Game Photography

EVENT: NOTHING IS TRUE. EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED (NOVEMBER 20 2023, BOLOGNA, ITALY)

Simone Santilli
Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.
Fotografia, videogioco e lavoro

In conversazione con Matteo Bittanti

evento gratuito con prenotazione

20 novembre 2023 ore 18:30

FOTO/INDUSTRIA_GAME

MAST.Auditorium

Via Speranza 42

Bologna, Italia

Gli ambienti digitali dei videogiochi sono siti di una intensa attività da parte di una crescente comunità di fotografi virtuali. Le loro macchine fotografiche sono fatte di codice e, oltre a produrre immagini, possono determinare la loro sopravvivenza fungendo da armi o mezzi con cui spostarsi nello spazio e nel tempo. Allo stesso tempo, la nostra quotidianità assomiglia sempre più a uno strano gioco nel quale le immagini sono le regole e i premi. Simone Santilli e Matteo Bittanti discuteranno del modo in cui videogioco e fotografia si intrecciano producendo estetiche e pratiche la cui portata va ben oltre l’ambito videoludico. Il ruolo dei due media è infatti centrale nella società contemporanea, dalla politica all’intrattenimento, dall’arte al marketing, dall’autorialità alla partecipazione, dalla crisi ambientale a quella dell’idea stessa di realtà.

Simone Santilli (1987) è un artista visivo, fondatore del duo The Cool Couple insieme a Niccolò Benetton, con il quale analizza i processi di produzione, circolazione e fruizione delle immagini. I progetti di TCC sono stati esposti presso istituzioni e festival italiani ed internazionali e nel 2020 il duo è stato tra i vincitori dell’ottava edizione di Italian Council. Simone Santilli è docente presso NABA, IED e MADE Program. Nel 2023 pubblica My Favourite Game. Fotografia e videogioco, uno studio sulle pratiche, l’estetica e le implicazioni dell’ibridazione tra medium videoludico e fotografico.

Artista, curatore e accademico, Matteo Bittanti studia gli aspetti culturali, sociali ed estetici delle tecnologie emergenti, in un approccio che abbraccia media studies, game studies e visual studies. Professore associato all’Università IULM di Milano, Bittanti ha svolto attività di insegnamento e ricerca anche presso la Stanford University e la University of California a Berkeley. Le sue ultime pubblicazioni includono le curatele Reset. Politica e videogiochi (2023), Game Over. Critica della ragione videoludica (2020), Fenomenologia di Grand Theft Auto (2019) e Giochi video. Performance, spettacolo, streaming (2018, insieme ad Enrico Gandolfi) per Mimesis Edizioni.

Simone Santilli
Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.
Photography, video game, and labor

In conversation with Matteo Bittanti

Free and open to the public (please RVSP)

November 20 2023 6:30 PM

FOTO/INDUSTRIA_GAME

MAST.Auditorium

Via Speranza 42

Bologna, Italy

The digital worlds of video games are sites of vigorous creativity for a growing community of virtual photographers. Their cameras are coded algorithms that determine their survival by serving as weapons or vehicles through space and time, in addition to producing images. Concurrently, our everyday life increasingly resembles a peculiar game where images are the rules and rewards. Simone Santilli and Matteo Bittanti will discuss the intertwining of video games and photography, generating aesthetics and practices that go beyond the gaming domain. The roles of both media are in fact pivotal in contemporary society, impacting politics, entertainment, art, marketing, authorship, participation, the environmental crisis, and the very notion of reality.

Simone Santilli (b. 1987) is a visual artist and founder of the artistic duo The Cool Couple with Niccolò Benetton, analyzing the processes of image production, circulation and consumption. TCC's projects have been showcased in Italian and international institutions and festivals, and in 2020 the duo was among the winners of the eighth Italian Council edition. Santilli lectures at NABA, IED and MADE Program. In 2023 he published My Favourite Game. Photography and Videogames, examining the practices, aesthetics and implications of the hybridization between video games and photography.

Artist, curator and scholar Matteo Bittanti investigates the cultural, social and aesthetic facets of emerging technologies, combining media studies, game studies and visual studies. An associate professor at IULM University in Milan, Bittanti has also taught and conducted research at Stanford University and at the University of California, Berkeley. His latest publications include the edited volume Reset. Politics and video games (2023), Game Over. Critique of Video Game Reason (2020), Phenomenology of Grand Theft Auto (2019) and Video Games. Performance, Spectacle, Streaming (2018, co-edited with Enrico Gandolfi) for Mimesis Edizioni.

ARTICLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT FUMI OMORI’S HOME SWEET HOME (2 OF 2)

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“Now that she knows that she is herself, will she resume her game of ‘playing houses,’ will she return home, in other words, withdraw again into herself?”

(Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, 1958)

VRAL is currently showcasing Fumi Omori’s latest project Home Sweet Home, which delves into the young Japanese artist’s intimate tapestry of personal recollections and her playful documentation of frequent relocations both IRL and within the virtual realm of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

In our preceding exploration, we delved into the intricate interplay between the digital realm and its tangible manifestations, exemplified by the artist’s clever utilization of photogrammetry — a technique that involves capturing and measuring physical objects or environments through the analysis of photographs or digital images — in visualizing the meticulously reconstructed apartments within the landscape of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. With a process that dances harmoniously between simplicity and intricate complexity, Home Sweet Home's essence gradually reveals itself.

In the second part of our deep dive, our focus shifts toward Omori’s ingenious employment of Animal Crossing: New Horizons itself, which serves as both a tool for reconstructing fragmented memories and an archival repository of lived experiences, deftly mediated through the artist's lens. The accompanying images presented in this page poignantly showcase Omori's recreated apartments within the realm of Nintendo’s 2020 best selling game. Reminiscent of The Sims, Animal Crossing: New Horizons provides a captivating interplay that merges the practice of dollhouse playing with the art of crafting personalized living spaces. Here, players become architects of their own imaginative interiors, meticulously curating furniture, decor, and layout to reflect their sense of style and self expression. With a plethora of design options and customizable elements at their disposal, players can explore various aesthetics, experiment with spatial arrangements, and create harmonious environments that evoke a sense of comfort, cuteness, and personalization.

(continues)

Matteo Bittanti

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ARTICLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT FUMI OMORI’S HOME SWEET HOME (1 of 2)

Fumi Omori, Home Sweet Home, Photomechanical prints, 8.3 x 14.0 cm (3 1/4 x 5 1/2 in. ), installation view, ECAL, 2022

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VRAL is currently showcasing Fumi Omori’s latest project Home Sweet Home, which delves into the young Japanese artist’s intimate tapestry of personal recollections and her playful documentation of frequent relocations both IRL and within the virtual realm of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Her nomadic history, characterized by a succession of relocations around the world in the past few years, finds solace in the poignant stillness of captured photographs, a portal to the emotional entanglements woven into past physical spaces. Nestled within the cherished folds of this popular video game, Animal Crossing, which emerged as a sanctuary amidst the disquietude of the 2020-2021 Covid-19 pandemic, the artist crafts bespoke chambers that bear testament to their very essence.

Home Sweet Home raises a fundamental inquiry into the ramifications of transposing corporeal abodes into the virtual landscapes of video game spaces, which are “inhabited” by around two billion people as we speak, according to the latest statistics. Employing the meticulous technique of photogrammetry, Omori undertook the playful reconstruction of her former dwellings within the game, thereby obfuscating the demarcations between reality and imagination, leaving the viewer awash in a sea of architectural reverie, both deeply personal and utterly generic, as these apartments evoke the classic IKEA principles of impermanence, interchangeability, and transience. The interplay that ensues between these competing ideas of domesticity but also between these planes of reality — one corporeal and the other intangible — affords a tantalizing glimpse into a distinct visual hacking methodology, a véritable trompe-l’oeil.

In an extensive interview with the curator, the artist mentioned that the genesis of this project took root at ECAL, the prestigious École cantonale d’art de Lausanne, and was set into motion by the visionary digital curator Marco De Mutiis of Fotomuseum Winterthur as part of a workshop on Automated Photography. Notably, this marks the third installment — following Benjamin Freedman and Moritz Jekatrecent shows, to grace the fourth season of VRAL — a testament to the platform’s unwavering commitment to championing burgeoning talents alongside their venerable counterparts, an approach ardently advocated by the discerning Italian emigré, De Mutiis.

It is not by chance, then, that these three works share common concerns about memory, belonging, and loss.

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Matteo Bittanti

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EVENT: FUMI OMORI (JUNE 2 - 15 2023, ONLINE)

HOME SWEET HOME

machinima/digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 2’ 35”, Japan, 2023

Created by Fumi Omori

Home Sweet Home explores personal memories and their translation into physical architecture through Animal Crossing: New Horizons. With a history of frequent relocations, the artist captured their rooms in photographs, preserving emotional connections to past spaces. Animal Crossing, a beloved game providing an idyllic refuge during the Covid-19 pandemic, allowed the artist to craft personalized rooms reflecting their personality. This project questions the impact of translating real-life spaces into the virtual realm. Employing photogrammetry, the artist reconstructs their past homes in the game, blurring boundaries with imaginative architecture. The interplay between virtual and physical layers offers a fresh perspective, showcasing a unique visual hacking method. Automating realities on the virtual plane reveals the intricate relationship between our fragile understanding of reality and memories. Digital reverie becomes an avenue for escapism, confronting the present, future, nostalgia, and denial.

