GAMESCENES

EVENT: MALITZIN CORTÉS (CNDSD) AND IVÁN ABREU (OCTOBER 1 - 10 2024, ONLINE)

AUTOCONSTRUCCIÓN

digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 13’ 52”, 2024, Mexico

created by Malitzin Cortés (CNDSD) and Iván Abreu

vral.org

 

Originally conceived and performed as a live-coded audiovisual concert and real-time video game animation, Autoconstrucción was collaboratively created by Malitzin Cortés (CNDSD) and Iván Abreu. The project, executed through algorithms and unfolding across four distinct chapters, was performed in Mexico City (2022), Madrid (2023), Utrecht (2023), and Shanghai (2023). The segment presented on VRAL features a generated version of episode 2, entitled Floating City - Floating Population. This episode explores the concept of a transient population inhabiting cities, with AI creating hybrid architectural facades that reflect the empty character of many peripheral cities during the day.

Malitzin Cortés (CNDSD) is a renowned musician, live coder, and creative technologist. Her multifaceted work encompasses live coding, live cinema, installation art, virtual reality, creative coding, sound design, experimental music, and sound art. In 2020, she was awarded the Latin American Prize for Virtual Reality “Realmix” for her immersive piece “Hyper_D.” Malitzin is currently a workshop instructor in live coding with functional programming using Tidal Cycles on the educational platform of CMMAS. She has showcased her work at prominent venues and events including the Multimedia Center, Alameda Art Laboratory, Ex-Teresa Arte Actual, Digital Cultural Center, Medialab Prado, Spain Cultural Center, CMMAS, Vorspiel, Spektrum Berlin, Transpiksel, Aural, Transmediale Berlin, ISEA, CYLAND MediaArtLab Saint Petersburg, ADAF, Ars Electronica, Currents, as well as MUTEK in Mexico, Montreal, and Japan. CNDSD’s soundscapes are crafted for experimental environments, characterized by granular landscapes, algorithmic vocal experiments, hypnotic noise improvisations, live coding, and asymmetric patterns, pushing the boundaries of musical and sonic exploration. Cortés lives and works in Mexico City.

Iván Abreu is an esteemed audiovisual artist and creative technologist based in Mexico City. His interdisciplinary practice spans a diverse array of media, including digital graphics, photography, electronic devices, software development, music and sound experimentation, expanded film and video, and industrial design. Abreu's innovative work has garnered numerous accolades and support from prestigious institutions. These include the Prix Ars Electronica (2012, Linz, Austria), the CINTAS Foundation Award in Visual Arts (2011-12, New York/Miami), and the ZKM Production and Research Residence – Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany (2021). He has also been supported by the National Fund for Culture and the Arts, through the National System of Art Creators (2012-2014, 2017-2019, and 2022-2025, Mexico). Abreu's audiovisual creations have been showcased at prominent international festivals dedicated to sound art, experimental music, and media art. His work has been featured at the International Conference of Live Coding in Madrid, Aural, Transmediale Berlin, MUTEK in Mexico and Montreal, the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), and the Asia Culture Center in Korea.

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EVENT: GIATH TAHA (AUGUST 30 - SEPTEMBER 12 2024, ONLINE)

BECOMING A GHOST

digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 21’ 09”, 2022, Syria

created by Giath Taha

vral.org

Originally a four-channel video installation and presented on VRAL as a single-channel video, Becoming a Ghost documents Syrian-born artist Giath Taha’s emotional reunion with his brother in the online game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG). Separated for ten years due to the Syrian conflict, Taha and his brother reconnect in this digital warzone, which mirrors the real-life violence that forced Taha to flee Syria. Although the game involves players competing to be the last one standing, it paradoxically becomes a safe space for the brothers to discuss topics censored elsewhere. The work explores themes of presence and absence, reality and simulation, and how virtual spaces can offer temporary escape from harsh realities. Through their mediated interaction in PUBG, Taha and his brother create counter-narratives and find moments of connection despite their physical separation. Becoming a Ghost explores themes of presence and absence, reality and simulation, and the interplay between virtual and real-life experiences.

