GAMESCENES

EVENT: ANGELA WASHKO'S POINT OF VIEW (FEBRUARY 18 - APRIL 25 2021, LEUVEN, BELGIUM)

Angela Washko

Point of View

February 18–April 25, 2021

STUK — House for Dance, Image & Sound

Naamsestraat 96, 3000 Leuven, Belgium

STUK.BE

Curator: Karen Verschooren, STUK

STUK is delighted to present the first European survey exhibition of American artist and interventionist Angela Washko (b. 1986).

Angela Washko is devoted to creating new forums for discussions of feminism where they do not exist. She actively seeks out new ways to facilitate or enter into conversation with individuals and communities who have radically different ideas and opinions in an attempt to create spaces for discussion, productive dissent and complexity. Throughout her practice, she investigates how power structures are embedded into our collective consciousness through media. A life-long gamer, her work takes the form of performance (in both virtual and physical spaces), actions, interventions, video games, videos, prints and books.

In her solo exhibition in STUK, Point of View, Washko is presenting four bodies of work: The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft (2012-2016), Heroines with Baggage (2011-2014), BANGED (2015-2017) and The Game: The Game (2016-2019).

In 2012, Washko founded The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft with a goal to facilitate discussions with other players about the misogynistic, homophobic, racist and discriminatory language used within the game space. Instead of just continuing to "go on quests and kill stuff," she created a series of video-documented performances—two of which are included in the show—in which she initiated and facilitated conversations about gender and discrimination within World of Warcraft.

For her video series "Heroines with Baggage," Washko started to replay the 1990s role-playing video games which were formative to her as a child. Upon replaying these games, it became clear to the artist that the women represented were frequently portrayed as collapsing, running scared, afraid of being alone, and always in need of rescue by a male protagonist. By constructing videos featuring only scenes focused on female characters from these games, Washko makes the presence of these stereotypes and oversimplified gender binaries visible and woefully obvious.

"BANGED" is a series of works Washko created around the figure of Roosh V, "the Web’s most infamous misogynist" and a professional pick-up artist. A leader of the manosphere (an online anti-feminist network mobilized around the notion that men are more oppressed than women), Roosh V has written numerous books on how to have sex with women across cultural barriers as quickly as possible. His tales of sexual conquests were widespread, however never giving voice to the women involved. During the process of soliciting stories from these women to create a parallel compilation to his stories and texts, Washko ended up doing a video interview with the manosphere figurehead himself. The interview video along with performances and books about her experience with the manosphere community afterward make up the "BANGED" project.

 

Resulting from continued research into the pick-up artist (PUA) community is the last body of work presented in the exhibition: The Game: The Game. Composed entirely of scenarios, techniques, and language from texts and instructional videos created by pick-up artists, The Game: The Game is a feminist dating simulator video game designed to give players the experience of interacting with a series of infamous pick-up artists and seduction coaches. It is accompanied by a haunting musical score composed by Xiu Xiu.

The exhibition Point of View is part of a series of solo exhibitions in STUK by contemporary visual artists who have a particular affinity for the moving image and spatial video installations. Previous exhibitions in this series include Mircea Cantor - Am I really free?; Sebastián Díaz Morales - TALK WITH DUST; Mika Taanila - THE END; Nevin Aladağ - ROLLIN’; Omer Fast - Appendix; Joachim Koester - Maybe this act, this work, this thing; Emre Hüner - Neochronophobiq; John Akomfrah - Auto Da Fé; and Bjørn Melhus - The Theory of Freedom.

Angela Washko
(b. 1986, Reading, USA)

Angela Washko is an artist who creates new forums for discussions about feminism in spaces frequently hostile toward it. Her practice spans interventions in mainstream media, performance art, digital works, video and video games. She recently finished a documentary film about RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Mrs. Kasha Davis titled Workhorse Queen.

Currently Associate Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University, Washko is the recipient of a.o. the Creative Capital Award and the Impact Award at Indiecade. Her practice has been highlighted in The New Yorker, Frieze Magazine, Time Magazine and more, and her projects have been presented internationally at venues including Museum of the Moving Image (New York), Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Milan Design Triennale, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (Helsinki), and Shenzhen Independent Animation Biennial.

