GAMESCENES

EVENT: KEITA TAKAHASHI: ZOOMING OUT (JANUARY 24 - JULY 14 2019, SAVANNAH, GEORGIA)

Keita Takahashi: Zooming Out

Curated by Harry DeLorme, Senior Curator of Education

January 24 - July 14 2019

Telfairs Museum

207 W. York St.
Savannah, GA 31401, USA

Telfairs Museum is hosting a major retrospective on Keita Takahashi between January 24 through July 14, 2019. Curated by Harry DeLorme and subtitled Zooming Out, this first-ever museum survey exhibition of the legendary Japanese video game designer’s work is organized in conjunction with the museum’s annual PULSE Art + Technology Festival. So far there have been a relatively scarce number of exhibitions focusing on single designers (Jason Rohrer comes to mind), which makes Zooming Out even more compelling.

Keita Takahashi, Wild Rumpus and Venus Patrol, Tenya Wanya Teens, 2013

Initially trained as an artist, Takahashi received a degree in Fine Art and Sculpture from Musashino Art University in Tokyo. At the beginning of his professional career, he was hired as a design artist at Namco, where he became the lead developer of Katamari Damacy, a now-iconic game that won awards, spawned sequels, influenced popular culture beyond the game world, and was one of the first video games acquired for the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

The exhibition highlights Takahashi’s outside-the-box approach to game development, game mechanics, aesthetics, and music. Included will be playable versions of all of Takahashi’s major games, such as the original Katamari Damacy and its newly remastered edition, KatamariDamacyREROLL, We Love Katamari, Noby Noby Boy, and the eagerly awaited Wattam (Developer: Funomena, Publisher: Annapurna Interactive). In addition to his major game releases, the exhibition includes several of his independent games and collaborative installations, including Tenya Wanya Teens, operated with two 16-button controllers, and a reimagined, immersive take on the classic game PAC-MAN (with Clement Shimizu and Babycastles). The artist’s early sculpture work, animations, and playground designs will also be on view.

Keita Takahashi and Adam Saltsman, Alphabet, 2013

Image: Wattam, 2018, Publisher: Annapurna Interactive, Developer: Funomena

Woorld, 2016, Augmented Reality Game, Developer: Funomena

LINK: Telfair Museums

EVENT: COMPUTER GRRRLS! (OCTOBER 27-FEBRUARY 24 2019, DORTMUND, GERMANY)

COMPUTER GRRRLS!

HMKV (Hartware MedienKunstVerein) at Dortmunder U, Level 3
Leonie-Reygers-Terrasse, 44137 Dortmund
, Germany

27 October 2018 – 24 February 2019, HMKV at the Dortmunder U, Level 3

Opening: Friday, October 26th at 7pm

Curated by Dr. Inke Arns e Marie Lechner

The exhibition is dedicated to Nathalie Magnan (1956-2016).

The exhibition Computer Grrrls brings together more than 20 international artistic positions that negotiate the relationship between gender and technology in past and present. Computer Grlz deals with the complex link between women and technology –  from the first human computers to the current revival of cyber-feminist movements. A comprehensive timeline covers these developments from the 18th century to the present. Invited are artists, hackers, makers and researchers who are working on how to think differently about technology: by questioning the gender bias in big data and Artificial Intelligence, promoting an open and diversified Internet, and designing utopian technologies.

Participating artists: Morehshin Allahyari, Manetta Berends, Zach Blas & Jemima Wyman, Nadja Buttendorf, Elisabeth Caravella, Jennifer Chan, Aleksandra Domanovic, Louise Drulhe, Darsha Hewitt, Lauren Huret, Hyphen-Labs, Dasha Ilina, Mary Maggic, Caroline Martel, Lauren Moffatt, Simone C. Niquille, Jenny Odell, Elisa Giardina Papa, Tabita Rezaire, Erica Scourti, Suzanne Treister, Lu Yang

The exhibition will be on view at HMKV until 24 February 2019, and will then travel further to Paris and Eindhoven in the Spring/Summer of 2019.

