INTERVIEW: ALEXANDER BLEY ON PLATFORM

Alexander Bley is a visual artist and VFX supervisor based in Berlin. He is particularly driven by class consciousness, a theme that permeates his work, including projects like Platform, currently on display on VRAL.This film, co-directed by Steffen Köhn and Johannes Büttner, uses machinima techniques and classic CGI to explore the parallels between dystopian capitalist futures and current realities. We talked with Alexander about his machinima work for Steffen Köhn and Johannes Büttner’s groundbreaking Platform.

Matteo Bittanti: Could you begin by outlining your methodology and practices as a VFX and CGI specialist? What drives your creative and technical decisions? Can you share some information about your background and upbringing?

Alexander Bley: Generally, my methodology depends on the specific tasks and the suitability of my current toolset. If my tools are inadequate, I consider what additional tools could be used, whether it's feasible to incorporate them within a reasonable timeframe, or if additional support is necessary. This decision-making process starts with clear communication about the task, understanding the vision of the directors or clients. Moodboards are particularly helpful during this phase, and I enjoy collaborating with clients or directors to develop ideas further. Any medium that helps align everyone involved, such as music, movies, games, or other pop culture references, is welcome. When production begins, I strive to have a precise understanding of the project, making animatics and similar tools invaluable. Creatively, I prefer to produce work that is not overly polished, embracing technological limitations or even “mistakes” (such as stretched textures) as a counterpoint to the highly polished digital aesthetics prevalent in the 21st century.

So, my background, let’s see... I’ve always been into visual stuff - drawing, comics, movies, computer games — but I also had an interest in technical things. That led me to study audiovisual media at Beuth College in Berlin. The program mostly focused on lens-based picture making, which didn’t quite satisfy me. So, I spent my free time in front of a computer doing tutorials and experimenting with VFX software like After Effects. My twin brother and I were raised by a working-class single mom in a town near Dortmund. Back then, Dortmund was going through a rough time due to globalization, with a lot of steel and coal jobs disappearing. I’m also half Greek, and the Greek community is the largest immigrant group where I grew up. This mix of experiences and my background has given me a strong class sensitivity, which is a big part of why I’m motivated to work on projects like Platform…

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With a strong interest in both visual and technical aspects of media, Alexander Bley pursued audiovisual media studies at Beuth College. Dissatisfied with the lens-based focus of the program, he dedicated his free time to learning VFX software such as After Effects. Raised in a working-class family near Dortmund, Bley’s upbringing in a declining industrial town has significantly influenced his artistic motivation. Bley’s work spans various media, including immersive installations like Memoria, which combines ethnographic research with science fiction elements inspired by William Gibson’s Johnny Mnemonic. He has also worked on music videos, such as Nanti-Hell, employing advanced VFX techniques and facial tracking. His diverse portfolio demonstrates his ability to merge creative and technical skills across multiple platforms and genres.

Alexander Bley’s personal website

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REVIEW: ALICE BUCKNELL’S THE ALLUVIALS AT GAMESPLAYART (APRIL 4 - MAY 4 2024, LOS ANGELES)

Our recent visit to Gameplayarts, a novel art gallery and hub for game-based video art located in Los Angeles, presented an opportunity to engage with Alice Bucknell’s remarkable multimedia artwork, The Alluvials. On display between April 4th – May 4th 2024 as both machinima and video game, The Alluvials examines ecological crises and anthropogenic impacts, with a focus on water scarcity in a speculative future Los Angeles.

The Alluvials combines a variety of media, including a playable game, video narratives, 3D city scans, and creatively modified gaming environments to richly convey its ecological themes. This multimedia integration promotes an immersive experience that seamlessly bridges the digital and concrete realities, ideally suited for an art gallery setting where the two can coexist harmoniously. At Gameplayarts, the amalgamation of on-site installations and screen-based experiences was carefully curated by Jamin Warren, showcasing a grasp of the medium’s nuances seldom observed in contemporary art venues.

The exhibition space was characterized by vibrant, multicolored lighting casting a surreal glow across the room, enhancing the immersive quality of the installation. Multiple large screens were strategically placed around the space, each displaying various scenes or interactive prompts from the game. The setting included uniquely shaped, wooden installations resembling natural forms like trees, which were integrated with the gaming screens, adding an organic touch to the high-tech environment. Powerful black gaming computers with glowing green lights, running the interactive game components, were sitting on white pedestals, emphasizing their importance to the functionality of the exhibition and, more in general, to the crucial role they play in our increasingly digital world. The seating arrangement included several beanbag chairs with a distinctive camouflage pattern, providing a casual and comfortable viewing experience. Overall, the neon outlined on the wooden installations and the strategic lighting contribute to a visually striking and engaging atmosphere. The exhibition also featured themed merchandise — such as camouflage hats displayed on a lit table — aligning with the overall aesthetic of the installation. Another part of the exhibition included large panels with digital art, each representing game environments or thematic elements related to The Alluvials. These artworks used a pixelated style and were bathed in the same vibrant lighting that dominates the space.

Bucknell’s narrative in The Alluvials emphasizes nonhuman and elemental perspectives — such as the Los Angeles River, wildfire, and the historic sycamore El Aliso — to highlight the interconnectedness of natural elements and challenge the prevalent human-centric view of the environment. Rather than anthropomorphizing these non-human actors and entities, Bucknell maintains their inherent agency, aligning her work with intellectual explorations like James Bridle’s Ways of Being, which provides a thoughtful synthesis on understanding intelligence and agency in various forms.

The video component of The Alluvials primarily functions as a narrative medium, delivering its story through a blend of visual and auditory elements without necessitating direct interaction from viewers. It utilizes custom-built game environments, drone-captured 3D scans, and altered imagery to craft its message. Complementing the machinima, a video game element extends the narrative across five distinct levels, each embodying different gaming genres and environmental themes. This interactive aspect allows visitors to explore the story through the roles of non-playable characters (NPCs), such as wildfire and the LA River, thereby deepening their engagement with the presented ecological issues.