Giath Taha was born in Syria in 1982 and studied Photography and Applied Arts at the Walled Izzat Institute in Damascus and Literature at the University of Damascus, Syria. He subsequently graduated from the MA Artistic Research at the Royal Academy of Arts (KABK) in The Hague in 2021. He received both the MA Artistic Research Department Award 2021 as well as the Royal Academy Master Award 2021 for his graduation work Becoming a Ghost (2021). Taha lives and works in Amsterdam.

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EVENT: GROUP HUG (SEPTEMBER 26 - OCTOBER 20 2024, NEW YORK)

Concept art for Feral Metaverse by Connor Willumsen, courtesy of ONX Studio

Group Hug

curated by Julia Kaganskiy in partnership with Serpentine Arts Technologies and Rhizome

161 Water St, Floor 4 - Entrance on Water & John Street, New York

September 26 to October 20, 2024

Opening and Public Hours: To be announced

 

Group Hug is an ambitious exhibition that aims to redefine the boundaries of video game installations. Held in collaboration with Water Street Projects and curated by Julia Kaganskiy in partnership with Serpentine Arts Technologies and Rhizome, this exhibition transforms the London gallery space into a dynamic playground where visitors are invited to explore and engage with large-scale, site-specific works.

Group Hug challenges the conventions of individualistic gameplay by promoting radical collaboration. Through a selection of pioneering works by leading artists in the field, the exhibition foregrounds cooperative experiences where communication, shared discovery, and mutual reliance are essential for navigating unfamiliar worlds. Visitors will find themselves immersed in multi-sensory environments that blur the lines between player and participant, artist and audience.

The exhibition is a testament to our evolving curatorial model, which emphasizes collective curation and diverse perspectives. Alongside the installations, Group Hug will feature a series of public programs, set to be announced in early September, that further explore the themes of collaboration and community.

Featured artists: Theo Triantafyllidis, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, and Tale of Tales

Artworks

Still from Feral Metaverse courtesy of Theo Triantafyllidis and ONX Studio

Theo Triantafyllidis – Feral Metaverse Triantafyllidis’s Feral Metaverse drops players into a chaotic landscape where survival depends on disinhibition and cooperation. Breaking away from traditional gaming logic, the work invites participants to navigate a world that prioritizes collective action over competition. The installation, anchored by a custom-built medieval catapult, embodies the artist’s vision of a “feralized” society where synchronicity and shared experience take precedence. Feral Metaverse is curated for Group Hug by Julia Kaganskiy.

Theo Triantafyllidis (b. 1988, Athens) is an artist who blends digital and physical media to explore space and embodiment in hybrid realities. His work, characterized by awkward interactions and precarious physics, invites viewers into uncanny and poetic environments. Using monster theory, Triantafyllidis delves into themes of isolation, sexuality, and violence, often incorporating computational humor and AI improvisation. He holds an MFA from UCLA and a Diploma of Architecture from the National Technical University of Athens. His work has been exhibited in institutions such as the House of Electronic Arts, Hammer Museum, and NRW Forum, and he has participated in events like the Athens Biennale, Sundance New Frontier, and the Venice Biennale.

Still from THE LACK: I KNEW YOUR VOICE BEFORE YOU SPOKE courtesy of Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley and ONX Studio

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley – THE LACK: I KNEW YOUR VOICE BEFORE YOU SPOKE Brathwaite-Shirley’s THE LACK is a deeply personal exploration of Black Trans identity through the lens of a choose-your-own-adventure game. The installation incorporates performance elements, with bespoke dance mats serving as controllers and soundscapes generated by player interaction. In this space, the audience becomes a crucial part of the work, blurring the line between creator and participant. Curated by Serpentine Arts Technologies, THE LACK transforms the gallery into a site of active engagement.

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley (b. 1995, London) is a Berlin/London-based artist working in animation, sound, performance, and video game development. Their practice creatively retells the stories of Black Trans people by blending lived experience with fiction. Brathwaite-Shirley's work has been featured in solo exhibitions and performances at venues including Fundació Joan Miró, LAS, Studio Voltaire, and SCAD, and in group exhibitions at institutions such as the Julia Stoschek Foundation and Barbican. They received a BA from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2019.

