GAMESCENES

Event: "Game Play: A celebration of Videogame Performance Art" (New York, July 7 – 31, 2011)

"A Celebration of Video Game Performance Art. Now in its 3rd year, the video game performance festival continues in what Seth Schiesel of the New York Times called “the most ambitious effort I know of to fuse the techniques and live presentation of theater with the themes, structures and technology of interactive electronic entertainment.” See the media of stage and game collide in the most unexpected and surprising ways. Game Play explores the collision of technology, theater, performance art, and video game culture by staging the collaborative work of performance and media artists across the digital spectrum." (Brick Theather)

Images courtesy of Brick Theater

Link: Game Play

Submitted by Matteo Bittanti

related: Game Play 2010

Game Art events 

Event: Alexandar Castaneda and Mark Popeney's "irl: In Real Life" (05/26/2011 - 05/29/2011, HOOLIGAN Theatre Company,Los Angeles)

"August is an ex-gamer addict who is trying to pull his life back together with his girlfriend Molly. Against her wishes, August decides to keep a promise and meet up with his friends at a gaming convention. After being confronted by his former guildmates about his relationship with a heartbroken Laura, and the bravado of their new leader, Cort, August is pulled back into the game despite his best intentions. What transpires is a whimsical comedy about discovering your real self, finding true love, and of course, pwning n00bs. Funded by CPC this production is free for UCLA students. Free tickets at the Central Ticket Office. "

HOOLIGAN Theatre Company Thursday - Sunday 8PM
UCLA Sunset Canyon Amphitheatre 
111 DeNeve Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90095 (map)
Box Office 310 - 825-2101
Use parking lot 11. Pay machines available just inside gate for $10
Full Price $24.00

link: irl

Submitted by Matteo Bittabnti (via Things to do in LA) 

Game Art: Jasmine Morand's "Press to Start" (2010)

 

"Cela ressemble à la réalité, cela a le goût de la réalité, cela bouge comme la réalité, mais les actions possibles sont toujours spectaculaires, défiant toute loi physique. Un univers dans lequel il vous est impossible de distinguer les vrais acteurs des faux, les vrais éléments de décor des éléments virtuels.
Y’a-t-il un propos sensé derrière tant d’actes de violence acérée et gratuite ?
Press to Start s’imprègne de la violence relevée dans les jeux vidéo, aussi appelés production vidéoludique. Ludique et jouissif parce que volontairement et foncièrement immoral et cruel.

Création chorégraphique: Compagnie Prototype Status 
Concept: Jasmine Morand
Interprètes: Jasna Kohoutova, Maud Liardon, Jasmine Morand et Laurent Domingues 
Vidéo: Alain Wirth
Scénographie: Véronique Gollut 
Lumière: Alexandre Stillavato
Soutien: Ville de Vevey, Migros pour-cent culturel" (Jasmine Morand)

link: Jasmine Morand

Submitted by Matteo Bittanti 

Game Art: Jake Merkin's "Catch" (2010)

 

"CATCH is a project I put together after a series of disappointing interactions with art. I felt very alienated from high art and was upset by the impression that it was something that was designed to exclude viewers instead of inviting participation. I wanted to make something that was simple, fun, and interactive; that disguised its artistic aspects by striving to make its interactive elements more immersive and physical, rather than intellectual. What I came up with was a game of catch with a ball that housed a wiimote. I harnessed the accelerometer data from the wiimote via bluetooth and wrote a program using Max/MSP and Logic to generate and manipulate 5.1 surround sound and images. It took a couple hundred hours of programming and two days to install. I was fortunate that the space available to me had a professional light board that could take MIDI information and I was able to work with a lighting designer to implement lighting control from Max via a MIDI interface. The installation also featured three redundant projected images generated in jitter. A participant might walk into the dimly lit room and hear a subtle murmur of sound. A poster would prompt them to pick up the ball and the motion would bring up sound and lights as well as brighten the projected images. Any rotation of the ball would manipulate filters and effect parameters, pan the sound in 5.1, and send a MIDI trigger that would start a lighting sequence designed to resemble the general sonic feel of CATCH. An algorithm designed (by my friend Chris Conover) to detect shaking of the ball would trigger a flash of light, randomly select and playback one sample from a pre-loaded set, play a low frequency sine sweep, and would switch the harmonic content and effects of the sound in conjunction with the visual processing of the generated image. The idea behind this was that the change would be triggered when a person caught the ball, indicating a change in turn in the game of catch. The accompanying video exhibits much of what CATCH can do. The footage is taken from the first day of the open installation. Unfortunately, there is no substitute for actual interaction with the ball & wiimote. As such, I would like to make it clear that this video in now way attempts to simulate the experience of CATCH." (Jake Merkin)

