GAMESCENES

GAME ART: HUIDI XIANG'S WELCOME TO THE WORKGROUND TO SEE MY PLAYBENCH (2021)

Huidi Xiang, my playbench in the workground, 2021

Huidi Xiang's sculptures are based on the life-simulation game Animal Crossing: New Horizons, a video game that achieved huge popularity during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Xiang' combines the idea of “personal paradise” the game promises with her personal, physical surroundings. By transforming the gameplayer performed in the game into the labor of her studio practice, Xiang reflects on a world in which the boundary between apparently distinct activities like play and labor are becoming indistinguishable. For the record, Xiang invested over 500 hours into developing a simulated paradise and to show how such playbor maps onto oppressive socio-economic forces of Late Capitalism (see also Bren Watanabe's Animal Crossing: All Mine)

As she explains on her website:

Until today (March 26th, 2021), I have been in the game for more than 300 days and have never missed one single day since the day one. When looking back at my game log these days, I noticed that some patterns started to emerge, and I became curious about these patterns and about potential meanings, motivations, and implications hidden behind them. Primarily working as a sculptor in my studio practice, I started to create sculptural objects to help me explore and understand my gaming patterns and present my discoveries. In a way, I am using these objects to construct a system or a network that enables me to reiterate my gaming experience using my own artistic language and to contemplate the connections between my idiosyncratic narratives and the world beyond the game. I am also using these objects to help me better understand my role and position as an artist living and working in a world where we are all constantly navigating back and forth between digital and physical contexts.

Xiang's compare-and-contrast approach is perfectly exemplified by these two images featured on her website: 

Xiang's Welcome to the workground to see my playbench is part of Friends Forever: 2021 MFA Exhibit at Carnegie Mellon University. 

Xiang was born and raised in Chengdu, China, and attended Rice University in Houston, Texas, receiving a B.A. in Architecture and Studio Arts in 2018. She is currently based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, pursuing her Master of Fine Arts in Art degree at Carnegie Mellon University.

LINK: Huidi Xiang (all images courtesy of the artist)

GAME ART: CHRIS HOWLETT'S DESERT STORM LOGIC (2018-2019)

CHRIS HOWLETT, DESERT STORM LOGIC, 1-3 channel synched, HD video (16:9), Stereo, PAL. Duration: 20:13 mins

In Chris Howlett's Desert Storm Logic, a naked Bart Simpson's like creature roams the desert of the real. Both a simulacrum and a bricolage  - "an assemblage of human, cartoon, toy, and art-historical parts that were first developed from a life-size sculpted figure that were photogrammetrically captured and digitised into a 3D animated avatar" - the creature is, according to Howlett, a machinimator, both a character in a fictional story and the artist's alter ego, as creator. Doomed to repeat the same inconsequential actions in an environment that look realistic but does not behave like concrete reality, the machinimator is simultaneously at home and lost in a world of floating signifiers and deranged memes. Desert Storm Logic is unfinished, or rather, ongoing. A collection of screen-captured clips generated from Unreal engine, photogrammetry, and 3D scans, Desert Storm Logic adopts the logic of the update to redefine the notion of the upgradable work of art, firstly championed by Walter Benjamin. 

LINK: Chris Howlett

EVENT: CHRIS HOWLETT'S NEW STATEMENTS (15-17 MAY 2019, BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA)

New Statements is a new media exhibition by Chris Howlett that showcases an installation of interactive and screen-based machinima works that were developed from 2016-19 for his PhD. This practice–led research project explores the operations of a ‘techno-stice’ that demonstrates digital technology's capacity to generate dissensual space in the form of new subjectivities and ethico-political perspectives in contemporary art.

