Aleksandar Radan

ARTICLE: ADRIFT IN THE UNCANNY VALLEY

VRAL is currently exhibiting Aleksandar Radan’s This water giver back no Images. To provide context to this remarkable work, we are discussing the Serbian-German artist’ oeuvre. Today we take a closer look at In Between identities.

With his groundbreaking machinima In between identities (2015) and the subsequent video installation This water gives back no Images (2017), Berlin-based filmmaker Aleksandar Radan established himself in the mid-2010s as a rising talent probing the porous boundaries between concrete and virtual spaces. Appropriating assets from blockbuster games like Grand Theft Auto V, Radan constructs eerie, liminal worlds where meaning frays, and questions of identity become as glitchy as the discordant landscapes he frames.

Originally presented in April 2020 as VRAL #2, In between identities sees Radan hijack GTA V, rewriting portions of code through modding to direct lonely avatars stripped of context, narrative, and purpose. Bereft of missions, these figures wander a murky, humid, deserted city, their awkward movements and apparent disorientation at odds with the usual bombastic pace of the “conventional” gameplay. Dressed incongruously in bathing suits or fur coats, slicing cucumbers over their eyes, the mute characters perform uncanny rituals before mirrors and displays. Repeated motifs like photographs and screens highlight themes of fragmented selfhood and surveillance. Radan’s fixed camera angles hold uncomfortably long on incidents of mundane absurdity as his non-player characters break scripted behaviors. Static shots are interrupted by the camera’s jerky movements as the artist is filming the computer monitor where the action is unfolding, zooming in and out abruptly, rather than recording the game footage via a dedicated card. The removal of soundtracks enhances the sensation of drifting outside reality.

This early experiment crystallized Radan’s impulse to short-circuit gaming conventions via artistic intervention…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Aleksandar Radan

In between identities, digital video, color, sound, 8’ 50”, 2015, Germany

This water gives back no Images, 3-channel video installation, 6’ 12”, loop, 2017, Germany; presented on VRAL as a single-channel digital video

All images courtesy of the Artist

This is a Patreon exclusive content. For full access consider joining our growing community.

ARTICLE: WHY LOOK AT ANIMALS?

VRAL is currently exhibiting Aleksandar Radan’s This water giver back no Images. To provide context to this remarkable work, we are discussing the Serbian-German artist’ oeuvre. Today we take a closer look at his 2019-2022 mockumentary series Steckbrief Natur.

In the context of game-based video art, Aleksandar Radan’s Steckbrief Natur series (2019-2022) stands as a sui generis work marrying the mechanics of machinima with the aesthetics of avant-garde documentary, or rather, mockumentary. This trio of nature “profiles” reimagines the popular genre of wildlife documentary through a lens that educates, even as it unsettles. By utilizing game engines to construct surreal dreamscapes, Radan’s triptych, consisting of Der Waldkauz (The Tawny Owl, 2019) and Steckbrief Natur - Episodes 2 & 3 (2022) probes the porous boundary between nature and techno-culture.

Initially introduced via the mighty Franco-Teutonic platform Arte.tv after the first episode was presented at a handful of film festivals in Germany, the series showcases Radan’s flair for technical innovation through avant-garde machinima. This inventive use of game assets aligns with the project’s conceptual interests in simulated and actual ecologies. In this sense, machinima’s reputation for flexibility and surreal possibility makes it an ideal vector for Radan’s exploration of environments where realism ruptures without warning.

At its core, Steckbrief Natur examines the interplay between documenting wildlife and the narratives we overlay onto other species. In Der Waldkauz, the tawny owl becomes more than flesh and feathers: it is a cipher for philosophical ruminations on existence and mortality. Through lingering shots of the raptor’s piercing eyes, Radan establishes its role as a messenger between altered states of being. This fascination with animals as vessels for cultural mythologies permeates the series.

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Aleksandar Radan

Steckbrief Natur - Der Waldkauz (The Rawny Owl)

digital video, color, sound, 9’ 41”, 2019, Germany

Steckbrief Natur - episodes 2 and 3

digital video, color, sound, 14’ 02”, Germany

This is a Patreon exclusive content. For full access consider joining our growing community.

ARTICLE: THE RIDICULOUS PROPHECIES OF AVATARS

Aleksandar Radan

Prophezeiung eines lächerlichen Avatars (Prophecy of a ridiculous avatar)

digital video (rotoscoped, 3D animated film), 5’ 02”, 2017, Germany, installation view at Frankfurter Kunstverein

VRAL is currently exhibiting Aleksandar Radan’s This water giver back no Images. Today we take a closer look at his 2017 experimental minimalist video work Prophezeiung eines lächerlichen Avatars (Prophecy of an ridiculous avatar).