The game challenges conventional gameplay mechanics across various genres — first-person shooter, walking simulator, open world, puzzle platform — encouraging viewers to critically think about ecological and environmental issues. In other words, the video and game components work in synergy: the video provides a controlled, author-driven exploration, while the video game offers a participatory, player-driven engagement, emphasizing personal involvement in the ecological challenges depicted.

The Alluvials critiques the management of natural resources and engineered ecosystems in Los Angeles, scrutinizing the repercussions of human interventions and market dynamics on the environment. It also underscores the significance of data in representing and understanding ecological issues by incorporating real pollution statistics into its aesthetic and narrative structure. Recognizing the indigenous Tongva People and their historical relationship with the LA River, Bucknell connects present ecological challenges to deeper historical and cultural narratives, highlighting a long-standing, respectful interaction with nature.

By integrating concepts of “game ecologies” and queer gaming strategies, the artist not only challenges traditional gaming conventions but also promotes more inclusive and ecologically conscious gaming practices. Through the practice of worlding to co-construct new realities, the project advocates for a shift from anthropocentric ideologies towards a more symbiotic relationship with the environment.

In essence, The Alluvials serves as both a speculative exploration and a critical reflection on environmental degradation, technological mediation, and the potential for a future that redefines relationships between humans and nonhumans. The exhibition at Gameplayarts presented a strikingly curated fusion of art, technology, and interactive media, providing visitors with a multi-sensory journey that disrupts conventional views of video art and gaming.

Colleen Flaherty is a visual artist living and working between Los Angeles and Milan

Gameplayarts is located at 5511 W. Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles California

Read more about Alice Bucknell’s work

All photographs courtesy of Gameplayarts. Credits: Sam Hanke

All videos and images of The Alluvials courtesy of Alice Bucknell

NEWS: JOÃO ROSA ON THE NEW VIDEO GAME AVANT-GARDE

Fans of machinima must check out Nicolas Rapold’s interview with João Rosa on the Museum of the Moving Image website. Rosa — EDGLRD’s creative director and second-generation animator from Brazil — worked on Harmony Korine’s genre-breaking film AGGR0 DR1FT . He is also a huge Helldivers 2’ fan.

The interview is full of interesting tidbits about the confluence between games and cinema. Here’s an example:

João Rosa : All the fights [in AGGR0 DR1FT], I would say part of the reference and the intention was to be closer to video games. I think violence feels different in every medium. And in film there is a very traditional way that it’s done and the way it feels, and we were trying to move closer to video games. GTA [GRAND THEFT AUTO] created a whole language—it’s a game, but it’s kind of cinematic. Playing GTA feels like watching a Harmony film because it’s this non-narrative thing. You’re like a wanderer, you know, just existing.

Rosa also mentioned that the company is now working “on a new film now called BABY INVASION that is even more connected to the language of video games. It’s shot all from first-person perspective”

Read the full interview at the MOMI’s website

Last Summer, GQ wrote a detailed profile of EDGLRD (“it’s a creative factory; it makes movies that are not really movies, movies that are closer to video games, that sometimes are actually playable as video games. It also makes video-game video games”) and Korine’s vision for the future of cinema

EVENT: STEFFEN KÖHN (MAY 10 - 23 2024, ONLINE)

Platform

digital video (1920 x 1080, Arri Alexa), color, sound, 16’ 20”, color, sound, 2021, Germany.

Created by Steffen Köhn

Platform draws from documentary interviews with freelancers on online delivery platforms, weaving their real-life experiences with elements from Neal Stephenson’s seminal 1992 cyberpunk novel, Snow Crash, which has gained iconic status in Silicon Valley. The film examines how the dystopian capitalist visions depicted in the novel mirror current capitalist dynamics. The narrative seamlessly blends the true stories of the research participants with fictional scenarios inspired by Snow Crash, creating a cyclical storyline that blurs the lines between documentary and fantasy. This technique plunges viewers into the complexities and paradoxes of modern work environments. Departing from traditional documentary styles, the film stages the drivers’ stories within a sci-fi framework, portraying their daily work struggles, prerogatives, and aspirations. Platform utilizes machinima to juxtapose live-action footage with video game based animations. This stylistic choice not only highlights the fading distinction between work and leisure but also prompts a deeper reflection on immaterial labor and value creation in today’s digital economy.

Steffen Köhn is a filmmaker, video artist, and assistant professor of multimodal anthropology at Aarhus University. He utilizes ethnography to delve into contemporary socio-technical landscapes. Köhn is the author of Mediating Mobility. Visual Anthropology in the Age of Migration (Wallflower Press, 2016). In his video and installation works, Köhn collaborates locally with gig workers, software developers, and science fiction writers to probe alternative models of technological access and power distribution. His works have been exhibited at prestigious venues including the Warsaw Biennial, Academy of the Arts Berlin, Kunsthaus Graz, Vienna Art Week, Hong Gah Museum Taipei, Lulea Biennial, The Photographers’ Gallery, and the ethnographic museums of Copenhagen and Dresden. Additionally, his films have been featured at major international festivals such as the Berlinale, Rotterdam International Film Festival, and the World Film Festival Montreal.

VIDEO ESSAY: THE ART OF VIRTUAL RESIDENCY

VRAL is currently presenting The Death Trilogy by Adonis Archontides, a triptych of works starring his ersatz Sim-clones. To better appreciate the breadth and scope of his work, we are discussing his Sims-based oeuvre. We continue our exploration with the in-game performance Adonis and the Labour of Artistic Production. This project stands out as one of the most inventive integrations of The Sims within an avant-garde context to date, where the processes of art-making and video game mechanics are seamlessly intertwined, creating a fruitful dialogue.

