology, her works also reflect an ongoing interest in spirituality as a state of being pursued through different forms of religion and creative expression.

Lu Yang, Electromagnetic Brainology! 4 Deities, 2017

Capturing a breadth of influences from hip hop to Goa trance, punk, gothic, and glam rock street styles, gaming, anime, and the practice of Otaku, Lu Yang’s mesmerizing, multisensory environments reflect the dynamic amorphism of today’s globalized cultural climate and the semi-porous understandings we use to define the current historical moment of China and beyond. Conceived in entirety by the artist, the exhibition is something of a Gesamtkunstwerk combining the neon glitz of an arcade and the ritual of a heretical temple.

Presented on the first floor, Electromagnetic Brainology represents a new direction in Lu’s video work. Unfolding in the ritual-like space of the central hall, the work incorporates motion sensor technology and a soundtrack contributed by acclaimed Japanese producer invisible manners (インビジブル・マナーズ), weaving together popular culture and pan-cultural religious iconography. Stemming from her interest in MikuMikuDance (MMD) and the internet folk culture surrounding it, Lu uses the popular freeware as a readymade to complete the “LikuLikuDance” seen within many of the videos.

Lu Yang, Uterus Man, 2013

The action and aesthetic of gaming recurs throughout the exhibition, from the adventures of Lu’s gender-curious superhero Uterus Man (2013), to the 8-bit nostalgia of Cancer Baby (2014). Affinities to the gaming world are equally present in Wrathful King Kong Core (2011), and a sculptural installation on the second floor inviting viewers to ‘play’ using augmented reality. Emphasis on engagement and a visual vernacular popularized by modern video games form one thread of Lu’s artistic strategy that in the show subvert the normal functions of the museum.

In LuYang Delusional Mandala (2015) and LuYang Delusional Crime and Punishment (2016), relations of violence and domination become a solipsistic theatre revolving around her own likeness. Lu’s interest in deep brain stimulation (DBS), a treatment for tremors caused by Parkinson’s disease, is taken further through the invention of a halo-like, stereotactic surgery device that short-circuits the limbic system and results in religious delusions. For Lu, these investigations into the mechanisms of the mind and spirit, as well as our abilities to visualize them, lie at the heart of identity in the twenty-first century. Regularly featuring in her own films and animations, the artist’s own identity is deconstructed and she is re-incarnated in various works as a giant sculptural kite, a lifelike but genderless, non-binary simulation, and a guardian of the gates to ‘Luyang Hell’.

Collaborating with musicians, actors, and animators, the exhibition culminates in an exorcism, writhing to a soundtrack of post-trance core. As an artist whose playful irreverence and wicked humor constantly question norms of acceptability, Lu’s last gesture raises deep polemical issues about the cathartic role art and art institutions play within society. As the artist’s first exhibition at a non-profit institution in China, and the first solo show by a Chinese artist at M WOODS, Lu Yang’s exhibition brings together many of her best-known works while pointing to new directions within her practice." (M Woods)

LuYang, Cancer Baby, 2014

Born and based in Shanghai, Lu Yang graduated from the China Academy of Art in 2010. Her works have been featured in important solo and group exhibitions at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing), Centre Pompidou, 56th Venice Biennale 2015 China Pavillion, the Third Istanbul Design Biennial, Liverpool Biennial 2016, Shanghai Biennale 2012, Montreal International Digital Art Biennial 2016, Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, Momentum (Berlin), Tampa Museum of Art, Fifth Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, and the NYU Shanghai Art Gallery among others.

LINK: Lu Yang 

LINK: Lu Yang at M Woods (alla images courtesy of M Woods)

Game Art: Nicolas Taburno's EDGE (2018)

 

Creative Community is a French studio for developing artistic and creative projects specializing in audiovisual content founded in early 2013 by Benjamin Maublanc and Lucien Gillonnier. The studio specializes in machinimas created with Minecraft. 

EDGE is a sci-fi short film entirely written and directed by Nicolas Taburno. Below is the synopsis:

"At the edge of a celestial world governed by a vast suspended city, rises the last frontier post before the unknown, where one of his guests mounts his gloomy existence at the mercy of the passage of unfortunate travelers, until that he one day discovers a mysterious clandestine. "

The making-of is available here.

 

LINK: Creative Community