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PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT 〰️

Aleksandar Radan’s experimental animated short Prophecy of an Ridiculous Avatar (2017) (sic) and the video installation This water gives back no Images (2019), currently exhibited on VRAL, both manipulate found digital imagery to probe the boundaries between real and virtual identity. However, their approaches differ strikingly. Where Prophecy renders its appropriated clips from video games and social media into hand-drawn outlines, This water revels in the saturated hyperreality of gameplay graphics. And while Prophecy strips figures of identifiable features through the technique of rotoscoping, This Water foregrounds emergent narratives by concentrating on a single, recurring pale, somehow uncanny, avatar. Ultimately, Prophecy pursues abstraction by removing context, whereas This Water achieves discomfort by submerging viewers deeper inside familiar and yet uncanny simulated worlds.

Created specifically forhis 2017 solo exhibition at Frankfurter Kunstverein, the 5-minute experimental video Prophecy sees Radan meticulously rotoscope over 4,000 individual frames of digital footage. Culled from sources like YouTube and Twitch, scenes of violence, exploitation and vulnerability intermingle and repeat in a seamless flow. Despite utilizing digital editing tools, Radan manually traces each cell by hand — a painstaking process where two days of work yield just 10 seconds of finished film. Through exhaustive frame-by-frame drawing and erasure, offensive moments become diffused into hypnotic movement studies. Bereft of facial details, the abstracted figures traverse a contextless void…

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Matteo Bittanti


Works cited

Aleksandar Radan

Prophezeiung eines lächerlichen Avatars (Prophecy of an ridiculous avatar)

digital video (rotoscoped, 3D animated film), 5’ 02”, 2017, Germany

Aleksandar Radan

This water gives back no Images

3-channel video installation, 6’ 12”, loop, 2017, Germany; hereby presented as a single-channel digital video

All images courtesy of the artist

Aleksandar Radan

Prophezeiung eines lächerlichen Avatars (Prophecy of a ridiculous avatar)

digital video (rotoscoped, 3D animated film), 5’ 02”, 2017, Germany, installation view at Frankfurter Kunstverein

This is a Patreon exclusive content. For full access consider joining our growing community.

EVENT: ALEKSANDAR RADAN (NOVEMBER 24 - DECEMBER 7 2023, ONLINE)

This water gives back no Images

3-channel video installation, 6:12 min, loop, 2017, Germany; hereby presented as a single-channel digital video

Created by Aleksandar Radan

Originally conceived as a 3-channel video installation, This water gives back no Images features a lush, tropical digital landscape created using modified scenes from Grand Theft Auto. We see palm trees bending in the wind and hear soft rustling sounds and bird chirps. An avatar moves through this landscape, wading into the water. As it bathes, the figure seems to dissolve into the ripples and reflections in the water, its contours blurring into the surroundings. About halfway through the video, a grainy black and white recording of Nina Simone singing “Images” (1966) appears embedded within the video game aesthetic. This water gives back no Images questions notions of identity and reflection within an increasingly digital world. 

A German artist born in 1988, Aleksandar Radan studied at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach. His work explores digital media, focusing on themes of technological disconnection and virtual identities. Radan alters computer game environments through modding, filming live action footage within the modified spaces. His experimental short films juxtapose programmed avatars with improvised gestures, bringing the virtual and physical worlds into collision. Radan’s works have been exhibited internationally, including at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and Oberhausen International Short Film Festival.

EVENT: VRAL IRL_ALEKSANDAR RADAN (NOVEMBER 24 2023, MILAN, ITALY)

Join us on Friday November 24 2023 at 6 PM at IULM University, in Milan, Italy for an exclusive artist talk by Alexandar Radan. This event marks the launch of VRAL IRL because time has come to touch grass.

VRAL IRL_ ALEKSANDAR RADAN

Room 613, floor -1, Building IULM 6

IULM University

Via Carlo Bo 2

20143 Milan

Italy

THE EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC: PLEASE RSVP

Aleksandar Radan, born in Offenbach am Main in 1988, completed his studies in art at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach. His artistic focus lies in the realm of digital media, with particular emphasis on video games, which he appropriates, manipulates, and subverts. Central to Radan’s body of work are themes that explore the unpredictable ruptures within meticulously designed systems, the aesthetics of simulation, and the evolving role of the artist in the age of algorithms. His diverse artistic practice encompasses experimental film and video, installation art, and performance. Radan’s works have received recognition at prestigious venues, including the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and the International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen.

Questo evento è primo appuntamento della serie VRAL IRL, perché è arrivato il momento di toccare l’erba.