On February 18, Angela Washko will host an online artist talk on the opening night. In the lecture, Angela will walk the audience through her research and practice, focusing on the works in Point of View. The talk will close with a participatory play-through of Washko’s feminist video game about pick-up artists, The Game: The Game, facilitated by the artist. Please register via this link.

LINK: Angela Washko

GAME ART: JACOLBY SATTERWHITE'S DAWN (IN PROGRESS)

Jacolby Satterwhite, En Plen Air Vassalage, 2015

"Jacolby Satterwhite’s Dawn will be a multi-layered exploratory video game that begins in a physical exhibition of objects, expands to digitally interactive geolocations across physical sites in Cleveland, and will ultimately be universally accessible from any location via the internet. Created using the coding language #C Sharp and software including Maya3D and Unity, the project may be accessed and played via multiple platforms, including virtual reality headsets, smartphone and tablet devices, and web browsers. The physical exhibition will materialize the game through two virtual reality films and interactive ephemera associated with the landscape and architecture of Dawn’s expansive universe. Following the aesthetic, narrative and conceptual threads built in the artist’s previous chapters of his Birds in Paradise series and The Matriarch’s Rhapsody, Dawn draws on a mesmerizing visual vocabulary inspired by Satterwhite’s personal history, queer culture, African folklore, pop culture, and environmental catastrophe. This omnipresent installation experience marks Satterwhite’s most ambitious and first interactive project to date." (Source: ViaFund)

Jacolby Satterwhite is an American contemporary artist who works with video, performance, 3D animation, fibers, drawing and printmaking, currently based in New York City, NY. To learn more about Satterwhite, watch this episode of Art21.

LINK: Jacolby Satterwhite

EVENT: VRAL #15_ANTOINE CHAPON (DECEMBER 11 - DECEMBER 24 2020)

MY OWN LANDSCAPES

Digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 18, 2020 (France)

Created by Antoine Chapon, 2020

VRAL

December 11 - December 24 2020

Introduced by Luca Miranda

 

Warfare is being gamified. The American army has been recruiting soldiers through video games since the early zeroes: America’s Army is, after all, the title of a popular video game. Recruits are trained with digital simulations and use game-like controllers to launch countless attack strikes via drones in remote lands: systemic murder by proxy. Even soldiers fighting on actual battlefields cannot escape the video game curse: those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder are subsequently treated with digital simulations. But in My Own Landscapes, Chapon tells a different story: Cyrille creates and inhabits a virtual island, an utopian landscape where the soldier and his peers can escape reality, find illusory solace, and create a different identity: in fact, his experience is narrated by a female voice over. However, several paradoxes remain.

Antoine Chapon is a French artist and filmmaker based in Paris. He studied fine art, philosophy and social studies. In 2019, he learned literary Arabic at the Saint-Joseph University in Beirut. His work questions the relationship between fact and fiction, the role of the archive, and new technologies in documentary, and the possibility of making new forms in the age of digital reproduction. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including Open Codes: The World as a Field of Data at the ZKM, Karlsruhe Museum. His first film My Own Landscapes (2020) won the award for best short film at the Visions du Réel Festival in Nyon, and the award for best short documentary film at the Norwegian Short Film Festival. It was also presented at the 2020 Torino Film Festival.

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GAME ART: THEO TRIANTAFYLLIDIS & SUN ARAW'S VELOCITY HOLOMATRIX WARP 7 (2020)

Sun Araw, Theo Triantafyllidis, Velocity Holomatrix Warp 7, 2020, digital stills (courtesy of the artists)

Velocity Holomatrix Warp 7 is an hour long interactive experience created by experimental musician Sun Araw and digital artist Theo Triantafyllidis which debuted on November 25 2020, featuring a soundtrack by Sun Araw & Tomo Jacobson and game design by Theo Triantafyllidis. This collaborative project is a navigable digital environment that is reacting in real-time to an improvised score, recorded by Sun Araw with Polish double-bassist Tomo Jacobson at CPN Vinter Jazz Fest in 2017. Velocity Holomatrix Warp 7 is available as a standalone executable for OSX and Windows PC and will also be Streamed Live during Overkill Festival, NL on Sunday, November 30th at 9:00pm (GMT+1). This is how Sun Araw and Theo Triantafyllidis describe the project:

It is thought, though not “known,” that planets must be spherical due to the force of gravity that begins to consolidate their mass and cause their formation.  However, new investigations of exoplanets and planetoid formations have revealed that some planetoids are able to sustain highly irregular shapes while still developing primitive atmospheres and magnetospheres just before they become large enough to be crushed into spheres by their own gravity.  These irregular planetoids have become highly sought after galactic objects for study, and while there is still no definitive evidence, it seems more and more likely that many of these stellar objects might actually have been crafted, sculpted, and even “arranged” intentionally by highly skilled ancient civilizations, in much the same spirit as the ancient tradition of bonsai here on Earth.  Some of these dwarf planetoids show such a complexity of gravitational geometry and electromagnetic balance that it is highly unlikely that they could have been the product of purely natural forces.  Indeed, many of them seem highly “sculpted,” almost as if challenging the limits of complexity while still remaining cosmically stable.  In addition, some arrangements of strange flora (both vascular and fungal) are so deftly and artfully composed that it is highly improbable they could be naturally occurring.  VHW7 is a recently discovered planetoid in this tradition that shows convincing evidence of being just such an alien bonsai sculpture.  While almost nothing is known about technologies capable of such feats (or civilizations that could have created such technologies) it is becoming hard to ignore the evidence that such civilizations have existed.  The extreme age of VHW7 and its ability to hold its intricate sculptural form for millennia against the magnetic and gravitational tides of its home system suggest an incredible and ancient skill, currently lost to the sentient species of the Universe as we know it. This program allows you to holographically explore planetoid VHW7 and its many intricate ecosystems: disorienting ionic bubbles, strange levitating mineral ore deposits, phosphorescent photonic anomalies, and phenomena even stranger.  In order to give a further sense of its formation and the delicate balance of forces that hold it together, algorithms have been created to convert its magnetic, electric, and gravitational forces as audio, allowing you to “hear” the skilled and intricate sculptural work that shaped and maintains it.  We hope this immersive experience will create a greater appreciation for these ancient cosmic artworks, and help to preserve their legacy for future millennia.

Theo Triantafyllidis (b. 1988, Athens, GR) is an artist who builds virtual spaces and the interfaces for the human body to inhabit them. He creates expansive worlds and complex systems where the virtual and the physical merge in uncanny, absurd and poetic ways. These are often manifested as performances, virtual and augmented reality experiences, games and interactive installations. He uses awkward interactions and precarious physics, to invite the audience to embody, engage with and challenge these other realities. Through the lens of monster theory, he investigates themes of isolation, sexuality and violence in their visceral extremities. He offers computational humor and AI improvisation as a response to the tech industry’s agenda. He tries to give back to the online and gaming communities that he considers both the inspiration and context for his work by remaining an active participant and contributor. He holds an MFA from UCLA, Design Media Arts and a Diploma of Architecture from the National Technical University of Athens. He has shown work in museums, including the Hammer Museum in LA and NRW Forum in Dusseldorf, DE and various galleries such as Meredith Rosen Gallery, the Breeder, Eduardo Secci and Transfer. He was part of Sundance New Frontier 2020, Hyper Pavilion in the 2017 Venice Biennale and the 2018 Athens Biennale: ANTI-. Theo Triantafyllidis is based in Los Angeles.

Sun Araw is the working title of a musical project helmed by Los Angeles-based artist Cameron Stallones.  Sun Araw has released a number of well-received and consistently innovative albums, with his ninth, Rock Sutra, released by Sun Ark Records (an imprint of Drag City Records) in 2020. Structural and spiritual inspiration for Sun Araw comes primarily from investigation into the nature of experience by the transformative power of simple observation.  The goal has always been the creation of a psychedelic music, by which is meant a psychotropic music: not an aesthetic sensibility but a method of discontinuous experience.  Supporting every Sun Araw composition is the fact of mantra: the ability of repetition with attention to change the perception of a melodic object.  By means of this constantly changing perception, the possibilities of improvisation become infinite.  More recent works attempt to effect the mental activity of the listener even more physically and investigate the expansion of the time-experience when the composition removes a fixed place from which to listen. 

