COLL.EO, Reasonable_1, machinima, digital, color, 2018, 1’04
A new machinima series from COLL.EO.
Below, the artist statement:
A selection of headlines from The Guardian (November 1 2018- July 14 2016)
COLL.EO is a collaboration between Colleen Flaherty and Matteo Bittanti established in 2012. COLL.EO currently operates in San Francisco and Milan.
LINK: COLL.EO
Michael Smith, Mike Builds a Shelter (1983), Photo by AND/OR gallery
VIDEO GAME ART 1870-2005
AND/OR GALLERY
980 S ARROYO PKWY #200
PASADENA, CA 91105
Show #32 explores the history of experiments in art video games. Today, there is a booming indie game industry, and experimental video game courses are taught at universities; but these fields largely emerged in the last decade. Before 2005, instances of experimental or art video games are limited, and before the 1990s, they are quite rare. Whether created by artists, programmers, or hobbyists, what often separates these games from their commercial counterparts is their departure from the typical goal-and-reward model of gameplay, and many of the games presented in Show #32 are anticlimactic, unwinnable, un-fun, or all of the above. Some works presented in Show #32 subvert conventional video game mechanics and aesthetics by being outright modifications of popular commercial works like Quake or Super Mario Bros. (AND/OR Gallery)
Featured artists:
Including work by Cory Arcangel, Myfanwy Ashmore, John Horton Conway, JODI, Joan Leandre, David Maynard, Penn and Teller, and Michael Smith, plus rare games on loan from the Supercade collection and a set of Commodore 64 crack intros curated by Beige Records and Radical Software Group.
featured artworks
Conway's Game of Life (1970) by John Horton Conway with Video Life (1981) by Commavid
Untitled Game: CTRL-Space (1998) by JODI
Mig 29 Soviet Fighter Plane and Clouds (2005) by Cory Arcangel
Super Mario Trilogy (2000-2004) by Myfanwy Ashmore
The Glob (1983), NATO Defense (1982), Slither (1982), and
Boxing Bugs (1981) on loan from the Supercade collection
Mike Builds a Shelter (1983) by Michael Smith, game design and graphics by Dov Jacobson, cabinet design by Alan Herman
Desert Bus (1995) by Penn and Teller
Worms? (1983) by David Maynard
Low Level Alls Stars (1986-1989) Commodore 64 crack intros curated in 2003 by Beige and RSG
RC-100 (2000) by Retroyou (Joan Leandre)
JODI, Untitled Game: CTRL-Space (1998)
Cory Arcangel, MIG 29 Soviet Fighter Plane and Clouds, 2005, 2 hacked Nintendo Entertainment System game cartridges, 2 Nintendo Entertainment System game consoles, artist software (Photo: Lisson Gallery, Art Basel 2017)
Myfanwy Ashmore, mario_battle_no.1 (mario battle no-one), 2000
LINK: AND/OR GALLERY (Show #32) (Thanks to Kieran Nolan for the tip)
NEXTNEWGAMES
June 23 - September 16, 2018
Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA)
San José
560 South First Street
San Jose, CA 95113 > MAP
"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
Kerich's DKS is one of my favorite projects of the year. It's a cross between Arman and Ant Farm, in a digital space. Phenomenal:
"This project, inspired by the YouTube series Car Boys, involved the creation and destruction of kinetic sculptures in the driving game BeamNG.drive(with a few modifications). BeamNG is built to be a vehicle simulator and racing game, allowing its users to customize cars and race and crash them with realistic soft body physics. It also includes an editor, to allow players to create their own levels and scenarios to race in. To create this project, I abused the capabilities of the editor to create car-sculptures that often burst into flame immediately or caused the physics engine to severely glitch as soon as the simulation was started. By exploring conditions of the game that generally be considered unlikely for an average user (cars dropped from a great height with 100x gravity, cars existing inside of one another) a space of strange freedom is opened up inside of what is otherwise a relatively focused driving simulator. These zones of alternative creative production are extremely important in helping to explore and understand systems." (Chris Kerich)
Chris Keric, etk_i-series/cliff, 2017
Chris Keric, dh_sport_bike/derby, 2017
Chris Kerich is a programmer, artist, and "human being interested in systems, breaking systems, constrained art, information, critical science studies, games, media and studies". Kerich received his Master of Science at MIT in Comparative Media Studies and he is currently based in Los Angeles, California where he is pursuing a PhD at UCSC.
LINK: Chris Kerich (All images and videos courtesy of the Artist)
Carlos Martorell is a sound artist exploring videogame engine possibilities for visual discourses in between machinima, topography, human relationships, film work and pre-2k aesthetics. His latest project is titled Silicone and was produced during a residency at Oudeis (Le Vigan/Ganges), France promoted by Eufònic and Institut Ramon Llull.