Chris Howlett, Joystick Drama, 2017-2019

LINK: Chris Howlett

GAME ART: REGINE PETERSEN'S CIVILIZATION II (2013)

Regine Petersen, Civilization II hit by Park Forest meteorite in 2003,Archival pigment ink print, 130 x 108 cm

Regine Petersen (b. 1976 in Hamburg, Germany) received her MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art, London (2009). Her work has been presented in various solo and group shows internationally, such as Rencontres d'Arles in France, Foam Museum in Amsterdam and Aperture Gallery in New York. She captures moments that are both spontaneous and carefully engineered. These images are a vehicle for thinking, for ruminating on the balance between what is visible and invisible, and the fine line between intimacy and detachment. She often chooses subjects that can be studied from various angles, like meteorites, which she examines as cosmological, astronomical, geological, philosophical, historical, and emotional artifacts. She also photographs objects hit by meteorites, like the package of Sid Meier's Civilization II. A premediation of the planet's imminent destruction? 

LINK: Regine Petersen 

EVENT: BRENTON ALEXANDER SMITH'S I FEEL LIKE A NERVOUS WRECK (APRIL 1-30 2019, ONLINE)

Brenton Alexander Smith

I feel like a nervous wreck

Closed on Monday gallery 

April 1-30 2019

Closed on Monday Is an online gallery that is experienced like a video game. It is a 3D space that the ‘player’ can move around in to experience the works. You can visit the gallery right now at closedonmondaygallery.com. Brenton Alexander Smith's exhibition I feel like a nervous wreck is showing in the gallery until the end of the month, and will likely be accessible in the archive section of the website afterwards. Here, his crashforms have been extracted from the environment of BeamNg.drive and placed into the new context of this gallery. These crashforms begin to move as you approach them, returning an element of interactivity to how they are experienced. 

LINK: Brenton Alexander Smith

GAME ART: Sarp Kerem Yavuz' Curse of the Forever Sultan (2018)

Sarp Kerem Yavuz' Curse of the Forever Sultan™

Anna Laudel Contemporary

September 20 -27 2018

Bankalar Caddesi 10
Karaköy, Beyoğlu
34421 Istanbul, Turkey

Curse of the Forever Sultan is a series of neon sculptures created by  Sarp Kerem Yavuz depicting various traditional Ottoman characters from the 18th and 19th centuries. The cartoony, skeletal structure of these sculptures is an homage to videogames from the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly the 1997 LucasArts game, The Curse of Monkey Island, from which the series gets its name. Each sculpture is life-sized or larger, and designed as a 2-dimensional caricature of a member of the Ottoman court or military. It is hard not to see the references to current events and especially the identity of the so-called Forever Sultan...

Sarp Kerem Yavuz, Okçu (Archer), 2018. Neon, 180x93cm

Sarp Kerem Yavuz' Curse of the Forever Sultan™ will be on display at Anna Laudel Contemporary between September 20 – 27, 2018. 

Born in Paris in 1991 and raised in Istanbul, Sarp Kerem Yavuz is a visual artist working primarily with photography, light projection, and video. He received his Bachelor's Degree in Studio Art with Honors from Oberlin College in 2013, and his Master of Fine Arts Degree in Studio Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015. His works explore various aspects of gender, politics, religion, and violence. He is the recipient of several international accolades, including the 2016 Palm Springs Photo Festival Emerging Photographer award, presented by Leica Camera, the 2013 New Artists Society Award from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the 2013 Leah Freed Memorial Prize. He currently lives and works between Chicago and Istanbul.

LINK: Sarp Kerem Yavuz

EVENT: WHAT IS WITHOUT THE HAND THAT WIELDS IT: X (REDUX) (November 3-4 2018, Sydney, Australia)

WHAT IS WITHOUT THE HAND THAT WIELDS IT: X REDUX

Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Sydney, Australia

Saturday November 3 2018 
Cockatoo Island
11:30 AM - 5:30 PM

Performance times/Saturday (3 Nov):
11:30AM – 12PM
2:30PM – 3PM
5:30PM – 6PM

The performance is repeated on Sunday November 4

A landmark of Game Art returns a decade later.

In 2007/2008 Harmon created What it is Without the Hand That Wields It, an electronic mechanical sculpture that was connected to modified version of the first-person shooter video game Counterstrike. When gamers on the internet killed one another, the sculpture manifested the virtual kills physically by releasing small amounts of blood into a gallery, thereby bridging the two realities. Now 10 years later, Harmon stages WIIWTHTWI: X Redux – a resurrected slipstream version of the work manifesting the gamer commentary in the form of an endurance performance and new electronics. This new version has escalated with time – however what, if anything, has changed?