Submitted by Matteo Bittanti

Game Art: Francesca Fini's "The Shadow" (2010)

 

 

Francesca Fini, "The Shadow", performance art, interaction design, sounds & graphics, 2010
data gloves by Bionica4Dummies (Fini & Trimarchi)

""To be or not to be?" The question is made by remixing the words of Sir Laurence Olivier in his Hamlet. The question is always the same, eternal, but here gains new meaning. Being or not being here means to decide to exist in the real or virtual. In the performance the most vulgar tools at the base of interaction design and digital entertainment are incorporated within a traditional aesthetic vision that gives them absolutely new and unifying meaning. Technically the performance was designed to use a webcam connected to a real-time software that tracks my movements by associating them with sounds and turning my body into a synthesizer. At the same time my image, projected live on screen behind me, interacts with 3D graphics in order to obtain a kind of augmented reality. The concept behind the performance is the desire of melting togheter two very distant languages: Shakespeare and a video game. So, the onanism of playstation becomes public spectacle, while the aesthetics of ritual theater decomposes in the psychedelia of a videogame." (Francesca Fini)

link: Francesca Fini

Submitted by Matteo Bittanti

Game Art: Christopher Maraffi's "3D Avatar Dance" (2010)

 

"My Avatar Dance live performance draws inspiration from and gives homage to classic pantomime, vaudeville, and dance movements of the past, while updating their interactivity for the future. The routine includes variations of the Mirror Gag, Rope Pull and Ladder Climb Mime, Breakdancing Battle, and a Juggling Toss. To my knowledge, this is one of the first times, if not the first time, that these gestural classics have been done on stage between a human performer and a virtual 3D character in front of a live audience The dance features the Organic Originator (Topher 1.8) dancing with his Digital Doppelganger (Topher 2.0), and is part of a performance study on creating believable real-time character interaction between live performers and digital synthespians on a theatrical set. This interdisciplinary MFA project, called Mimesis & Mocap, applies techniques from pantomime and puppetry to 3D computer animation, while using motion capture technology and projections, to create a hybrid performance medium that seeks to embody and update Craig’s theatrical concept of The Ubermarionette. This piece is my first performance in a new type of live entertainment I call the Theatre of the Avatar." (Topher Maraffi)

"Chris(Topher) Maraffi is a performance artist, technical animator, educator, and author. For over ten years he has lectured on the topic of 3D character rigging at many of the top animation schools and industry conferences, and has written three popular books on the subject. His current MFA research is a cross-disciplinary performance study in creating believable real-time interaction between human performers and 3D characters within a theatrical environment. In the fall he will be starting a PhD to develop expressive and improvisational real-time synthespians."

link: Christopher Maraffi

related

Submitted by Matteo Bittanti

Game Art: Projekt Ariel's "Playing Shakespeare" (2008)

 

"Live performance by the German theatre/media arts group "Projekt A.R.I.E.L." (ARTificial Research In Electronical Live) in 2008 toying around on stage with the features of the FarCry SturmMod. Latter provides an environment in which the places and actions described by William Shakespeare in his play "The Tempest" can be visited, explored, experienced and reflected by the player. If you are interested in our work check out the info and (download) links provided in our profile. Video cut by Sami Bill from "Projekt A.R.I.E.L.""

 

"This video presents excerpts from a TV documentation about the head of the Austrian digital games culture club SUBOTRON, Jogi Neufeld. He explains the purpose of the lectures he organizes as well as his view on the importance of an independent game scene and you can gain an insight on the setup of the lecture given by "Projekt A.R.I.E.L." at the 23rd of May 2009 in Vienna on the topic "Playing Shakespeare - About the creative exchange between theatre and digital games", using our FarCry mod on William Shakespeare`s play "The Tempest" as an alternative to POWERPOINT and as an virtual archive for our practical and theoretical work." (Jogi Neufeld)

link: Projekt A.R.I.E.L.

related

Submitted by Matteo Bittanti

Game Art: Recoil's "Fuck You Buddy" (2010)

""F**k You, Buddy" is a visual and dramatic fusion of “game theory” (a mathematical attempt to pre­dict human behaviour) and the dramaturgical development in computer games over the last decade. From the totalitarian collectivism in games like “Lem­mings” to the anarchistic indi­vidualism in “GTA”. “F**k you, Buddy” is a performance for the sake of the game, a game about winning at any cost and about being born inherently selfish....or?

Video scenography: Ole Kristensen og Jonas Jonagejan
Choreography: Tina Tarpgaard
Dancers: Patricia Pawlik, Maxim-Jo Bech Mcgosh, Nassim Meki and Rumiko Otsuko.
Music: Pelle Skovmand" (Recoil)

Link: Recoil

Submitted by Matteo Bittanti