Fumi Omori navigates the crossroads of the cultural diaspora with her transcendent visual language. Currently nearing the culmination of her master’s degree in photography at the esteemed École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL) in Switzerland, Omori’s diverse experiences serve as a potent source of inspiration. Born and raised in Japan, the artist spent over a decade living in prominent American coastal cities (New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco) before gravitating towards the medium of photography. Her previous stints as a perceptive graphic designer and discerning art director have indubitably permeated her artistic vision.

A CLOSER LOOK AT KOSSOFF FLEES UKRAINE

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In his own words

I created a scan of one of Kossoff’s London paintings using photogrammetry and imported them into a video game development toolkit. The heavy impasto brushstrokes provided an eerily lifelike landscape of peaks and troughs. An algorithm was used to populate the scene with flora and fauna, mimicking a dense conifer forest along a coastal route. Volumetric clouds pass over an early morning winter sun, with a thick haze slicing through the trees.

Audio was overlaid from a recent live capture in Kyiv, with disturbing rumblings in the distance interrupting an unusually quiet cityscape. The subtitles are all taken from real accounts of fleeing refugees from the 2022 conflict in Ukraine. Their stitched together words tell a harrowing story of war, displacement and leaving behind lives, families and home. The slow pace of the trek around the digital landscape will provide familiarity to gamers, referencing the stillness of popular first person shooters like Call or Duty: Warzone and DayZ—games inspired by the Eastern conflicts and where the next fatal hazard is just around the corner.

I wanted to use the medium of a first person shooter to draw attention to the popularity of this genre by the military, both as a training simulation and also as a targeted recruitment method. The idea of kids online trash talking and getting kill streaks sits uncomfortably with the real life horrors relayed by the subtitled refugees.

Jason Rouse

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EVENT: VRAL #33_BENOIT PAILLÉ (OCTOBER 29 - NOVEMBER 11 2021, ONLINE)

HYPER TIMELAPSE GTAV (CROSSROAD OF REALITIES)

machinima, sound, color, 2’ 20”, 2014, Canada

Created by Benoit Paillé

A time-lapse is a creative filming and video editing technique consisting in the active manipulation of the frame rate, that is, the number of images, or frames, that appear in a second of video. In most videos, the frame rate and playback speed coincide. In a time-lapse video, however, the frame rate is stretched out far more: when played back at average speed, time appears to be sped up. In 2014, Benoit Paillé created a seminal video time lapse of Grand Theft Auto V, as part of his investigation of photographic practices in video games, Crossroads of Realities. The result is a breathtaking taxi ride accompanied by an intense jazzy score. 

Benoit Paillé is a self-taught French-Canadian photographer who lives and works in Québec, Canada. After studying biology for three years in a CÉGEP (a publicly funded college providing technical, academic, vocational or a mix of programs in Québec), he turned to the visual arts and decided to explore photography. According to his bio, Paillé sees himself as “a hyper realist painter” whose photographs document “an altered state of mind”. His work has been exhibited in Canada, Japan, Los Angeles, Barcelona, Moscow, and Ukraine. Among other things, he photographed speculative fiction writer William Gibson for the New Yorker magazine. 

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EVENT: VRAL #13_LUCA MIRANDA (NOVEMBER 13 - NOVEMBER 26 2020)

CHEATIMERISM

Digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 14’ 55’’, 2020 (Italy)

Created by Luca Miranda

Introduced by Matteo Bittanti

By reconfiguring the spaces of Grand Theft Auto V, Cheatimerism investigates the political and economic implications of consumption and its side effects, including concrete waste, virtual surrogacy, and planned obsolescence. This machinima shows various sculptural forms made of identical vehicles, the Rapid GT, a sports car, and a waste collection truck, the Trashmaster. Capitalism, the artist seems to suggest, is the ultimate cheat mode.

Luca Miranda’s practice focuses on the relationship between reality and simulation. He is especially interested in the aesthetic potential of the avatar. In his work, Miranda critically investigates game mechanics and concepts such as immersion, identification, and interpassivity. Miranda received a B.A. in Media and Art from the University of Bologna and in 2019 received a M.A. in TV, Cinema and New Media at IULM University. In 2018, he co-founded Eremo, an artistic collective based in Milan. He is currently working on book about walking simulators.

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Media coverage: Matteo Lupetti, ArtTribune (in Italian)