Tomo Jacobson is a Polish-born double bass player based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He focuses his efforts on free improv and other creative music. With over two dozen albums to his credit, he is mostly known for the projects he is a leader, or co-leader to, namely MOONBOW, MOUNT MEANDER, IL SOGNO, or FREE SPIRITUAL, as well his solo double bass work, and free improv encounters with acclaimed musicians. Tomo is also an active music life curator and organizer in Copenhagen. Most notably he is a founder of the yearly Freedom Music Festival, which is focused on solo and duo free improvised concerts.

LINK: Theo Triantafyllidis

EVENT: BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL PRESENTS LFF EXPANDED (OCTOBER 7-18 2020, LONDON)

London Film Festival Expanded

October 7–18

A new strand of XR and immersive art and virtual exhibition space

Official link

Press release:

LFF Expanded is BFI London Film Festival’s new dedicated strand of XR and immersive Art. Using cinema as a jumping off point, LFF Expanded features virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality and live immersive performance work from bold, innovative creators from around the world, using a range of creative techniques to ensure audiences are not in front of a work of art, a film or a performance, but in the middle of it.

While plans beyond 2020 include a large scale physical installation, the festival has innovated in response to social distancing restrictions this year by commissioning a bespoke, dynamic new virtual exhibition space, The Expanse. This brand new virtual exhibition space houses the LFF Expanded programme curated by Ulrich Schrauth.

The Expanse features a virtual gallery for the LFF’s twenty 360 video and immersive works, plus an auditorium which will house a line-up of live talks and events across the Festival. Audiences will be able to access The Expanse, connect with one another and view the works, using tethered and non-tethered (Oculus Quest) headsets. For those that do not have a headset at home, the Festival will have a number of headsets available for use at the BFI Southbank for attendees to book and experience the platform in-person. There will also be a 2D browser version of the platform for those wishing to explore the virtual space at home. To view the works outside of the platform, attendees can access the Festival’s 360 video programme via Oculus TV and the dedicated LFF 360 Player via WebXR, viewable in mobile VR-headsets or web browser. For tethered headset users, attendees will be able to download the Expanse from Viveport.

 

LFF Expanded will present a number of original and thought-provoking panel discussions and talks around the medium of VR as well as some very special opportunities to meet the artists and explore pioneering new works including Future Rites & Chaotic Body 1, where acclaimed choreographer Alexander Whitley will give an insight into two of his upcoming immersive dance projects; Artist talk: Brave New World with the artists behind Agence (Anna West and David Callahan) and To Miss the Ending (Pietro Gagliano)—two very different projects dealing with the dystopian possibilities of Artificial Intelligence; explore Baff Akoto’s poetic work Leave The Edges in the virtual auditorium and listen to the artist talk about his artistic practice, which combines film and immersive technology and Anti-Gone by Theo Triantafyllidis, offering audiences the chance to experience a new way of hybrid virtual theatre-making.

On Saturday, October 10 London-based artist and designer Es Devlin will talk about her ground-breaking work in an LFF Expanded Screen Talk, and The Immersive Art Revolution sees Rufus Norris, Director and Joint Chief Executive of the National Theatre, Nell Whitley, Executive Producer at Marshmallow Laser Feast and Jane Alison, Head of Visual Arts, Barbican, join BBC journalist and presenter Razia Iqbal to discuss the future of the immersive art sector.

Theo Triantafyllidis, Anti-Gone, 2020

As part of LFF Expanded, the LFF and StoryFutures Academy announced a new XR commission, Laika, directed by the Academy Award and BAFTA winning Asif Kapadia (Senna, Amy, Diego Maradona). Telling the story of the first space dog, Laika is Asif Kapadia’s first foray into immersive and XR filmmaking, and is a collaboration with award winning animation studio Passion Pictures. Laika is due for final completion in 2021.