Riley Harmon is a US artist working in the Netherlands and his creative activity originated growing up in community-oriented theatre. Central to his practice is a process of weaving truth, fiction and magical realism into works and narratives that offer an uncanny distorted mirror to our reality – which take shape in performances, films, objects, live experiences, installations and collaboration with other artists. His current artistic practice traverses the social psychology phenomenon of 'terror management theory'; or how symbolic actions both mediate against, yet also reinforce mortal terror. His projects and collaborations have been internationally written about in such publications as Rolling Stone, Wired, American Theatre Magazine and he has exhibited, performed, and screened works internationally – at such venues as the Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst (Montevideo), FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) in Liverpool, de Appel, EYE Film Museum, Schin Kunsthalle, among others – as well as self-made contexts.  

LINK: Riley Harmon

LINK: What it is Without the Hand That Wields It: X Redux

Event: Open World: Video Games & Contemporary Art (Akron, Ohio, 2019-2020)

Curated by Theresa Bembnister, Associate Curator at Akron Art Museum, Open World: Video Games & Contemporary Art is bound to be one of the most impressive exhibitions entirely dedicated to Game Art of the late Tens. Open in October 2019 and running until January 2020, the exhibition will  feature many artworks that are influenced by the popularity and cultural relevance of video games. Open World will include paintings, sculpture, prints, textiles, drawing, animation, video games and modifications and game-based performances and interventions by international artists from the late 1980s to today. The expression "open world" refers both to a genre of gaming where players can define their own goals within a virtual landscape rather than following predetermined paths, but also to the opportunities video games offer for creative expression. The exhibition will also feature early arcade games, text adventure, modern multi-player online games and first-person shooters. Commercial games will not be included, making Open World: Video Games & Contemporary Art the antithesis of The Smithsonian's The Art of Games. The full line up has not been announced yet, but artists confirmed include Butt Johnson (New York), Angelo Ray Martinez (South Bend, Indiana), Tim Portlock (St. Louis), Suzanne Treister (London) and Angela Washko (Pittsburgh). Other artists under considerations are Tabor Robak, Cory Arcangel and many more. The Akron Art Museum recently received a $30.000 grant by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of its first major funding for fiscal year 2018. The grant will be used to fund the exhibition.

Stay tuned for more information. 

LINK: Akron Art Museum

Call for submission: Vector Festival 2018 (deadline: 12/23/2017)

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Vector Festival 2018
Topic: Born Digital
Deadline: Saturday, December 23rd 2017 (midnight)

Now entering its sixth year, Vector Festival is a participatory and community-oriented event showcasing artistic practices that engage critically with new media and digital game technologies. Presenting works across a dynamic range of exhibitions, screenings, performances, lectures, panels, and workshops, Vector Festival acts as a critical bridge between emergent digital platforms and new media art practice. In recent years, the festival has broadened its scope to include a wider spectrum of works critically engaging with many aspects of emerging digital technologies. The festival is proud to be a participatory and community-oriented initiative organized by InterAccess in Toronto, Ont. 

Since 2013, Vector Festival has developed an active presence in regional and international communities related to co ntemporary art and critical game cultures. Curators Martin Zeilinger and Katie Micak invite you to contribute artworks for consideration toward festival programming, which will include a feature exhibition at InterAccess throughout the month of July and August, along with off-site screenings, performances, workshops, and panels from July 12-15, 2018. Note that Vector Festival does not charge submission fees to artists applying to participate.

This iteration of the festival turns its focus on the births (and deaths) of the digital. What might it mean to witness the birth of a new technology, or to be ‘born digital’? How does the term ‘digital native’ function in relation to this? How can technologies mold or inform identity? How do artists adopt, advance, hack, or dismantle digital technologies, to critically reflect on their meanings and implications? How does analogue detritus live on in the digital? What comes after the digital, how do post-human ist, post-digital, and post-Internet artistic perspectives inflect these questions?