HMKV, Dortmund, DE (27 Oct 2018 - 24 Feb 2019) 
La Gaité Lyrique, Paris, FR (13 March - 14 July 2019) 
MU, Eindhoven, NL (August - September 2019)

An exhibition by HMKV (Hartware MedienKunstVerein), Dortmund (DE) in co-production with La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris (FR)

The exhibition is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. Main funder HMKV: Dortmunder U – Center for Art and Creativity. Partner: MU Eindhoven (NL)

LINK: COMPUTER GRRRLS!

EVENT: GAMERZ 14 (November 8 - December 15, Aix-en-Provence, France)

Festival international des Arts multimédia GAMERZ 14ème édition

AIX-EN-PROVENCE | MARSEILLE, FRANCE

NOVEMBER 8 – DECEMBER 2018

http://www.festival-gamerz.com 

 

The excellent Multimedia Arts Festival GAMERZ returns for its 14th edition from 08 November to 15 December 2018 in Aix-en-Provence and Marseille. Curated once again by M2F Creations | Lab GAMERZ, the Festival is scattered across several locations, including the Vasarely Foundation, the Ecole Supérieure d'Art, the Méjanes Library - in Aix-en-Provence and the Grands-Bains Gallery Showers of the Plain in Marseille. The 2018 edition is about developing different practices and artistic strategies as alternatives to escape the digital footprints. The full program will be unveiled soon, so stay tuned. 

 

LINK: GAMERZ

Event: Chicago New Media 1973–1992 (Nov 1 - Dec 15 2018, Chicago)

Montana, Jane Veeder, Video, 1982. Courtesy of Jane Veeder and VGA Gallery

Chicago New Media 1973–1992

Curated by Jon Cates with assistance from Chaz Evans and Jonathan Kinkley

November 01 - December 15 2018

Gallery 400 
University of Illinois at Chicago
Art and Design Hall, First Floor
400 South Peoria Street (at Van Buren Street)
Chicago, IL 60607

Chicago is not often thought of as a center for new media art, technology, or industry, yet the city was home to some of the earliest and most important experiments in new media in the late 20th century. Chicago New Media 1973–1992 explores the rich exchange between industry and academics during this heady time, chronicling the under-recognized story of Chicago's contributions to new media art by artists at the University of Illinois at Chicago's (UIC) Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), and at Midway and Bally games from 1973–92. Generations of now well-known and acclaimed artists, scholars, designers, developers, curators, and organizers have moved through UIC and SAIC, all of whom shaped the development of new media locally as well as on the burgeoning international stage. Chicago New Media 1973–1992 will exhibit a range of ephemera documenting this period of industry incubation and globalization and its connections to new media art.

LINK: Chicago New Media 1973–1992 

Event: JON RAFMAN: THE MENTAL TRAVELER (September 14 2018 - February 24, 2019, Modena, Italy)

Exhibition: Jon Rafman. The Mental Traveller

Curated by: Diana Baldon

Curatorial Assistance: Chiara Dall’Olio

Institutions: Fondazione Fotografia Modena and Galleria Civica di Modena

Location: Palazzina dei Giardini, Corso Cavour, 2, Modena

Exhibition Dates: 14 September 2018 to 24 February 2019

Opening: 14 September 2018 at 6pm

Press View 12 September 2018 at 11am

Opening Hours:
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday: 11am to 1pm; 4pm to 7pm
Saturday, Sunday and Holidays: 11am to 7pm

Opening Hours for festivalfilosofia 2018:
Friday 14 September: 9am to 11pm
Saturday 15 September: 9am to 12am
Sunday 16 September: 9am to 9pm 

Jon Rafman, Dream Journal 2016-2017, 2017, Colour HD video with stereo sound. Music by James Ferraro and Oneohtrix Point Never, Runtime: 49’17”, Courtesy of the artist and Sprüth Magers

FONDAZIONE MODENA ARTI VISIVE is delighted to present The Mental Traveller, the first large-scale exhibition of works by Jon Rafman to be shown in an Italian contemporary art institution. Curated by Diana Baldon and presented by Fondazione Fotografia Modena and the Galleria Civica di Modena, the exhibition will open at the Palazzina dei Giardini on Friday 14 September 2018, to coincide with this year’s festivalfilosofia, the theme of which is truth.