Still from The Endless Forest courtesy of Tale of Tales and ONX Studio

Tale of Tales – The Endless Forest In The Endless Forest, players inhabit the tranquil world of a multiplayer online game where they explore a vast forest as deer. Devoid of traditional goals or objectives, the game encourages peaceful interaction and exploration. This dreamlike environment, sustained by a dedicated community for nearly two decades, is curated for Group Hug by Rhizome.

Auriea studied sculpture at Parsons in New York, and Michael graphic design at Sint-Lucas in Ghent. They began their digital art careers with entropy8.com and zuper.com, meeting in 1999 through the hell.com artists collective. As the duo Entropy8Zuper!, they created notable net.art projects like Skinonskinonskin and The Godlove Museum, earning the SFMOMA Prize for Excellence in Online Art in 2000. Transitioning to video games as Tale of Tales, they released influential titles such as The Endless Forest, The Graveyard, and The Path. Their game Luxuria Superbia won the IGF Nuovo Prize in 2014, and they received Indiecade's Trailblazer award in 2018. Since 2015, Michael has focused on virtual reality and Auriea on digital sculpture. They relocated from Ghent to Rome in 2019 and married in 2024.

Exhibition Partners

Water Street Projects An interdisciplinary platform dedicated to amplifying creative voices across performance, visual arts, and more, Water Street Projects operates with a fluid and expansive approach that invokes the spirit of Cedric Price’s unrealized Fun Palace—a laboratory of fun and a university of the streets.

Julia Kaganskiy As a curator and cultural strategist, Julia Kaganskiy has been at the forefront of art, science, and technology since 2009. Her work explores the intersection of these fields through exhibitions and commissions that challenge and expand our understanding of contemporary art.

Serpentine Arts Technologies A leading force in exploring the impact of technology through art, Serpentine’s Arts Technologies program fosters innovation and supports projects that navigate the intersection of art, science, and technology. Through dedicated research labs and knowledge-sharing initiatives, the program nurtures new art ecologies.

Rhizome A pioneering organization in the digital art space, Rhizome has been integral to the development and preservation of digital art since its founding. With initiatives like the 7x7 art and technology program and a longstanding partnership with the New Museum, Rhizome continues to champion digital art for all.

LINK: Group Hug @ ONX Studio

LINK: Theo Triantafyllidis

LINK: Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley

LINK: Tale of Tales

EVENT: MACHINE LOVE: VIDEO GAME, AI AND CONTEMPORARY ART (FEBRUARY 13 - JUNE 8 2025, TOKYO)

Sato Ryotaro, Dummy Life #11, 2022, Inkjet print, 12.4 ｘ 14.8 cm

MACHINE LOVE: Video Game, AI and Contemporary Art

February 13 - June 8 2025

Mori Art Museum

6-10-1, 六本木ヒルズ 森タワー 52F, 六本木, JP 106-6150

Curated by Kataoka Mami, Martin Germann, Yahagi Manabu

press release

With the explosive growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and the integration of the virtual and real worlds, the latest cutting-edge technologies have quickly penetrated our daily lives. This tendency has become especially apparent since the COVID-19 pandemic, when many human activities shifted towards virtual space. Looking back, the progress of art and technology has run parallel to each other throughout the course of history, which is especially evident in the field of computer art and video art. While recent innovations in video game engines and AI offer unprecedented possibilities for artists, the advent of generative AI also has raised significant concerns. Such developments are now attracting considerable attention in various fields and industries, including the contemporary art world.

MACHINE LOVE introduces contemporary artworks that employ game engines, VR and AR, and other innovative technologies that have the capacity to extend human creative power, such as algorithms and generative AI. These works explore new aesthetics and image-making through the use of various data-sets that exist in the digital space, while demonstrating novel approaches to art making made possible by interactive networks of countless individuals. Other works examine how online avatars and characters can nurture new types of gender and racial identities that lie beyond the reach of social norms. By adopting these methods, artists delve into the most pressing challenges facing contemporary society, including the environmental crisis, historical interpretation, humanity, ethics, and diversity.