L'EVENTO È GRATUITO E APERTO AL PUBBLICO PREVIA REGISTRAZIONE

VRAL IRL_ ALEKSANDAR RADAN

Aula 613, piano -1, IULM 6

Università IULM

Via Carlo Bo, 2

20143 Milano

Aleksandar Radan nato a Offenbach am Main nel 1988, ha completato gli studi artistici presso la Hochschule für Gestaltung di Offenbach. La sua pratica artistica si concentra sul regno dei media digitali, con particolare attenzione ai videogiochi, di cui si appropria, per manipolarli e sovvertirli. Radan esplora le imprevedibili rotture all’interno di sistemi meticolosamente progettati, glitch e crash, l’estetica della simulazione e il ruolo dell’artista nell'era degli algoritmi. Le sue opere comprendono film e video sperimentali, installazioni e performance. Le opere di Radan hanno ricevuto riconoscimenti in sedi prestigiose, tra cui il Festival internazionale del cortometraggio di Clermont-Ferrand e il Festival internazionale del cortometraggio di Oberhausen.

EVENT: VRAL #3_JORDY VEENSTRA (JUNE 5 - 18 2020)

REGRESSION (TRILOGY)

Digital video, color, sound, 16’ 32”, 2020 (The Netherlands)

Created by Jordy Veenstra

JIntroduced by Matteo Bittanti

Several cinematic productions of the 1920s and 1930s became known as city symphonies. Some, like The Man with a Movie Camera (1929) by Dziga Vertov or Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (1927) by Walter Ruttmann were explicitly avant-garde in style. Their aesthetics were influenced by modern art, with an emphasis on fast cutting and pulsating scores. Others were more contemplative and ruminative, the equivalent of a cinematic dérive. All of them portrayed and celebrated the life, rhythms, and activities of urban environments. Today, several filmmakers are creating visual poems extolling the virtues of Los Santos and Liberty City. Like their predecessors, these machinima are situated halfway between the documentary and the avant-garde film insofar as they showcase virtual vistas with a style reminiscent of a longstanding cinematic tradition. With Regression, Jordy Veenstra portrays different facets of Grand Theft Auto V’s state of San Andreas, highlighting both the idiosyncrasies of simulations as well as the act of travelling without moving.

Jordy Veenstra is a video editor, motion graphics designer, 2D animator, and experimental filmmaker based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His works connect art and narratives with technology or software through the medium of experimental film. His work often examines overlooked social, artistic or personal issues.

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NEWS: A CLOSER LOOK AT IN BETWEEN IDENTITIES

radan

In between identities was shot with/in Grand Theft Auto V, a virtual environment that allows for an improvisational exploration in a seemingly endless space. By experimenting with freely available mods (modifications), Radan was able to alter several details of the original game and exert more control on the cameras. His intervention transformed a violent, relentless action game in a meditative, poetic experience. The same oneiric feeling returns in a more recent work, This water gives back no images (2017), which was the result of another appropriation and transformation of Grand Theft Auto V. Here there are no references to the original game, making it even more unrecognizable and abstract than In between identities. Radan uses Nina Simone’s song “Images”, whose lyrics are at times mirrored by events or situations in the machinima. Both In between identities and This water gives back no images can be seen as a commentary on body image, decay and aging (or lack thereof).

In this 2018 interview, Radan discusses This water gives back no images and his practice:

NEWS: VRAL #2_ALEKSANDAR RADAN (MAY 8 - MAY 21 2020)

IN BETWEEN IDENTITIES

digital video, color, sound, 8’ 50”, 2015 (Germany)

Created by Aleksandar Radan

Introduced by Matteo Bittanti

In an ersatz Los Angeles permeated by a pervasive sense of dread, mysterious figures confront their own meaninglessness. Scantily dressed, completely naked or donning fur coats, men and women seem disoriented as they try to see more, see better or see nothing at all. Some even temporarily blind themselves by placing slices of cucumber over their eyes. At once recognizable and abstract, these cartoon-like characters are not pathetic, but rather apathetic. The viewer indulges in scopophilic pleasures as they perform mundane acts, like watching themselves in the mirror or taking a photo. It seems harmless, even comical, and yet one feels it could suddenly turn into a nightmare. 

Aleksandar Radan was born in Offenbach am Main in 1988 and studied art at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach. His work is concerned with the digital medium, especially video games, which he appropriates, manipulates, and subverts. Recurrent themes include the unpredictable ruptures in otherwise predesigned behaviors and environments, the aesthetics of simulation, and the artist’s role in the age of algorithms. Radan’s practice includes experimental film/video, installation and performance. His works have been featured at multiple venues, including the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and the International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen

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