The exhibition brings together a selection of multimedia installations, presented for the first time in Italy, tracing the arc of the Canadian artist’s practice from 2011 to the present. Employing a variety of media – including photography, video, sculpture and installation – Rafman explores how reality and simulation have become increasingly homogenized in contemporary society in artworks that blur the boundaries between the virtual and the tangible, between physical bodies and technological replicas.

Born in 1981 in Montreal, where he lives and works, Rafman studied literature and philosophy at McGill University before graduating in film, video and new media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since his earliest career, Rafman has investigated the ramifications of our reliance on technology on our perceptions of reality.To create Kool-Aid Man (2008–11), Rafman spent three years exploringthe virtual-reality platform Second Life, in the guise of the titular avatar, to discover the myriad incarnationsof its digital ‘inhabitants’. Rafman neither judges nor criticises his Second Life cohabitants: rather, his intention is to document how technology enables people to create entirely new versions of themselves in fantastical environments, giving them the freedom to invent new identities and iconographies.

Rafman also drew from the Internet and its multiple online communities as archival resources for the three videos comprising his Betamale Trilogy (2013–15) – Still Life (Betamale), Mainsqueezeand Erysichthon – which are among the installations included in this exhibition. As in the novels of Georges Bataille, where the narrative arc implodes in the claustrophobic and catastrophic arena of the writing, this leads to a proliferation of narrative strands and interpretations. Watching the Betamale Trilogy, the viewer feels trapped in a vortex of scenarios that are traumatic yet seductive. Rafman skilfully conveys the ambiguous lure of the Internet, which seemingly promises freedom and the discovery of new worlds, yet, in reality, imprisons you in a space tracked by algorithms and monitored by agencies that process, then sell, your navigational data.

Rafman’s extensive research on both the Internet and the deep web has enabled him to assume the mantle of amateur anthropologist and digital flâneur. He investigates the epistemic collapse in recent years of the distinction between digital and authentic worlds, between reality and its virtual representation. In his videos, a poetic and hypnotic off-screen voice invariably accompanies a sequence of images taken from the Internet, videogames or online chat forums.

Memory figures as a major theme in many works. In A Man Digging (2013), which comprises footage from videogames including Max Payne 3, the main character speaks of the intrinsic mutability of memory and how it allows for the rewriting of individual and collective history. While the narrator nostalgically drifts along in search of his fragmented past, Rafman transports us, via the glinting surfaces of memory, to the furthest reaches of reality. The video Remember Carthage (2013)tells the story of a man who sets sail on a ship bound for Tunisia in search of a mythical city in the Sahara Desert that existed at the same time as Carthage. Despite its legendary status as the ‘Las Vegas of Maghreb’, however, no trace of the city remains. Composed of footage from Second Life and the videogame Uncharted 3, the film again features an off-camera voice detailing the sublime architectural beauty of ancient civilisations. Remember Carthage explores not only memory but the contemporaneity of history, since – thanks to technological developments such as videogames and Second Life– even history can now find a different form and influence.

The video Dream Journal (2016–17) comes from Rafman’s habit of animating his dreams using amateur 3D software, and has a soundtrack composed by James Ferraro and Oneohtrix Point Never, with whom the artist has previously collaborated. Two young female protagonists – a stereotypical millennial and a child warrior – set off on a Dantean journey within a dystopian universe. The narrative interweaves imaginary scenes with characters from classical epic tales to yield a series of darkly surreal incidents: this is Rafman’s unconscious mind, augmented by online surfing, rendered visual.

Greeting visitors at the entrance of the Palazzina is the artist’s latest work, Legendary Reality (2017). In this he leads us on a voyage into ‘inner space’. An anonymous protagonist narrates a journey through what appears to be a sci-fi landscape – although he could just as easily be sitting at a computer screen on which historical depictions have become conflated with virtual experiences.