By exhibiting artworks jointly created by “machines” and artists, and offering immersive spatial experiences through large-scale installations, this exhibition provides a platform to contemplate the relationship between humankind and technology, which evokes emotions of love, empathy, elation, fear, and anxiety. Join us in a space where reality and virtual space overlap in order to envision better ways to live out an uncertain future.

Participating Artists: Kim Ayoung, Lu Yang, Sato Ryotaro, Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Adrián Villar Rojas, and others

Advisors: Hatanaka Minoru (Chief Curator, NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC]), Taniguchi Akihiko (Media Artist)

LINK: MACHINE LOVE: Video Game, AI and Contemporary Art

EVENT: ALICE BUCKNELL (AUGUST 2 - 15 2024, ONLINE)

The Alluvials

digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 38’ 05”, 2023, United States of America

Created by Alice Bucknell

 

The Alluvials is a seven-chapter video work — and video game — that delves into the politics of drought and water scarcity in a near-future Los Angeles. The narrative unfolds through diverse more-than-human perspectives, including the Los Angeles River, wildfire, a 400-year-old sycamore named El Aliso, and the ghost of the city’s famed mountain lion, P-22. Combining history, futurism, and speculative fiction, The Alluvials examines the complex interplay between engineered ecology, disaster capitalism, and nonhuman systems shaping Los Angeles. The story is presented across various media, featuring custom-built game environments, modified versions of the fictional city Los Santos from Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto V, 3D scans of LA captured by drone, AI-generated “hallucinations” merging historical images of the River with future development proposals, and visualizations of GIS and pollution data of the LA River. The project acknowledges Indigenous unique relationships to water, particularly those of the Tongva People of the Greater Los Angeles Basin, emphasizing that nature is an intelligent system and a technology in its own right.

Alice Bucknell is a North American artist and writer based in Los Angeles. Working with game engines and speculative fiction strategies, their work explores interconnections of architecture, ecology, magic, and nonhuman and machine intelligence.In 2021, they founded New Mystics, a digital platform merging magic and technology. In 2022, they organized New Worlds, an experimental event series expanding on emergent worlding practices, held at Somerset House Studios in London. They have presented their work internationally, with recent exhibitions at Ars Electronica with transmediale, Arcade Seoul, the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale, Honor Fraser Gallery in Los Angeles, Gray Area in San Francisco, Basement Roma in Rome, Singapore Art Museum, The Museum of Modern Art in Fort Worth, Texas, Fiber Festival in the Netherlands, and Serpentine in London. Their writing appears often in publications including ArtReview, Flash Art, Frieze, e-flux Architecture, and the Harvard Design Magazine. They are currently faculty at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles and an Associate Lecturer in MA Narrative Environments at University of the Arts London. In 2023, they are a Supercollider SciArt Ambassador in Los Angeles, a resident of Somerset House Studios in London, and a resident at transmediale in Berlin. Bucknell studied Anthropology at the University of Chicago and Critical Practice at the Royal College of Art in London.

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GAME ART: BABAK AHTESHAMIPOUR’S THE CRYPTIC ECLIPSE OF AN ENDANGERED GOO (2024)

WARNING: this video may potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised. 

Babak Ahteshamipour’s third machinima in the ongoing series accompanying the release of Violent Violins Exposed is a shocking assault on the senses.

The artist statement is below:

"The Cryptic Eclipse of an Endangered Goo features a video clip that is composed of hyper-processed gameplay footage of Need for Speed: Carbon, meticulously modified to defy gravity, introduce a force field, and spawn cars in perpetuity. Intermittently, the chaotic atmosphere is punctuated by AI-generated sports cars hurtling forward, accelerating, and exploding, creating a vivid, glitch-ridden tapestry that intricately syncs with the intensity of the track.

The title of the track hints towards the depletion and imminent extinction of fossil fuels, a critical resource dominated by the relentless grip of the oil industry, signifying technocapitalism's insatiable accelerated hunger for them. Cars, emblems of fossil fuel consumption with their reliance on gasoline — but also from other construction materials derived from oil and other extracted materials — become representational agents of accelerationism. This symbol is strategically employed to dive into the hastening pace of environmental depletion as a consequence of technocultural acceleration.