Adonis and the Labour of Artistic Production (2017-2018) centers on the personal and artistic journey of Adonis Archontides during his virtual art residency within The Sims 4, as captured through a series of Instagram posts. The project – which began in December 2017 and concluded in February 2018, in preparation of Archontides’ first solo exhibition, which opened on February 22nd, 2018 – explores themes of artistic creation, the transient nature of beauty and inspiration, and the interplay between personal life, gaming interactions, and creative expression. During his virtual residency, Adonis investigated the essence of artistic labor and the impact of the environment on creativity, sharing interesting insights into his artistic process. Like Marshall McLuhan, Adonis seems to share the idea that media – video games included – create environments, rather than just “content” or “messages”.

Like the subsequent work, Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Wade and the Effort of Consciousness, Adonis and the Labour of Artistic Production relies on digital platforms to chronicle the construction of identity and reality in virtual or digitally mediated environments. However, while the former focuses on the multiplicity of self and philosophical explorations within a simulated game world, the latter engages more with the physicality of the artistic process and its documentation in real-time, offering a more intimate look at the everyday life and productive cycles of an artist. Together, both projects showcase Adonis’s ongoing interest in merging life and art with digital means, continually pushing the boundaries on how art is created, experienced, and discussed in the age of video games. 

The residency was cleverly narrated through a series of posts on Instagram. Adonis and the Labour of Artistic Production developed in stages, from…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Adonis Archontides

Adonis and the Labour of Artistic Production

Performance documentation in The Sims 4, screenshots, Instagrams posts, 2017-2018

All images courtesy of Adonis Archontides

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EVENT: THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S GUIDE TO LOS SANTOS (MAY 25 - JUNE 23 2024, LENZBURG, SWITZERLAND)

Image courtesy of Mattia Dagani Rio, 2023

What does it feel like being a photographer in Los Santos? A new group exhibition aptly titled The Photographer’s Guide to Los Santos which will be featured at the Lenzburg Fotofestival in Lenzburg, Switzerland, from May 25 to June 23, 2024, tries to answer that very question. Turns out there are many answers.

The Photographer’s Guide to Los Santos

May 25 - June 23 2024

Curated by Marco De Mutiis and Matteo Bittanti

Thu-Fri: 2-5 PM
Sat-Sun: 10 AM–5 PM

Dammweg 19
5600 Lenzburg
Switzerland

The Photographer’s Guide to Los Santos interrogates the ontological boundaries between physical and virtual spaces through an examination of photographic practices within the context of Rockstar North’s record-breaking 2013 video game Grand Theft Auto V. Situating Los Santos as a simulacrum of Los Angeles — the epicenter of global image production —, the exhibition explores the emergence of this fictional locale as a site of artistic experimentation and critical inquiry.

Curated by Marco De Mutiis, Digital Curator at the Fotomuseum Winterthur, and Matteo Bittanti, Associate Professor in Media Studies at IULM University in Milan, the exhibition explores the influence of video games — encompassing their aesthetics, logics, and tools — on photography, through the works by artists working at the intersection of post-photography, video games and art, including 2girls1comp, Raphael Brunk, Alan Butler, Mattia Dagani Rio, Elizabeth Desintaputri, Claire Hentschker, COLL.EO, and Georgie Roxby Smith.

Through meticulous in-game capture techniques and cunning manipulations of code, this cadre of international artists rupture the veneer of mimetic realism that shrouds Los Santos, opening fissures wherein the underlying algorithms and tacit ideological assumptions underpinning these contested spaces are hijacked. At once playful and critical, the featured projects — several of which have never been presented before — challenge the stability of categories such as the virtual, the real, and the hyperreal within an increasingly gamified culture.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an online resource and a database detailing significant post-photographic interventions within Grand Theft Auto V and, later on, a “how-to-photograph-the-virtual” critical guide.  

Read more about The Photographer’s Guide to Los Santos

VIDEO ESSAY: PLAYFUL PERFORMANCES. THE SIMS AS AN EXPERIMENTAL PLATFORM

VRAL is currently presenting The Death Trilogy by Adonis Archontides, a tryptic of works starring his ersatz Sim-clones. To better appreciate the breadth and scope of this artwork, we are discussing his oeuvre. We continue our exploration with the in-game performance Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Wade and the Effort of Consciousness.

Also known as Adonis x7 and Wade and the Effort of Consciousness, this project can be compared to a Socratic dialogue taking place within The Sims 4, where Adonis had created multiple Sim replicas of himself. This specific setting is a virtual environment operating as, “a microcosm of capitalist society”. In other words, The Sims 4 is the conduit through which Adonis can reflect upon societal norms and behaviors through a controlled, simulated environment where variables and parameters can be manipulated at will, thus serving as a laboratory for broader cultural and social commentary.

The interlocutor is a character named Wade, an interviewer who engages in a discussion with these various iterations of Adonis. Wade serves as a narrative device who helps elucidate the philosophical and artistic ideas being explored by Adonis in his project. This character could therefore be seen as a stand-in for the audience or an external observer, offering responses and questions that help deepen the exploration of the themes discussed. Wade is essential in facilitating the dialogue that bridges the virtual experiences within The Sims and deeper existential and artistic concepts evoked by Adonis and his replicas.

In the conversation with his clones, Adonis proposes using video games as an artistic medium rather than mere entertainment, emphasizing their empathetic potential and immersive capabilities. According to Adonis, digital games are primarily spaces, rather than stories. And they are tools rather than products. Above all, they foster a deep understanding and connection to different human conditions, which is something that only art can achieve. This is why Adonis mentions his 2014 thesis in which he explored in depth the notion of video games as art. Adonis x7 and Wade and the Effort of Consciousness is, in many ways, an update that further develops three major themes.

The first is the notion that virtual worlds can be conceived as artistic spaces for experimentation and exploration of aesthetic and philosophical concepts. Adonis argues, through his many alter egos, that games like The Sims allow for unique forms of storytelling and artistic expression. The artist suggests that these platforms can be used to stage performances and installations, such as his residency project involving the world of Eos from Final Fantasy XV. In fact, video games allow artists to transcend concrete and geographical limitations. Unlike IRL galleries or performance spaces, virtual environments allow…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Adonis Archontides

Adonis x7 and Wade and the Effort of Consciousness

Performance within The Sims 4, stills, text, 2019.