Jon Rafman (Montreal, 1981) is an artist who explores digital culture and subcultures, exposing the desires, obsessions and fetishes triggered by the use of technological devices. Recent solo shows in international contemporary art institutions include:I have ten thousand compound eyes and each is named suffering, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2016); Jon Rafman, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster (2016); Jon Rafman, Zabludowicz Collection, London (2015); The end of the end of the end,Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2014); Remember Carthage, First Look: New Art Online, New Museum, New York (2013); The Nine Eyes of Google Streetview, Saatchi Gallery, London (2012); Jon Rafman, online exhibition, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012). He has also participated in numerous group shows, including: I was raised on the Internet, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2018); Alone together, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2018); ARS 17: Hello world!, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki (2017–18); Jon Rafman / Stan Vanderbeek, Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles (2017); Manifesta 11, Zurich (2016);Welcome to the Jungle, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2015);Speculations on Anonymous Materials, Fridericianum, Kassel (2013); NineEyes, Moscow Photobienniale (2012); Screenshots, William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut (2012); From Here On, Les Rencontres de la photographie d’Arles, Arles (2011).

Together with Museo della Figurina, Fondazione Fotografia Modenaand Galleria Civica di Modena are part of FONDAZIONE MODENA ARTI VISIVE, an institution dedicated to the presentation and promotion of contemporary art and visual culture, directed by Diana Baldon.

Jon Rafman, Remember Carthage, 2013, Colour HD video with stereo sound, Runtime: 13’43” Courtesy of the artist 

Jon Rafman, Remember Carthage, 2013, Colour HD video with stereo sound, Runtime: 13’43” Courtesy of the artist  

LINK:  Jon Rafman. Il viaggiatore mentale

Art Game: Alistair Aitcheson's The Book Ritual (2018)

 

UPDATE (Feb 4, 2019): The finished version of The Book Ritual is now available. The new version also comes with instructions on how to build your own USB-connected shredder (although you can also play it with a normal shredder or just a bin!) The game was nominated for an award at PLAY18 in Hamburg last year, and this year it'll be a part of the Alt-Ctrl exhibition at GDC.

 

The Book Ritual is a long-term game project by Alistair Aitcheson, an artist and game designer. Development began in 2010 and focuses on the interplay between digital technologies and physical objects, in this case, books. The Book Ritual is played with a tangible, actual printed book, and during the game the player must deface it (OMG!) and tear pages out. The player writes about herself and perform what Aitcheson calls "creativity exercise" in its pages, but in order to play, the player must also  destroy pages. The Book Ritual is about 2 hours long.

 

It's a free download from Itch.io.

As Aitcheson explains, 

 

it currently says "beta" on it, and that's because I'm waiting for more feedback before I decide "this is the final version!" - once it's final, it will continue to be a free download

 

I love the Dada nature of this project, but I don't think I could ever deface a copy of BEE's American Psycho... Nonetheless, the designer's rationale for creating this game is fascinating. Here's an excerpt:

Indeed, to destroy books is taboo, and there’s a solid historical precedent for why. I’m certainly not trying to say that destroying literature is a good idea. What I am trying to do is tell a story about guilt and loss. If the player feels guilty in the process of destroying their book, if it feels like they're losing something with innate value, it means they are acting out the emotion I want them to explore. 

Alistair Aitchenson is a game developer and has developed games since 2001, starting up as a one-man studio in 2010. In 2010 he graduated with a first class Masters degree in Mathematics with Study Abroad from the University of Warwick. During his degree he spent one year studying at the elite Ecole Normale Supérieur in Lyon, France. As well as his own projects he works as a freelance designer-developer. He has worked on web game projects for the BBC, and regularly produces games for the education technology company Sparx Limited. Alistair frequently exhibits his gamesat exhibitions in the UK and abroad, and regularly gives conference talks about his experiences.