The turbulent nature of the track and its video act as echoes of the repercussions caused by overextraction and overconsumption, implying towards the global consequences of such excessive practices: environmental pollution, plastic proliferation derived from oil, and catastrophic incidents like the Sidoarjo mud flow or the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Despite the alarming ecological and ethical crises depicted, the video underscores the paradoxical demand for more resources, highlighting the relentless pursuit within the accelerating trajectory of technocapitalism.

The selection of the term Carbon alludes to the hydrocarbons constituting crude oil. Need For Speed: Carbon becomes more than a video game title; it transforms into a gesture for the accelerated craving for fossil fuels. Speed evolves into an engineered desire that warps the concept of mobility, camouflaging its yearning for inertia." (Babak Ahteshamipour)

LINK: Babak Ahteshamipour

EVENT: FERNANDO PEREIRA GOMES (JULY 19 - AUGUST 1 2024, ONLINE)

Light Study

digital video (1280 x 720), color, sound, 28’ 32”, 2015, Brazil

created by Fernando Pereira Gomes

 

In Light Study, a male avatar from Grand Theft Auto V stands unwavering, gazing into the camera for nearly thirty minutes as weather and light conditions shift subtly yet continuously, painting the scene with an ever-changing palette. The camera remains mostly fixed, with slight movements adding to the contemplative stillness. Dominant wind sounds blend with ambient city noises, creating an immersive backdrop. The artist discovered this scene by accident when the game idled into screen-saver mode. He noticed the light changing on the avatar’s face from morning to night and back. Fascinated by this passage of time, he recorded the scene, furthering his exploration of digital realms and their parallels with our experience of life and time.

Fernando Pereira Gomes was born in São Paulo, Brasil in 1993, currently living and working in Paonia, Colorado. After spending his teenage years in Europe, Gomes moved to New York where he earned his BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts (SVA). In New York, he created a body of street photography depicting life in the city, seeking moments of stillness and poetry within the ever buzzing metropolis. In 2014, his groundbreaking in-game photography series Procedural Generation garnered international attention, both in print and online, culminating in a solo exhibition curated by Alexandra Ungern-Sternberg at Ateliê Alê in São Paulo, Brazil, titled Geração Processual. Additionally, selected images were featured in the group exhibition Transition at the Y Gallery in Minsk, Belarus, also in 2014. Gomes’s work has been presented at prominent venues such as the Noorderlicht Photofestival, Miami-Project, and Photo-LA.

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EVENT: FILE 2024: QUBIT AI (JULY 3 - AUGUST 25 2024, SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL)

FILE 2024: QUBIT AI

July 3 - August 25 2024

Centro Cultural FIESP

Avenida Paulista, 1313 Em frente a estação Trianon-Masp do Metrô

Bela Vista, São Paulo - SP, 01311-200, Brazil

 

In the heart of São Paulo, at the FIESP Cultural Center, the FILE 2024 festival unfurls a groundbreaking intersection of art and technology through its latest exhibition, QUBIT AI: Quantum Computing and Synthetic Artificial Intelligence. Curated by Ricardo Barreto and Paula Perissinotto, the exhibition, running from July 3rd to August 25th, promises to redefine the boundaries AI-inspired/co-generated digital art.

At the core of QUBIT AI is the revolutionary potential of quantum computing. This avant-garde technology, characterized by quantum superposition and entanglement, introduces novel creative avenues for artists. Barreto and Perissinotto articulate this paradigm shift in their curatorial text, emphasizing that quantum computing heralds an unprecedented frontier for both computer science and the arts.

For the first time, an art exhibition features a fully operational Quantum Computer. This cutting-edge inclusion is complemented by two pioneering Brazilian projects: Quantum Photography by Gabriela Barreto Lemos and Sounding Qubits by Eduardo Reck Miranda. Lemos’ work explores the visual possibilities inherent in quantum phenomena, while Miranda's installation translates the enigmatic behaviors of qubits into an auditory experience.