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ARTICLE: THE LOCKDOWNS NEVER ENDED

Adonis Archontides, Adonis and the Lockdown Tactics, digital video, sound, color, 4’ 05”, 2020, Cyprus.

VRAL is currently presenting The Death Trilogy by Adonis Archontides, a tryptic of works starring his ersatz Sim-clone. To better appreciate the breadth and scope of his video art, we will we will embark on a critical exploration, beginning with Adonis and the Lockdown Tactics.

Archontides’s Adonis and the Lockdown Tactics (2020) is an introspective short machinima created with/in The Sims 4 (2014). Originally developed as part of a broader cultural initiative by the Cypriot Cultural Services during the COVID-19 pandemic, this work was among fifty projects that received accolades for promoting audio-visual creativity in challenging times. This machinima leverages Will Wright’s popular simulation game to explore themes of repetition and monotony, resonating with the enforced isolation and government mandated "social distancing" experienced globally during a series of shelter-in-place initiatives. Watched in 2024, this work feels at once anachronistic and very timely, remote and fresh. 

The premise of Adonis and the Lockdown Tactics is deeply influenced by the Simulation Hypothesis, a concept prevalent in science fiction - and particularly loved by Silicon Valley’s edgelords - where reality as we know it is posited as an elaborate artifice, a cruel joke concocted by a superior, likely malevolent, intelligence. In Archontides’ piece, this “theory” is subtly referenced through the repetitive, looped nature of the Sims’ existence, mirroring the monotony of lockdown life, which seems to have lost its sense of progression, its teleology. The protagonist, a Sim replica of Adonis himself, navigates the so-called daily life in a state of perpetual loop, echoing the equally apathetic anti-hero of…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited 

Adonis Archontides

Adonis and the Lockdown Tactics

machinima/digital video, color, sound, 4’ 05”, 2020. Cyprus.

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EVENT: ADONIS ARCHONTIDES (APRIL 26 - MAY 9 2024, ONLINE)

The Death Trilogy

performance documentation, digital video and audio recorded in The Sims 4, 33’ 05”, 2024, Cyprus

Created by Adonis Archontides

Za woka genava (I think you are hot), Ya gotta wob’ere! Ya gotta wob’ere! (Don’t give up! Keep trying!) and Za woka genava (I think you are hot) form a trilogy in which Archontides delves into the use of video games as a platform for documenting dual performances, those of himself and his avatar, Adonis (Sim), created within the popular simulation game, The Sims 4. This unique collaboration highlights a peculiar interdependence: although Archontides controls the outcomes of their joint endeavors, both entities contribute essential roles to their creative process. These performances unfold under the passive gaze of an audience, drawn into a somewhat sadistic voyeurism. Yet, crucially, Adonis (Sim) remains unaware of his reality as a digital construct, performing actions dictated by Archontides that, while impossible in the real world, are completely feasible within the game’s algorithmic constraints. The Death Trilogy pushes the boundaries of digital life and death, as evidenced in the final moments of each piece. Here, viewers witness Adonis’s resurrection, a thematic echo of the limitless possibilities afforded by simulated environments.

Adonis Archontides is a multidisciplinary artist who studied Illustration & Visual Media at the University of the Arts in London. His works are satirical and introspective; they often investigate the production of identity as a conscious or subconscious process, and the porosity between fiction, reality, and simulation. Part of his research focusing on his namesake Adonis, an ancient Greek nature deity, revolves around the effects of time on the interpretation of myths. An avid gamer, Archontides believes in the artistic potential of video games which often uses as raw material in his artistic practice. He has been collaborating with an avatar of himself created in the popular simulation game The Sims 4, juxtaposing Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey with an artist’s career trajectory through an episodic narrative. Archontides lives and works in Limassol, Cyprus.

ESSAY: DON’T CALL IT FOUND FOOTAGE: SANDBOX AS JEU VIDEO VÉRITÉ

Charlotte Clerici, Lucas Azemar, Sandbox (Bac à sable), 2023

One of the most captivating yet overlooked facets of Sandbox, an ethnographic and impressionistic study by Lucas Azémar and Charlotte Cherici of a French Grand Theft Auto V roleplay server, is the filmmakers’ innovative and meticulous process. To fully appreciate the originality of their documentation, it is essential to understand the context in which it was created.

As previously mentioned, Azémar and Cherici encountered the French GTA V roleplay community on Twitch, Amazon’s gaming streaming platform. Roleplay refers to a community of players who assume the identities and behaviors of specific characters, interacting with others in a manner driven by narrative or real-life simulation, diverging from the predefined storyline set by Rockstar Games. This vibrant subculture within the broader GTA V user community is often enhanced through modifications (mods) that enable more detailed interactions, exemplified by well-known platforms such as FiveM and GTA Network. These players choose Twitch as their preferred broadcasting platform, streaming gaming sessions live to an audience that includes both roleplayers and non-roleplayers. Both filmmakers are well-versed in gaming culture. Azémar, in particular, delved into gaming themes in his first film, Life on Earth, which was his graduation project at the prestigious school HEAD (acronym of Haute École d’Art et de Design) in Geneva, Switzerland. Similarly, Cherici has explored the concept of roleplay, though her focus has extended beyond digital environments.

Their first joint endeavor, Sandbox, captures the dynamics of a French roleplaying community in an exploratory and experimental, rather than didactic, style. Azémar and Cherici adopt an ethnographic approach, positioning themselves as both observers and engaged participants. Mirroring the style of Knit’s Island, the documentary eschews traditional talking heads and omniscient narration. Instead, it unfolds through a series of vignettes where players fully embody their chosen identities throughout their interactions. Exceptions occur with the occasional trolls or uninformed users, who are either expelled or gently asked to leave the server, informally “the island”, by the all-seeing referees. To preserve the authenticity essential to this unique form of play, Azémar and Cherici opted to forgo the traditional method of editing found footage collected from Twitch. Instead, they fully immersed themselves in the game’s environment to pursue what we can call a specific kind of jeu video vérité (truthful gaming), the game video essay equivalent of cinema vérité, a documentary filmmaking that combines naturalistic techniques with observational cinema, emphasizing a candid approach to its subjects. 