 

LINK: Alistair Aitchenson (all images and videos courtesy of the Artist)

 

Game Art: Phillip Birch, Office-Shadow (Persona) (2018)

 

Office-Shadow (Persona) is Philip Birch's latest project, six animated movies set on a single floor of a computer generated office building. Think of The Stanley Parable, only weireder. Each video acts as a single chapter of a longer narrative which is told through a first person perspective. By remediating the aesthetics of videogames, Birch is upgrading contemporary art as a whole. The videos also juxtapose Greek mythology and role playing games. Ludic themes pervade Birch's oeuvre, like Entering God Mode, Oubliette and The Hand of God. After the Flesh, an homage to David Cronenberg's masterpiece eXistenz, even features a gamepod. 

Philip Birch, After the Flesh, installation.

Philip Birch (b. 1978, Detroit) is represented by Lyles & King and his recent solo exhibitions and performances include Milespires and Reliquaries, Lyles & King, NY; Entering God Mode, Jack Hanley, NY; The Crown of Modernity, 47 Canal, NY; The Hand of God, Essex Flowers, NY; The Chair After Its Method of Implementation, Cleopatra’s, NY.

LINK: Philip Birch (via the mighty Daata Edtions)

Event: NEXTNEWGAMES (June 23 – September 16, 2018, San José, California)

NEXTNEWGAMES

June 23 - September 16, 2018

Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA)

San José

560 South First Street

San Jose, CA 95113 > MAP

OPENING RECEPTION — JUNE 24, 2018

MEMBERS PREVIEW 1-2PM

PUBLIC RECEPTION 2-4PM

 

"ICA’S NEXTNEW SERIES IS A BIANNUAL EXHIBITION PROGRAM THAT PRESENTS THE WORK OF EMERGING ARTISTS AND/OR EMERGING ART PRACTICES.

When playing a board game or video game, one might experience a range of emotions, from elation when advancing towards a finish line, to a sense of gratification from beating a competitor, to a feeling of anger when your strategy goes awry. Immersing wholeheartedly into the rules and experiences of play is what Dutch historian and play theorist Johan Huizinga refers to as the “magic circle,” a zone where players temporarily suspend disbelief and adopt the qualities of the game space, disconnecting from the realities of the everyday world. Games often provide a moment of respite from the “real world” and allow the player to escape into a fantasy.

The eight artists in NextNewGames create work within this alternative space. The set of board games, video pieces, and new media works consider our current social, political, and cultural climate, creating a porous relationship between the imaginary land of the game space and that of the real world.

Characterizing the art world with an air of parody are works by Sioux City-based artist Charles Bass who developed a series of free, participatory games, which comment on the quirks of the opaque art world. COLL.EO (San Francisco- and Milan-based collaborative Colleen Flaherty and Matteo Bittanti) re-enact seminal 1960-70s contemporary art performances and interventions in “Liberty City,“ through the action and adventure game Grand Theft Auto.

NextNewGames artists also invite players to embody different perspectives through single- and multi-player games. Lark VCR and Porpentine Charity Heartscape’s elaborate online game invites players to treat their trauma as if it were a virtual pet. Colorado-based artist Rafael Fajardo presents two contrasting games that simulate the realities of crossing the US-Mexico border at El Paso-Ciudad Juarez. Sam Vernon engages local community members in a game of hangman and creates a visually cacophonous installation with the resulting documentation from this age-old game. Considering the relationship of communities today and in the future, Berkeley-based artist Asma Kazmi constructs a hypnotic, sensorial experience of the religious site of Makkah and documents the rapid changes to the sacred site. San Francisco-based artist Scott Kildall questions what it might mean for the moon to colonize the earth in his site-specific scavenger hunt at the ICA.

These artists move away from the dichotomy of winning or losing. They collectively subvert and interrupt the modes of operating within a game while reflecting on how these game spheres serve as mirrors to our current society: how do we think about cooperation and negotiation? What does it mean to lose or win? Where are points of resolution and conflict? What is your next move?"