Silicone is based on a simple idea: acquire data to develop a new reality from it. After latest political developments in Catalonia and its press treatment, I felt I could explore how to bend reality to own interest. Twisting facts and manipulating reality is like medicine: it works when you get the right dose at the right time. Nothing new. Managed outcomes brought us to this post-political world, but at the end of the day, this process is inherent to human condition. We’ve seen this before in last USA election, Brexit, dictatorships, tulip mania, religious texts, cave paintings. Control of narrative is more important than narrative per se. [...] The final oniric world is a limbo of uncanny ambiences with pre-2k game aesthetics where local people is glitched and deformed by sound in front of well-known spots for them.
You can download Silicone from the artist' website free of charge.
LINK: Carlos Martorell
Antonin Fourneau explores the uncanniness of machine play with Video Ghostpad, a 2009 sculptural installation featuring a self-playing game controller. As Fourneau writes,
The joystick moves in all the directions at different speeds. Movements are sometimes fast and furious. this gesture evoking our memories of games. we can imagine despite the absence of a screen the game that is currently played in front of our eyes. This piece interrogate our collective memory.
In 2005, Antonin Fourneau received an Art Diploma from Aix-en-Provence Art School followed in 2007 by a post Diploma in Interactive Art in the Design School of ENSAD Paris. Since his graduation, Antonin has been focused on interaction and relation with popular culture. He created a collaborative project about innovation and new form of funfair named Eniarof. (see also)
LINK: Antonin Fourneau
"Comprising three film installations and new series of photographs, ‘The End of the World’ deals with the artist’s relationship to technology and memory, speculating about Armageddon and a loss of connection to the server.The installation The End of the World (2017) is film work projected onto three screens, enclosing the viewer in a planetarium style view of the solar system. The accompanying audio monologue intertwines examples of end times, examining its differing cultural forms. The narrator touches on macro ideas effecting nations - genocide, climate change and more personal, intimate moments of loss and grief. A section of the film appropriates chat-room text from users of Asheron’s Call, a multi-player online role-playing game, whose servers where recently shut down after 17 years of collective game play. The users gathered to communally experience the end of their world, publicly narrating their emotions.The Archive (2017) is a film made inside the Hans Tasiemka Archive, using 360-degree filming technology. This sprawling resource is run by 94 year old Edda Tasimeka from a 1920’s semi-detached house in Golders Green. Amassed over decades, it's a collection of hundreds of thousands of idiosyncratically catalogued newspaper cuttings forming a web of interconnected stories and information. Masses of cuttings are kept all around the house, from the toilet to her garage, categorised through subjects as diverse as ‘The Family’, ‘Isis’ and the ‘Kardashians’.HD Lifestyle (2016) focuses on the physical nature of the screen, its component elements and the cost of their extraction. Blandy notes the physicality of the Cloud, the ocean floor cables and rare earth minerals extracted at such an environmental cost that the Chinese state has designated specific ‘sacrificial zones’ - concentrated toxic wastelands permitted in order to maintain high levels of production. The material forms of the Internet are countered by the users desire for dematerialisation, to be brought closer to the information, the game, the experience, to reach through the screen and interact directly with content.The exhibition is completed by a new series of photographic works, images woven into a digital collage, finding equivalence between geology and technology, silicon chips and cosmic matter." (Seventeen Gallery)
Mauri Lehtonen, UFO Trouble, HD video, color, sound, 2015, 1'
Mauri Lehtonen (b. 1985) is a Finnish filmmaker and a new media artist. His works is imbued with styles ranging from abstract structuralism to experimental pop mutations. His latest video is titled UFO Trouble, as it was created by corrupting Super Nintendo ROM files before running them with emulator software. He describes it as "Rhythmical exposure to synaesthetic glitch sequences". This work was screened at Experiments In Cinema v11.4 (USA 2016), AnimateCOLOGNE 4 (India 2016) and at the College Art Association Conference (USA 2016).
Mauri Lehtonen, still image from UFO Trouble, HD video, color, sound, 2015.
One of my favorite works from Lehtonen is Haustorium (2013):
Mauri Lehtonen, Haustorium, digital video, 4', 2013
"Violent parasite infection. Video and audio were made by hex editing Atari 2600 ROM files." (Mauri Lehtonen)
Haustorium was screened at International Symposium On Electronic Art (Canada 2015), Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival (Switzerland 2014), Lumen Outdoor Projections at Beacons Festival (UK 2014), What The Festival (USA 2014).
LINK: Mauri Lehtonen