There will also be an opportunity to experience LFF Expanded at the BFI Southbank exhibition in London. This exhibition must be pre-booked—tickets are free, but limited. Click here to pre-book. LFF Expanded is open throughout the BFI London Film Festival (October 7–18, 2020).

LINK: LFF Expanded

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: VECTOR FESTIVAL 2020 (DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 1 2020)

VECTOR FESTIVAL 2020: AFTER GAMIFICATION

TORONTO, ON | JULY 16-19, 2020

OPEN CALL FOR ARTWORKS AND CURATORIAL PROPOSALS 

Vector Festival is an annual media arts event dedicated to showcasing experimental art works that engage critically with digital technologies.
The festival is proudly participatory and community-oriented. Hosted by InterAccess and co-curated by Katie Micak and Martin Zeilinger, Vector Festival takes place at arts venues and in public spaces across the City of Toronto.

Since its inception, Vector Festival has been innovative in its inclusion of game-based digital art alongside other new media disciplines. Continuing this focus for the 2020 edition, the festival’s curators pose a deceptively simple question: what comes after gamification?

Now that game culture and game technologies have become so pervasive in popular culture, how do experimental media artists respond critically to the rampant gamifying of everyday life? From online social interaction to digital finance, from education to military conflict, from politics and environmental issues to the ways in which humans (and machines) express themselves creatively, what comes after gamification?

The Festival will take place between July 16-19, 2020, with the flagship exhibition extended until August 22, 2020.

Please note that Vector Festival does not charge submission fees to artists applying to participate.

All artists and curators selected for participation will receive fees in accordance with the up-to-date CARFAC Fee schedule, as well as support to apply for external funding.

We invite art submissions of digital – and post-digital – works for the following festival categories:

Flagship Exhibition
Digital and post-digital art works including interactive installations, experimental game mods, sculptural work, screen-based work, sound art, etc.

Online Projects
Web-based projects and digital artworks that can be presented online, including experimental interactive and time-based digital projects.

Festival Screening
Experimental film/video/machinima works.

Performance
Performance-based proposals including chiptune, sound art, live coding, A/V performances, and telematic performances for virtual and public spaces.

Site-Specific Outdoor Screening
To be presented on two large-scale (4.88 x 8.64 m) outdoor LED screens for a public audience of all ages.

GIFs
Animated GIFs intended for presentation on public screens across Toronto.

Curatorial Submissions
This year, we also invite curators/curatorial collectives to submit proposals for machinima screenings (on a theme of your choosing). If you are considering a curatorial submission, we encourage you to contact the Vector Festival team for additional practical details.

Deadline: February 01, 2020

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Please submit the following details using our online application form:

• Project description (approximately 300 words)
• Documentation (maximum of five images, and/or link to audio/video documentation)
• Description of technical requirements (please outline materials provided by the artist and materials required from the exhibiting venue)
• Artist biography (approximately 100 words)
• Please indicate if your work has a thematic, conceptual, or historical connection to Toronto, or if you have a biographic connection to the Greater Toronto Area
• Current CV

If you have questions about submitting your application please contact [email protected].

About Vector Festival
Vector Festival is a participatory and community-oriented initiative dedicated to showcasing experimental media art practice. Presenting works across a dynamic range of exhibitions, screenings, performances, lectures, and workshops, Vector Festival acts as a critical bridge between emergent digital platforms and new media art practice. Vector Festival was founded in 2013 as the “Vector Game Art & New Media Festival” by an independent group of artists and curators: Skot Deeming, Clint Enns, Christine Kim, and Katie Micak, who were later joined by Diana Poulsen and Martin Zeilinger. In 2015 Vector Festival announced that longtime presenting partner, InterAccess, would be taking over responsibility for the festival as part of its regular programming.

About InterAccess
Founded in 1983, InterAccess is a non-profit gallery, educational facility, production studio, and festival dedicated to emerging practices in art and technology. Our programs support art forms that integrate technology, fostering and supporting the full cycle of art and artistic practice through education, production, and exhibition. InterAccess is regarded as a preeminent Canadian arts and technology centre.