LINK: NextNewGames

Event: foci+loci's TOPOS (May 30, 2018, Milan, Italy) [includes full video]

FOCI + LOCI

TOPOS

MAY 30 2018
Aula seminari
Università IULM (IULM 1)
Via Carlo Bo, 1
20143 Milan

AN OFFICIAL EVENT OF GAME TALKS 2018, CURATED BY THE M.A. IN GAME DESIGN AT IULM UNIVERSITY

Topos is a long-term WIP and a game art performance combining a two-channel video projection of artist-built game spaces. The piece examines the cultural shift from the mechanized, topographic 20th century to the topological experience of the digital era through virtual, kinetic portraits. Subjects will include modernist artists concerned with time and movement such as F.T. Marinetti, Claude Cahun, Scott Joplin and others. Navigating custom game spaces in real time, the performers will explore the grand shift from the physical to the virtual.

foci + loci evolved through a fascination with the malleability of virtual space paired with an interest in electroacoustic improvisation leading the duo (Chris Burke and Tamara Yadao) to design spaces that could be “played” as instruments. foci + loci received a NYSCA grant for 2013 to develop their full scale game art performance installation Bal(l)ade. Tamara received an American Composers' Forum grant in 2015 commissioning the music for foci + loci's "Another Kind of Spiral" which premiered at Cluster Festival in Winnipeg with a performance at Centre Georges Pompidou following soon after. Other performances and exhibits include GAME VIDEO/ART. A SURVEY (2016), an official exhibition of the 21st Triennale of Milan, Vector Festival in Toronto, Babycastles, The Stone, and Joe's Pub in NYC. 

LINK: foci + loci

LINK: GAME TALKS 2018

Interview: Jonne Hansson and the Machinima of Absurd

GameScenes is conducting a series of interviews with artists, critics, curators, and gallery owners operating in the field of Game Art, as part of an ongoing investigation of the social history of this artworld. Our goal is to document and examine both the origins and evolution of a phenomenon that changed the way game-based art is being created, experienced, and discussed today.

We are currently running Season 7, which began in 2017 with a conversation with Alex Hovet. 

This episode features a conversation with Jonne Hansson, a Swedish artist who's been using digital games as an expressive form for more than a decade.  Hansson's practice is very eclectic: he uses machinima, installations, paper, but also drawing, directly inspired by game aesthetics and the history of art. Absurdity and humor are some of the most most recurrent traits. 

This interview between Matteo Bittanti and Jonne Hansson took place via email in April 2018.

Jonne Hansson, Cannon Travel Center, 2010, colored pencil, crayon, acrylic, paper, foam, 34,5 x 44,5 cm

GameScenes: What is your background? Can you please summarize your trajectory as an artist, gamer, and above all, agent provocateur?

I started making art pretty late. I mean, I did not draw much as a kid. I was more of a sports guy and a gamer, but when I started studying art my interest in sports and video games followed. I have always enjoyed being a funny guy, or at least the accidental slapstick comedian. I think humor and (dark) satire - particularly on subjects such as technology and society - has been an important part in my artistic practice. I enjoy finding funny situations in video games, especially things that the game designer (in all probability) did not intend to create. I also like the idea of using an already existing (and recognizable) character, it’s a bit like employing a famous actor. My works tend to land somewhere between Game Art (in the context of contemporary art) and gamification leaning towards gamified life-coaching. 

Jonne Hansson, Outcast, 2017, machinima, 8' 19"

GameScenes: Outcast (2017) is a machinima adaptation of Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull created with the Grand Theft Auto V in-game video editor. You turned an hyper-violent game into a tender, poetic experience. The inevitable question is: What came first, Richard Bach or GTA?

The short answer is that I read Richard Bach’s book before I played Grand Theft Auto V. While playing this open-world game I took a step away from being a completionist gamer and became a nature photographer. The initial idea was to make a nature documentary in true David Attenborough style - commentating on what I see and how the animals behave within the boundaries of the virtual sandbox. While collecting Peyote plants (one of the side-quests) I unlocked animals as playable characters in Rockstar Editor. After some tests I discovered I could play as a seagull, and that’s when I rediscovered (and acted out) Richard Bach’s fable.