Jeu vidéo vérité embodies a particular style of game video essay that aims to capture and present video game experiences in a truthful, impressionistic, and immersive manner. This method proves effective and viable, emphasizing the authenticity of virtual experiences through spontaneous and unscripted interactions within digital gaming environments. 

Among the features of jeu vidéo vérité we can identify direct engagement…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Sandbox (Bac à sable)

Charlotte Cherici, Lucas Azemar

documentary, 58’, 2023, France

Production: Jérôme Blesson

Screenplay: Charlotte Cherici, Lucas Azémar

Filming: Charlotte Cherici, Lucas Azémar

Editing: Charlotte Cherici, Lucas Azémar, Mila Olivier

Music: Simon Averous

Sound: Pierre Oberkampf

Life on Earth

Lucas Azemar

short, 35’, 2019, Switzerland/France 

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VIDEO ESSAY: BAC À SABLE AS GTA V ETHNOGRAPHY

Selected for Cinéma du Réel in 2023, Sandbox (Bac à sable) is the directorial debut of Lucas Azémar and Charlotte Cherici. Entirely shot entirely within a Grand Theft Auto 5roleplay server, this documentary offers a deep dive into a French gamer community that transcends the conventional or “expected” gameplay. 

In gaming jargon, the term sandbox refers to a style of gameplay where players can explore and interact with a world with minimal limitations on their actions. Sandbox games typically offer a high degree of freedom, allowing players to create, modify, or destroy their environment and influence the simulated reality in both minor and significant ways. This can range from constructing buildings to altering the landscape, to creating intricate narratives or scenarios. Given this definition, sandbox as a title for a documentary about roleplay within a game like Grand Theft Auto V is quite apt. In fact, GTA V’s roleplay servers function as a sandbox environment in the truest sense: they provide a framework within which players can live out complex, interwoven lives as characters of their own creation, with the game world serving as an open canvas for their narratives. These servers expand the conventional boundaries of the game, moving beyond its original missions and storylines to embrace a form of play that is driven entirely by player choice and creativity. Players on these servers adopt nuanced character identities and engage in narrative-driven activities, effectively sidelining the original storyline crafted by Rockstar Games. Such depth in interaction is facilitated by mods like FiveM or GTA Network, which make the roleplay experience possible.

Sandbox allows viewers to explore the lives of various characters – doctors, police officers, store owners and workers – each portrayed with unique backgrounds and ambitions. The documentary highlights the importance of server administrators who enforce rules to maintain realism and order, drawing parallels with super partes entities. These administrators are crucial in ensuring adherence to the roleplay’s shared norms and reprimanding those who deviate. Staying in character and respecting the assigned role is non-negotiable. 

Through its ethnographic lens, reminiscent of the approach seen in Guilhem Causse, Ekiem Barbier, and Quentin L’helgoualc’s Knit’s Island, Sandbox is composed of self-contained vignettes that focus more on standalone, self enclosed narratives rather than recurring characters, with the notable exception of Astrio, the vigilant moderator depicted as a guardian of gameplay integrity, a Watchmen character donning a white suit and a hat, his face covered by a mask.

The film begins intriguingly with a “machinima within a machinima” – a meta-narrative technique where a shootout scene between thugs and special ops officers, viewed by avatars in a Los Santos movie theater, sets the stage. This is followed by a sequence featuring a job interview for a Weazel News cameraperson, possibly an alter ego of the director(s), intended for “research purposes”, illustrating the “free” nature of roleplay environments where participants shape their experiences within the confines of the world they inhabit.

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Sandbox (Bac a sable)

Charlotte Cherici, Lucas Azémar

documentary, 58’, 2023, France

Production: Jérôme Blesson, La belle affaire productions

Screenplay: Charlotte Cherici, Lucas Azémar

Filming: Charlotte Cherici, Lucas Azémar

Editing: Charlotte Cherici, Lucas Azémar, Mila Olivier

Music: Simon Averous

Sound: Pierre Oberkampf

Mixing: Frédéric Belle

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EVENT: ALICE BUCKNELL: THE ALLUVIALS (APRIL 4 - MAY 5 2024, LOS ANGELES)

 Alice Bucknell's The Alluvials is a groundbreaking hybrid of video game and film. This project, set in a speculative near-future Los Angeles, engages with the the politics of drought and water scarcity through a unique narrative lens, presented at Killscreen’s new gallery space in Los Angeles.

What distinguishes The Alluvials is its commitment to exploring these pressing issues through the perspectives of non-human entities and elemental forces, such as the Los Angeles River, wildfire, and even the storied ghost of P-22, the city's famed mountain lion. The Alluvials is structured as a multi-chapter journey, spread across seven distinct worlds, using a game engine to craft a narrative that oscillates through time. This method allows the artist to explore possible futures and revisited pasts, creating a dynamic storytelling experience that challenges traditional linear narratives. By harnessing technologies like drone mapping, stable diffusion algorithms, and cinematic modding within the Grand Theft Auto V engine, the project crafts a parafictional world that is as visually enthralling as it is thought-provoking.

Each chapter of The Alluvials engages with different strands of speculative fiction and ecological theory in crafting engaging and meaningful narratives. The settings range from a synthetic water corporation’s storefront with a backdrop of burning Malibu, to a desertified downtown Los Angeles haunted by the swarm intelligence of wolves. These vivid scenarios invite players to immerse themselves in a world where a moth and a Joshua tree dream reciprocally in the ruins of the Hoover Dam, presenting a narrative that is both haunting and reflective.