While quantum computing represents a nascent technological revolution, synthetic artificial intelligence is already reshaping artistic landscapes. Synthetic art, produced through AI in collaboration with human creativity, parallels the radical shifts of early modernity, offering new methods of creation across diverse media.

The exhibition's synthetic art section is divided into four thematic areas: Sound Synthetics, Aesthetic Synthetics, Cinematic Synthetics, and Architectural Synthetics. One of the standout installations, INTERATOR, is a three-dimensional cinema without VR glasses. This immersive experience allows viewers to navigate a space filled with simultaneous synthetic video projections, creating an interactive dialogue between the audience and the art.

Highlighted artists within Sound Synthetics include Dennis Schöneberg, whose works such as Bodydub and Transparenza blend visual and auditory stimuli to craft a multisensory narrative. The Spanish collective Iskarioto's dystopian AI films, paired with AI-generated music, further push the envelope of what synthetic art can achieve.

QUBIT AI’s interactive installations invite visitors to become active participants in the art. Klaus Obermaier's EGO uses the concept of alienation from psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan to distort the viewer's reflection, examining the tension between reality and symbolism. "The Forgettable Art Machine" places the visitor at the nexus of art and technology, turning each interaction into a personalized masterpiece.

Elizabeth Kolbert's influence is evident in Speculative Evolution, Prototype 1, an AI-driven simulator that allows visitors to create new species within a speculative ecosystem. Marc Vilanova’s Cascade immerses viewers in the hidden frequencies of waterfalls, transforming auditory experiences into a sensory exploration of environmental soundscapes.

Seph Li's Everything Before, Everything After transforms collective touch into a dynamic digital painting, capturing the fluidity of interaction in a visual symphony. Holly Herndon’s AI voice model, Holly+, stars in the music video Jolene, featuring Sam Rolfes, which showcases the capabilities of synthetic performers and their impact on contemporary music.

Complementing QUBIT AI, the FILE LED Show 2024 illuminates Fiesp's facade with innovative creations from USP Visual Arts Course and IED São Paulo students. Under the guidance of Dr. Silvia Laurentiz and Daniel Grizando, these collaborations highlight the interdisciplinary nature of design and the transformative power of university partnerships

QUBIT AI at FILE 2024 is not merely an exhibition; it is a visionary journey into the future of art. By integrating quantum computing and synthetic AI, it challenges and expands our understanding of creativity, inviting us to explore the uncharted territories where art and technology converge.

LINK: FILE 2024: QUIBIT AI

EVENT: ZHOU YAN'S CLOUD 9 (MAY 25 -JULY 7 2024, BEIJING, CHINA)

Zhou Yan, Blind Field (video still),
2022–2024, interactive video installation, real time, image
courtesy of the artist and SPURS Gallery

Zhou Yan, a Beijing-born artist with an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, is renowned for his experimental approach, blending video installations, sculptures, paintings, and interactive media. His practice often interrogates the relational dynamics between individuals and collectives, delving into the subtleties of causality and interdependence. In Cloud 9, running from May 25 to July 7, 2024 at SPURS Gallery, Beijing, Zhou amplifies this exploration by leveraging video game engine technology to create real-time video installations that challenge viewers' perceptions and interactions.

The centerpiece of the exhibition, Blind Field (2022–2024), epitomizes Zhou's innovative use of technology. Inspired by his experience in an MRI scanner, the installation invites the audience into a simulated environment where their movements alter the visual narrative. By stepping on an interactive pedal, viewers disrupt the video imagery, evoking a sense of restricted vision and prompting reflections on the limits of perception and knowledge. This piece underscores Zhou's ability to translate personal anxiety into a universal commentary on human experience.

Cloud 9 is a testament to Zhou's capacity to transform his personal pandemic experiences into profound artistic expressions. The animation installation Trophy (2024) mirrors the triumphant display of video game achievements, using three short animations to symbolize the erasure of process and the finality of completion. In contrast, Shortcut (2024) revives the journey, drawing from Zhou’s bouldering experiences to scatter remnants of intense physical activity throughout the gallery. These works encapsulate the dichotomy of finality and continuity, resonating with the fragmented nature of pandemic life.

