GAMESCENES

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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PROJECT: THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S GUIDE TO LOS SANTOS

In this video, Marco De Mutiis and Matteo Bittanti introduce The Photographer's Guide to Los Santos, an online companion to the eponymous exhibition which took place in the context of Fotofestival Lenzburg between May 22 and June 23 2024 in Lenzburg, Switzerland.

The Photographer’s Guide to Los Santos is several things at once.

Firstly, it’s a curated archive and expanding resource center documenting the most significant artistic projects created with Grand Theft Auto V in the past decade.

Secondly, it an educational project, introducing students to virtual photography practices through a thematic overview and a series of hands-on exercises.

Thirdly, as an "how to guide", it provides a series of manuals intended to photography and media arts students interested in experimenting with the game.

This online resource currently collects nine projects created by international artists working with Grand Theft Auto V, that is, 2girls1comp, Alan Butler, Raphael Brunk, COLL.EO, Mattia Dagani Rio, Elizabeth Desintaputri, Claire Hentschker, Mascha Negri, and Georgie Roxby Smith, which were all featured in the very first themed exhibition.

The repository is expected to expand substantially over the next few months.

In this video, the curators discuss the nine notable works currently featured in the online archive.

Explore the The Photographer's Guide to Los Santos

EVENT: VRAL #89: EKIEM BARBIER, GUILHEM CAUSSE, QUENTIN L’HELGOUALC’H (JUNE 21 - JULY 4 2024)

Ekiem Barbier, Guilhem Causse, Quentin L’helgoualc’h

Marlowe Drive

digital video, sound, color, 34’, 2017, France

vral.org

 

In Marlowe Drive, an avatar named Adam Kesher embarks on an unconventional journey through Los Santos, a meticulously rendered virtual replica of Los Angeles in Grand Theft Auto V. Adam is crafting a pioneering game video essay, not merely documenting the game and its players, but filming entirely within the game’s landscapes. This ethnographic endeavor blurs the boundaries between reality and fantasy, between players and their digital personas, while exploring the sociocultural dynamics of the simulation. Adam’s quest for a metaphorical bridge linking real-world experiences with virtual realities introduces him to characters and locations within the game that mirror broader societal themes such as ambition, identity, and self-expression. Marlowe Drive invites viewers to reassess the interconnections between gaming and cinema, between tangible realities and our collective imaginations.

Ekiem Barbier is a versatile composer and filmmaker who completed his education in drawing and video at the Montpellier Fine Arts School, graduating in 2017. His creative portfolio includes short fiction and animation films, and he has contributed to various collective exhibitions. Barbier’s directorial works include ANENT (2017) and Marlowe Drive (2017). His most recent project, Knit’s Island (2023), was a collaborative effort with Guilhem Causse and Quentin L’helgoualc’h, and premiered at Visions du Réel and since then screened worldwide, to great critical acclaim. 

Quentin L’helgoualc’h is an artist whose work spans the realms of cinema, drawing, digital imagery, and sculpture, exploring the interplay among these mediums. His artistic inquiries reflect on the societal role of the artist, interlaced with personal fantasies and challenges posed by new technologies. L’helgoualc’h co-directed Marlowe Drive (2017) and Knit's Island (2023), with Ekiem Barbier and Guilhem Causse.

Guilhem Causse explores the intricate relationship between image and sound. Influenced by science fiction, photography, and concrete music, Causse crafts immersive environments characterized by void and resonance, populated with enigmatic forms. He co-directed Marlowe Drive (2017), and Knit's Island (2023), with Ekiem Barbier and Quentin L’helgoualc’h.

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EVENT: GETXOPHOTO 2024: PLAY (JUNE 6 - 20 2024, GETXO, THE BASQUE COUNTRY)

GETXOPHOTO 2024: PLAY

June 6 - 30 2024

Curated by María Ptqk

Getxo, Basque Country

map and schedules

Getxophoto International Image Festival takes place in Getxo, the Basque Country, close to Bilbao (15km). It is conceived to walk around the city and delve into the exhibitions in a few hours. Most of them are open-air installations and can be visited at any time. Getxophoto is a festival focused on the image that has been held in Getxo –Basque Country– since 2007, created and managed by Begihandi. An initiative in continuous search of being more participative, committed and sustainable. Getxophoto International Image Festival takes place in Getxo, the Basque Country, close to Bilbao (15km). It is conceived to walk around the city and delve into the exhibitions in a few hours. Most of them are open-air installations and can be visited at any time.

The theme of the 2024 edition curated by María Ptqk is PLAY:

If last year we called for a PAUSE, to stop and slow down, in this edition of Getxophoto we are encouraging you to do the opposite and press another button: this year, let’s hit PLAY.

But what does this mean? As well as being the most popular key on all our devices, the one we use to play images, music and all types of audio-visuals, play refers principally to the idea of starting up. It evokes stimulation and movement, impulse and liveliness. Just as we press play for our favourite songs, we press play in ourselves when we get going, when our spirits rise. And it is this idea of activation – pressing the button of life – that best corresponds to the original meaning of the word. Because to play is probably the most creative human occupation that exists.

Games are central to the history of humanity. However, for a long time they were considered an unimportant activity, a kind of back garden of culture; they have been confined to the world of childhood or identified only with toys. Nevertheless, playing is a complex activity that appears under different guises. Sports and competitions are games, as are betting and games of chance, and of course, all forms of entertainment, from video games to the performing arts because, in many languages, playing also means acting a part or playing an instrument.

Therefore, offering a single definition of playing is almost impossible. Some games impose many rules while others give way to the realm of total freedom; some are individual and others collective; some are pure fun and others are extremely serious. What is clear is that playing is a higher-order human practice, basic in learning, present in all areas of life and inseparable from the arts. When we say play, therefore, we refer to that immense universe of activations and, in particular, their impact on the imagination. (read more)

The artists line-up is impressive and features plenty of practitioners that wok with digital game and video game aesthetics, including Raquel Meyers, Lu Yang, Maxim Zmeyev and 2girls1comp

LINK: Getxophoto International Image Festival 2024