The video game component of The Alluvials, developed in 2024, includes four levels, each set in a distinct environment where players assume the roles of conventionally non-playable characters, ranging from elemental forces to wildlife. This design choice not only diversifies gameplay but also enriches the narrative depth, allowing players to experience the ecological and thematic nuances firsthand. The game critically and creatively explores various gaming genres, such as first-person shooters and open-world explorations, reinterpreted through a speculative ecological lens.

Inspired by queer ecological theory and the concept of “difficult games”, The Alluvials challenges conventional game mechanics that center human players and predictable reward systems. Instead, it invites players to engage with gaming’s other affective capacities - such as failure and nonlinear progression - to reflect on the broader ecological implications of their in-game decisions. This approach not only highlights the potential of games as complex ecological systems but also prompts players to reconsider their relationship with the natural world.

The Alluvials is more than just a game or a machinima; it is a unique, visionary project that merges interactive media, ecological awareness, and speculative worldbuilding to address some of the most pressing issues facing contemporary society. Through its innovative narrative structure and immersive gameplay, it offers a compelling invitation to envision and engage with the future of our planet’s water systems and ecological health. As such, The Alluvials stands as a significant contribution to the fields of new media and environmental storytelling, promising to inspire and challenge its audience in equal measure.

Alice Bucknell is a North American artist and writer based in Los Angeles. Using game engines and speculative fiction, Bucknell’s work explores interconnections of architecture, ecology, magic, and non-human and machine intelligence. Bucknell is generally interested in the limits of scientific knowledge and systems thinking, the weird possibilities of play, and the ecological dimensions of games that can dissolve binaries like humans vs. environment, natural vs. synthetic intelligence, and self vs. world. They are the founder of New Mystics.

All images: Courtesy of the Artist and Killscreen

Alice Bucknell: The Alluvials (RSVP)

Killscreen

April 4th – May 4th 2024

5511 W. Pico Blvd.

Los Angeles, California

Read more about Alice Bucknell, The Alluvials (machinima, 2023); The Alluvials (video game, 2024)

EVENT: BABAK AHTESHAMIPOUR’S VIOLENT VIOLINS EXPOSED (APRIL 11-14 2024, ATHENS, GREECE)

We are very happy to announce that VRAL is officially sponsoring Babak Ahteshamipour's new pop-up show at Okay Initiative Space in Athens, Greece to accompany the launch of his new album Violent Violins Exposed.

Ahteshamipour is introducing three new machinima and presenting stills, characters and 3D models from different video games and media franchises such as Optimus Prime (Transformers) and Sweet Tooth (Twisted Metal) printed on fabric. The event will unfold between April 11-14 in the Greek capital. VRAL is a sponsor alongside und. athens.

Read the full press release below:

Violent Violins Exposed is a pop-up show & live performance curated by Okay Initiative Space as a presentation of Babak Ahteshamipour’s same titled album released on the cassette label Jollies (Brooklyn, NYC) on the 3rd of April of 2024. The show is a gamified exploration of blackened dreams, despair and violence woven by accelerating technocapitalism, parallelized with the accelerating tendencies of cars, screeching tires, roaring engines and militarized machines, as a haunting reminder of the collateral damage wrought by technological hubris. It seeks to unravel the interconnectedness between technological singularity, cybernetic warfare, environmental degradation, waste and pollution, from extractivist activities fueling geopolitical conflicts to the fetishized pursuit of capitalist immortality.

Tires have the potential of being representative candidates of accelerating technocapitalism: they are rapidly and massively produced, consisting mostly of synthetic rubber — which is synthesized from petroleum byproducts — and carbon black filler produced by burning fossil fuels. After their lifespan is over they are either dumped in landfills or recycled through grinding or burning — a practice that is highly pollutant. As Lesley Stern writes in A Garden or A Grave? (2017) Regarding landfills filled with tires in the San Diego – Tijuana region “Heidegger predicted: when the tool breaks, you notice its thingness — though the tire in Heideggerian terms is not a thing, lovingly handcrafted; it is a mass-produced and ugly object.”

The show unfolds in an immersive audiovisual installation based on the three video clips created via video games that focus on vehicles, racing, machines and combat: Twisted Metal: Black (2001), Need for Speed: Carbon (2006) and Transformers (2004) — in combination with 3D animation. The video clips were created for the album's three singles, and the installation includes four fabric prints featuring characters from the aforementioned video games as well as Xenoblade Chronicles.

The walls of the room are adorned with quotes that echo the undead dogmatism of Lady Deathwhisper and the scourge from World of Warcraft: The Wrath of the Lich King and the machinist desires of Magos Dominus Reditus from Warhammer 40,000. These quotes serve as reflections on the transhumanist tendencies of accelerationism that align with technological singularity: “Our combined decay-phobia and techno-heroic fantasies keep our imaginations trapped in the spinning haze of the monotechnological, accelerationist narrative. There is a persistent and maniacal desire for limitless production and production without decay.”, as Shuyi Cao and Remina Greenfield underline in Soft Rot, Sweet Rot, Bitter Rot: The Politics of Decay, published in Heichi Magazine (2021).

Violent Violins Exposed eventually serves as a catalyst for contemplation, urging towards a revaluation on the automated nihilism that mainstream discourses passively impose and the escapist memefied extremist online ideologies that emerge in response to the face of technological singularity and accelerationism. It beckons for a reconsideration of a symbiotic and integral relationship with technology that is empathy driven rather than having a divide-and-conquer strategist as a puppet master.

Watch a video clip based on the track “Machinist Auxiliaries, Needles of Needless Emphasises” featuring alternating footage of Ahteshamipour playing the video game Twisted Metal: Black and AI generated rock blasting with a text about violence/extractivism and its connections to warfare and nihilism.

Babak Ahteshamipour, Machinist Auxiliaries, Needles of Needless Emphasises, digital video, sound, color, 4’ 43”, 2024.

Watch a video clip based on the track “When Death Parties, Everyone Shows up Dressed as a Skeleton” which features a segment showing hyper-processed footage from the 2004 Transformers video game for the PlayStation 2and another unfolding within a 3D animated eerie alien landscape with a hovering spaceship and a grotesque necromantic portal installed in the middle.