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

Follow us for updates!
facebook.com/VectorFestivalTO
twitter.com/VectorFestival
instagram.com/interaccessto

LINK: VECTOR FESTIVAL

GAME ART: VICTOR MORALES'S RAPID TRANSIT (in progress)

Victor Morales is working on a new, ambitious and intriguing project titled Rapid Transit, an animated science-fiction video and VR experience performed in a video game engine. As Morales writes,

It is about riding the NYC subway in  the 2050s, maybe later. High percentage of the riders wear vr/ar systems//things combined with electric stimulants or lectrics. The subway is the subway, people always  ignoring one and other, dancers doing elastic moves to rhythmless music/noise interrupted by beeps and synthetic shouts popping out of devices like rings and bracelets using holograms with hovering capabilities and sh!t. Homeless people giving advice, cursing In Rapid Transit, on a late weekday night,  a rider under the influence takes the subway, unbeknownst to what the ride will do to them.

Below are some prototype videos:

Stay tuned for several updates. 

LINK: Victor Morales

EVENT: FUNCTION (MAY 24-25 2019, MALLORCA, SPAIN)

FUNCTION, a new Digital & Electronic Art Festival Mallorca at the Centre Cultural Casa Planas, will debut on May 24 2019.

This year’s theme is innocence:

Digital art focuses on how reality is modified by the growing influence in our daily lives of new circumstances closely linked to automatization. Ranging from critical perspectives to exploring the possibilities of magic through technology, digital art pushes at the limits of our experience and definition of art itself. Above all, it defines in real time our relationship with an omnipresent technology.

The festival showcases videos, performances, webart, sound art and much more.

COLL.EO, Reasonable, machinima, color, sound, 2018

The video section includes machinima from COLL.EO and Ignacio Bosch's project Travelling without moving, a videogame designed as an auto executable app or as an immersive RV videogame that invites the player/spectator to embark on an eternal journey where the combination between magic and the mythical join his/her exploration desires. During the path, the player/spectator will find different elements and situations that would generate a reflection on matters as nature, borders, loneliness and fear.

Ignacio Bosch, TRavelling without moving, 2018

LINK: Function

GAME ART: MATT PYKE'S EMERGENCE (2018)

Emergence is an open-world environment that reminds me of Gustave Le Bon's seminal book on crowds and mass behavior. This immersive VR environment incorporates more than 5000+ human behaviours according to the designer. The project was created in collaboration with Chris Mullany (developer), Simon Pyke (sound design), Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin. To me, this looks more compelling and interesting that the vast majority of Triple A games coming out this year. Emergence will be on display at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Matt Pyke is a UK-based media artist and designer. He is the founder of the digital art/design studio Universal Everything. His work explores the tension between abstract and figurative form and the synesthesia of sound and image. It has been exhibited at Media Space (London), MoMA (New York), V&A Museum (London), Central Academy of Fine Arts (Beijing), Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture (Moscow), La Gaîté Lyrique (Paris), and ART HK (Hong Kong).

LINK: Matt Pyke

GAME ART: MOTSONIAN'S COLONY COLLAPSE (BECAUSE BEES DON’T CARE WHAT HUMANS THINK IS IMPOSSIBLE) (2018)

Monica Maria Rohtmaa aka Motsonian's latest project shows interactions on VRchat, a massively multiplayer online virtual reality video game. performs as Motsonian as Barry Benson from Bee Movie (2007), documenting the VRchat community’s meme culture via the strange popularity of the character’s “Ya like jazz?” catchphrase as a conversation starter. Colony Collapse has been exhibited in Halfway to Somewhere, a group show by the Collective Studio (29.09.18 – 27.10.18) in Newbridge Project Gateshead. A preview can be seen here.

Motsonian is the username for Monica Maria Rohtmaa, an artist based in Gateshead, UK. As well as working with video, her practice combines contemporary technology with sculptural installation by using virtual reality, concepts from video games and drone footage to create installations about the intersection of the physical and virtual worlds. Recent work also uses projected video onto physical structures, in reference to what’s known in 3D digital environments as texture mapping, along with the visual symbol of knitting, a tradition drawn from her Estonian heritage, as a metaphor for a video game aim system or player’s view.

LINK: Motsonian