Zhou Yan, Trophy 3, 2024, GIF
animation, acrylic, LCD screen, 30 x 21 cm, image courtesy of the artist and SPURS Gallery

Zhou Yan, Trophy 2, 2024, GIF
animation, acrylic, LCD screen, 30 x 21 cm, image courtesy of the artist and SPURS Gallery

The exhibition also features Endless Waiting (2024), a golden sculpture that captures the monotony and anticipation of the pandemic period. Nothing (2024), an assemblage of outdoor functional fabric, and Trap (2024), a video work with intermittent lights, further illustrate Zhou's meticulous attention to the mundane and overlooked aspects of modern life. By elevating these “dull, unimportant, and negligible” elements, Zhou imbues them with significant artistic value, inviting viewers to reconsider their own experiences and memories.

Zhou Yan, Blind Field (installation view)
2022–2024, interactive video installation, real time, image
courtesy of the artist and SPURS Gallery

Cloud 9 also reflects Zhou’s skepticism towards societal systems and his quest to unravel their operations. This critical perspective is woven into his works, which often dissect the tension between elitism and anti-intellectualism, a theme that has become more pronounced in the aftermath of the global pandemic. Zhou's art becomes a medium through which he disentangles his personal emotions and life experiences, presenting them as inquiries into the mechanisms of society.

Zhou Yan, born in Beijing, received his BFA in Visual Communication from the Central Academy of Fine Arts and his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His artistic practice explores the interrelations and dependencies between individuals and collectives, focusing on minute details and causality through various media, including video installations, gaming, and artist books. Zhou's work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions such as "Cloud 9" (2024) at SPURS Gallery, Beijing, "Lazarus" (2022) at Click Ten Art Space, and "Pale Fire" (2020) at SPURS Gallery. His group exhibitions include "Motion Is Action—35 Years of Chinese Media Art" (2023) and "Art’s Language, Artists’ Game" (2022). He has also participated in screenings like the 29th Chicago Underground Film Festival (2022) and the 65th International Film Festival Oberhausen (2019). Zhou has received several awards, including the 2023 “RanRan” Young Artist Prize, “The Exploration Award,” and a nomination for the 2020 AAC Young Artist of the Year Award. His artist books are part of the Joan Flash Artist Book Collection in Chicago.

LINK: SPURS gallery

EVENT: 2GIRLS1COMP (JULY 5 - 18 2024, ONLINE)

Dancing Plague

digital video (1920 x 800), color, sound, 6’ 29”, 2024, Switzerland/Italy

created by 2girls1comp

In Dancing Plague, a mod for Grand Theft Auto V, the game’s traditionally gendered choreography is subverted, forcing every male NPC to dance feverishly whenever the player holds the H key. This intervention spotlights the inherent gender biases within the game’s animation system, where dance moves are primarily designed for female performers, often objectified as sex workers. By redirecting these choreographies to male characters, the mod disrupts the rigid gender binaries coded into the game, creating a spectacle where masculinity is both liberated and challenged. Interestingly, the male NPCs’s hypersexualized dance is mostly ignored by the female characters. Such an outcome becomes a playful and potent critique of the game’s inherent gender politics. To enhance the mod’s immersive experience, Azu Tiwaline, a French Tunisian musician known for blending contemporary electronic music with sub-Saharan trance traditions, was commissioned to create the soundtrack. Her work underscores the mod’s themes of ritual, trance, and liberation, providing a sonic backdrop that deepens the critique of gendered biases in digital spaces.

2girls1comp is a modding duo founded in 2023 by Marco De Mutiis (Italy, 1983) and Alexandra Pfammatter (Switzerland, 1993). Their work changes the logic of video games as an act of creative counter-play, revealing the social and economic fabric in which they are immersed: from reclaiming global digital infrastructures to commenting on free labor within the capitalist ideologies of the gaming industry, to showcasing the way play can influence its subjects through its mechanics. Their projects are distributed within the gaming and modding community, as well as cultural and artistic contexts.

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