Babak Ahteshamipour, When Death Parties, Everyone Shows up Dressed as a Skeleton, digital video, sound, color, 3’ 47”, 2024.

THE STRUGGLE (TO HEAL) IS REAL

Carson Lynn’s earliest machinima, Oddball (2019), introduced the foundational themes and stylistic elements that echo throughout his subsequent works, including A bronze anvil falls to the earth., Reversal Ring, and Storm and Stress. In these projects, Lynn explores the complex interplay between digital spaces and queer identity, employing video games as medium, message, and messenger. A set of recurring themes – the representation of bodies, the exploration of virtual spaces as sites of friction and refuge, the use of mechanics as analogies for non binary experiences, glitching as queering – permeate his creations. In this final installment about Lynn’s machinima production, we’ll focus on his inaugural work, Oddball.

Oddball is a poignant meditation on virtual embodiment and queer resilience within the battlegrounds of Halo 2. Thanks to the modification Project Cartographer, Lynn captures the raw intensity of in-game interactions and the futuristic landscapes of Microsoft Studios’s popular first-person shooter. By weaving together footage from the game with real conversations appropriated from player exchanges on YouTube between 2006 and 2010, Lynn crafts a context that moves beyond hyper-masculine competition – the expected/prescribed gaming experience – exploring themes of vulnerability, violence, and the search for safe spaces within fictional domains.

As the artist explains in the artwork’s accompaying text, Oddball draws inspiration from Aevee Bee’s 2015 personal essay, “I love my untouchable virtual body,” which tackled the concept of invulnerability within Bloodborne as a coveted but unattainable shield against real-world pain and trauma. Unlike Bloodborne’s fleeting moments of invincibility, Halo 2’s gameplay mechanics, where characters are unavoidably subjected to damage, decline and degradation, serve as a metaphor for the exposure and assault of the queer self in spaces rife with homophobia and aggression…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Carson Lynn

A bronze anvil falls to the earth., digital video, color, sound, 6’ 35”, 2023

Reversal Ring, digital video, b&w, sound, 3’, 2022

Storm and Stress, digital video, color, sound, 3’ 45”, 2020

Oddball, digital video, color, 3’ 27”, 2019

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CARSON LYNN: GLITCHING IS QUEERING

Central to Carson Lynn’s oeuvre is the exploration of queerness, not just as an identity but as a lens through which to challenge and reinterpret the world. This theme is evident in the way he employs digital media to question and disrupt normative narratives and binary understandings of identity, suggesting a fluidity and multiplicity that is intrinsic to the queer experience. This theme is manifest in Storm and Stress (2020).

In the summer of 2020, Lynn unveiled Storm and Stress, a distinctive project commissioned for Silicon Valet’s Lot Residency #07. This innovative exhibition, hosted on the digital platform's Instagram page over the course of August 1st and 2nd, marked a creative exploration into the digital and virtual realms. Lynn’s work, segmented into nine distinct parts, cleverly utilized the Instagram grid to present a cohesive yet multifaceted visual narrative. Each of the nine sections not only stood alone as a piece of art but also housed a unique short machinima clip, further enriching the viewer’s experience with dynamic, moving images that delved deep into the concept of queerness in digital spaces.

Central to Storm and Stress was the exploration of the concept of “queering as glitching” and “glitching as queering.” This innovative approach posits the act of glitching, often seen as errors or flaws within digital systems, as a form of queering, challenging normative structures and expectations within digital environments. Lynn’s project provocatively suggests that, much like the queer experience disrupts societal norms and expectations, glitches disrupt the smooth, expected functioning of digital systems. This parallel draws attention to…

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Matteo Bittanti


Works cited

Carson Lynn, Storm and Stress, video, color, sound, 3’ 45”, 2020

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BONES OF CONTENTION: QUEERING DIGITAL LANDSCAPES

Carson Lynn, !CURSED!, multimedia exhibition consisting of several digitally-constructed collages and a short machinima, 2022.

To fully appreciate the depth of Carson Lynn’s A bronze anvil falls to the earth., showcased in the Slot Machinima program at MMF MMXXIV, we now delve into his earlier works.

Originally featured within the context of the multimedia exhibition !CURSED! in 2022, Lynn’s Reversal Ring exemplifies the artist’s ongoing exploration of digital artistry through a queer lens, particularly focusing on the emblematic use of skeletons and skulls. This exhibition, comprising digitally-constructed collages and the aforementioned machinima Reversal Ring, utilizes a diverse array of source materials ranging from public domain illustrations to analog photographs of gamescapes, drawing from queer zine archives and employing memetic typography. This approach not only highlights Lynn’s innovative use of digital media but also underscores a thematic continuity with his previous works, such as the 2019 machinima Oddball (featured at the 2020 Milan Machinima Festival), which similarly employs game footage, skull imagery, and player interactions to create a narrative space that transcends traditional gaming aesthetics.

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Carson Lynn, Reversal Ring, digital video, b&w, sound, 3”, 2022

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MMF MMXXIV: CARSON LYNN’S QUEER RAGE

Carson Lynn, A bronze anvil falls to the earth., digital video, color, sound, 6’ 35”, 2023.

Debuting in the Slot Machinima program at MMF MMXXIV, A bronze anvil falls to the earth. marks a seminal moment in Carson Lynn’s oeuvre. This work masterfully synthesizes digital artistry, game-based performance, and socio-political discourse into a singular, compelling narrative. Crafted in 2023, with a duration just shy of seven minutes, it epitomizes the transformative potential of machinima as a platform for both artistic innovation and poignant political dialogue.