Invoking everything from endlessly spawning game avatars to ‘permadeath,’ from media-archeological excavations to futurological speculation, from generative digital creation to the digital purgatories of discussion boards and spam, we invite emerging and established artists from diverse perspectives and backgrounds to contribute their critical explorations of these and related concerns and interests.

The curators seek works for the following programs:

Flagship Exhibition:
Artworks (including interactive installations, experimental game mods, sculptural work, screen-based work, sound art, etc.) for the festival flagship exhibition

Online Exhibition:
Digital artworks that can be exhibited online

Festival Screening:
Film/video/machinima works for the festival screening

Performance: 
Performance-based propos als (including sound art, live coding, chipmusic concerts, as well as performances and interventions in virtual and public spaces.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

1. Project description and artist statement (2 pages maximum)
2. Documentation (maximum five images and one video; ideally, please provide an online streaming link)
3. Detailed description of technical requirements (please outline materials provided by the artist and materials expected from the exhibiting venue)
4. Current CV (3 pages maximum)
5. Artist biography (100 words)

Send your submissions by Saturday, December 23, 2017 at midnight to [email protected] using the subject line VECTOR 2018 SUBMISSION. Attachments should not exceed 15MB. Please indicate which program your submission falls under. All artists selected for participation will receive artist fees, as well as support to apply for external funding.

About Vector Festival
Founded in 2013, Vector F estival is a participatory and community-oriented initiative dedicated to showcasing digital games and creative media practices. Presenting works across a dynamic range of exhibitions, screenings, performances, lectures, and workshops, Vector acts as a critical bridge between emergent digital platforms and new media art practice.

About InterAccess
Founded in 1983 as Toronto Community-Videotex, InterAccess is a non-profit gallery, educational facility, production studio, and festival dedicated to emerging practices in art and technology. InterAccess’s mission is to expand the cultural significance of art and technology by fostering and supporting the full cycle of art and artistic practice through education, production, and exhibition. Annually we execute multiple exhibitions, a full curriculum of skill-building and critical theory workshops, and a broad range of discursive events that explore the impact of technology on the social, political and cultural aspect s of contemporary life. Our studio space facilitates the circulation of skills and techniques required to produce the work we exhibit in our gallery space.

InterAccess Gallery Hours

Tuesday - Saturday, 11-6
Open until 8pm each Wednesday
Admission is always free
9 Ossington Ave.
Toronto, Ontario

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

Deadline: 2017-12-23 23:12:00

LINK: Vector Festival

Game Art: Mathew Zefeldt and game aesthetics

Martin Zefeldt, When You're Dead, You're Dead: Part 2, 2013, Acrylic on Canvas. 55 x 40 inches COPYRIGHT © 2017, MATHEW ZEFELDT.

Painter Martin Zefeldt's (b. 1987 in Clayton, California) combines ancient Greek imagery with video game aesthetics borrowed from first person shooters like Castle Wolfenstein, Doom and Duke Nukem. His style is both explosive and methodical, with the same motifs often repeated obsessively on the same canvas. His retro-nostalgic ludic influences are often juxtaposed to more traditional art themes appropriated from a variety of sources - from popular culture to classical styles, from art history to the vernacular. Some paintings, like Green Screen Shadow Rain (2016), seem to evoke the vibrant and syrupy palettes of Candy Crush. Others create dazzling and dizzying effects, trompe l'oeils 2.0.  His 2D reproductions of barrels, doors (like this one from Duke Nukem), mirrors (do you recognize this one?) and pipes remind me of both Aram Bartholl and Damiano Colacito's obsessions. Zefeldt has not simply captured the zeitgeist: he's updating it. 

Martin Zefeldt, Desktop, 2016, Soap Factory, Installation View COPYRIGHT © 2017, MATHEW ZEFELDT.

Mathew Zefeldt  received his MFA in Studio Art at University of California, Davis in 2011. He previously graduated in Art at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His work has been exhibited in several solo and group shows across the United States. 

LINK: Martin Zefeldt