Jonne Hansson, Good Workout Today!, 2016, screenshot from the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS3)

GameScenes: To create Good Workout Today! (2016) you used an iPhone 6 Plus to upload videos "shot" in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to your Instagram account. This multimedia project exemplifies the increasing layers of digitalization of our lives, including the virtualization of fitness and the exhibitionist, narcissistic culture of social media. How did you feel after (having your alter ego) lifting gold dumbbells?

Using my alter ego in the local gym in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, I thought lifting the heaviest virtual golden dumbbells wouldn’t be a problem. I was wrong. I miserably failed at beating the weights. Ironically, I was actually physically exhausted from the serious button mashing. It was a good workout. Being fully aware of the new wellness-ideology and this constant urge to get instant visual feedback through social media - I just had to post my recorded video on Instagram. Good Workout Today! also deals with the idea of cheating and being lazy. For instance, I think it is ironic that Pokémon Go players are now driving cars to catch the best pokémons or level up as fast as possible. The initial concept of the game was that people could play a game and get some exercise at the same time...

Jonne Hansson, Going for Birdie, 2016, installation view (studio), mixed media, including, wood, carpet, aluminium, textile, plastic, print (framed), dimensions variables

GameScenes: A recurrent theme in your work is the crossover between games and reality. You bring bits into the world of atoms, effortlessly. Is this strategy an attempt to emphasize the paradoxical nature of simulation? For instance, in Going for Birdie (2016) you used wood, carpet, aluminium, textile, and plastic - among other things - to give material consistency to a digital simulation of golf for the NES and to highlight the connection between different layers of reality, each with its own style and conventions (e.g. pixel art, for the game). Are you commenting on the pervasive influence of gaming on 21C aesthetics?

Going for birdie is the pioneering work in that style, and actually came out of a joke with a colleague and friend. A literal, deliberate misunderstanding of the golf term “Birdie”. The joke was that you’d probably be more successful in hitting a bird if you just whacked a ball straight into the woods… just that the spiteful asshole bird decided to hang around on the green that day.

Jonne Hansson, Cardsharp/Watch Dogs, 2016, machinima, Watch Dogs (Xbox 360)

GameScenes: Absurdity is a leitmotiv in your work, or, rather, THE key theme. In Cardsharp/Watch Dogs (2016) you remediated a classic painting with the aid of video games and toys. Were you trying to illustrate the porosity between the so-called high brow and the vernacular, or rather to update playful practices, emphasizing the connection between the past and the present, tradition and innovation?

In Cardsharp/Watch Dogs I turned my attention to our recurring cheating nature. We’ve done it for a long time. It was a valid subject for Caravaggio and equally valid as a revitalized cheating scene in the hacker game Watch Dogs. It seems to be a rather timeless concept:cheating remains but how we do it changes.

Jonne Hansson, The Square Painter (Star Junction)  2016, machinima, 2' 58"

Jonne Hansson, The Square Painter (Happiness Island)  2016, machinima, 2' 58"

GameScenes: Can you discuss your machinima series The Square Painter (2014), created with Grand Theft Auto IV for the PlayStation 3? What do you find so fascinating about this recurrent character? The ubiquity of game avatars in simulated landscapes? The campy nature of artistic representations in digital games? Or something else altogether? 

While playing Grand Theft Auto IV and following the game’s narrative, one situation really caught my attention. It was when the protagonist, Niko, is sitting in an internet café in Liberty City and browsing through his e-mails, and he discovers that he has gotten an e-mail from his mother. She writes that she doesn’t judge him for having been in trouble and having done bad things and that is her duty to miss her son. Being an artist myself, I had also been noticing the easel painter who appeared in some typical touristic locations. I created my new own story in the game by investigating what it would mean for Niko to become a painter instead of a criminal (by killing the painter and taking his place, haha)

 

LINK: Jonne Hansson

 

ARCHIVE: GAMESCENES Interviews - contemporary practitioners