In A bronze anvil falls to the earth., Lynn employs gameplay as a performative act, leveraging the dark, violent, feral world of Bloodborne to weave a narrative rich in Greek mythology and fueled by a palpable queer rage. This machinima blends the grim aesthetics and challenging gameplay of a video game renowned for its gothic environments, eldritch horrors, and brutally unforgiving combat with themes of resistance, suffering, and defiance against oppressive forces. Bloodborne’s setting, Yharnam, a cursed city plagued by a mysterious blood-borne disease transforming its inhabitants into beasts, serves as the perfect backdrop for Lynn’s counter narrative and relentless slaughter. The game’s emphasis on solitary exploration and the constant threat of death mirror the solitary struggle against the “blood-drunk beasts”, a metaphor for the violence and hatred faced by queer and trans individuals in the current environment. That is, the intense battles serve as a metaphor for the LGBTQ+ community’s real-world struggles against oppression, emphasizing the significance of perseverance and the quest for acceptance…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Carson Lynn, A bronze anvil falls to the earth., digital video, color, sound, 6’ 35”, 2023.

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NEWS: LEARN AND PRACTICE THE ART AND CRAFT OF MACHINIMA

Il Varco and Lago Film Fest are delighted to announce the third edition of the internationally acclaimed residency, Nouvelle Bug. This unique program is dedicated to the exploration and production of cinema within the realms of video games and Artificial Intelligence. Set against the picturesque backdrop of Revine Lago, this intensive week-long experience combines webinars and live lessons designed to immerse participants in the experimental frontier of Cinema. Under the guidance of the most renowned filmmakers in this niche, attendees will not only gain invaluable insights but also actively engage in the creation of avant-garde short films. Arrive with ideas and leave with a masterpiece that pushes the boundaries of traditional filmmaking.

The workshop is designed to familiarize participants with cutting-edge techniques, supporting them through the development and production phases of their short film projects. Moreover, these projects will have the opportunity to compete for awards offered by prestigious partners such as Gargantua Distribution, Gioia Film, Sayonara Film, and Lago Film Fest.

Participants will explore new aesthetics and solutions introduced by the widespread use of artificial intelligence, learning to adopt a machine-like perspective. This approach not only opens up new vistas for storytelling but also prompts a reflection on humanity’s god-like role in software creation and its implications for our future.

Through this workshop, filmmakers will embark on a journey to discover and harness the unique narrative power of digital worlds, translating them into compelling cinematic experiences. Nouvelle Bug stands as a beacon for those eager to pioneer the fusion of technology and art, offering a platform to redefine the essence of storytelling in the digital age.

TUTORS

The tutors for the workshop include:

  • Andrea Gatopoulos, a Rome-based film producer and director with a background in Modern Literature from Sapienza University, Rome. His work, which explores virtual environments, includes the project Bit-Reality and the short film Happy New Year, Jim, presented at the 54th Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes. His productions have been featured in over 100 festivals worldwide, such as Cannes, Venice, Rotterdam, and Camerimage.

  • Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis, an artist and filmmaker trained at Le Fresnoy, known for exploring the intersection of identity, technology, and the virtual world. His work Maalbeek,a deep dive into the fragmented memory of a Brussels terrorist attack victim, was selected for the 59th La Semaine de la Critique and won the 2022 César for Best Short Documentary.

  • Total Refusal Crew, a pseudo-Marxist media guerrilla group focusing on the artistic intervention within mainstream video games to expose their underlying political messages. Their films have been showcased at numerous festivals, including Berlinale and Locarno, and their research has been featured in museums and art fairs globally.

  • Gala Hernández López, an artist filmmaker and researcher applying a feminist and critical perspective to analyze discourses within virtual communities. Her film La Mécanique des fluides won the 2024 César for Best Documentary Short Film and the 2023 Experimental Work Award from la Scam (France), among other accolades. She regularly conducts workshops and lectures at prestigious institutions and festivals.

CALENDAR

March 28th 2024 Opening of the call for entries

June 15th 2024 Closing of the call for entries

June 28th 2024 Announcement of the 30 selected directors

August 18th 2024 Start of the workshop

October 1st 2024Selection of the winning project

THE MAKING OF A CYBERPUNK MASTERPIECE: CHAIN-LINK

A standout feature of the Slot Machinima program at MMF MMXXIV was the European debut of Steven Cottingham’s As Far as the Drone Can See. This remarkable 15-minute work delves into the intricate landscape of depicting warfare, offering a critical view on the surge of imagery from modern conflict zones. Cottingham introduces a female journalist within the military simulation software ArmA 3, challenging prevailing gender biases and probing the capacity of digital simulations to capture the nuanced realities of conflict. To fully appreciate his new work, it is useful to return toChain-Link, Cottingham’s remarkable full-length machinima, showcased on the VRAL platform in 2022.

The inception of Chain-Link can be traced back to the artist’s fascination with the creative possibilities inherent in the medium of machinima. As he explained in this interview, he views the genre as a blend of found footage and digital puppetry, where the constraints of the video game’s mechanics necessitate creative and often counterintuitive workarounds, imbuing the process with a unique form of ingenuity. This engagement with the medium allows for a reworking of game worlds into narratives that diverge significantly from their original contexts. Cottingham draws upon a wide array of influences, from the choreographic to the cinematic, to repurpose the virtual landscapes of video games into a canvas for storytelling.

At the heart of Chain-Link lies the tension between creativity and constraint, a theme that resonates both within the film’s narrative and its production process. The characters navigate a world where surveillance and control pervade every aspect of existence, mirroring the constraints Cottingham himself navigated in creating the film. This theme is not just a narrative device but also a reflection on the process of machinima, where the limitations imposed by the game engine and the available mods and add-ons prompt a constant negotiation with the material at hand…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Steven Cottingham

Chain-link, single-channel HD video, comprising machinima, 3D animation, and found footage with sound, 90’ 1”, 2022, Canada

Steven Cottingham

As Far As The Drone Can See, single channel HD Video, comprising machinima, 3D animation, and found footage with sound, 15’ 50”, 2023, Canada

Steven Cottingham, Liljana Mead Martin

MACHINE CINEMA, The making of Chain-Link, digital video, color, sound, 12’ 03”, 2023, Canada

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