Gina Hara

FOTOLUDICA: OVER 500 ATTENDEES AT IULM UNIVERSITY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Over 500 Attendees at Italy’s First Conference on In-Game Photography

Milan, Italy – IULM University hosted the pioneering Fotoludica conference on March 14 and 15, 2024, marking a significant milestone in the recognition of in-game photography as an emerging art form. Curated by Matteo Bittanti and Marco De Mutiis, the event attracted over 500 participants, highlighting its success and the growing interest in this cutting-edge field.

Fotoludica, brought together a diverse group of attendees, not limited to IULM students. The conference saw participation from students across various universities and art schools, including a notable class from the Milan Academy of Art of Brera, led by esteemed curator Domenico Quaranta.

The event unfolded in the Sala dei 146 at IULM 6, Università IULM, offering two days filled with insightful talks, presentations, and discussions. It served as a vibrant platform for creators, researchers, and theorists to explore the intersections of video games, photography, copyright law, activism, and visual culture.

Fotoludica tackled various facets of in-game photography, from the artistry of photo modes and screenshot hacks to the legalities concerning player-created images. The conference featured analyses of works by renowned artists such as Boris Camaca, Leonardo Magrelli, Simone Santilli, Alan Butler, Pascal Greco, Joseph DeLappe and Adonis Archontides, showcasing the depth and creativity possible within virtual gaming worlds.

Key topics included the use of photography for architectural visualization in games like Minecraft, documenting in-game performance art, and contemporary war photography. Discussions delved into the ways gaming environments, when viewed through a photographic lens, can expose themes of violence, labor exploitation, and colonial ideologies.

The lineup of speakers spanned diverse fields, including art history, visual culture, game development, and internet law, with keynotes by Marco De Mutiis on “Playable Imaging” and a special conversation between artist Joseph DeLappe and scholar Laura Leuzzi. Panel discussions led by Bittanti and De Mutiis critically examined the boundaries of creativity, authorship, and ethics in photographic practices using game engines.

Fotoludica has not only established in-game photography as a significant art form but also underscored IULM University's leading role in the scholarly exploration of photography within game studies. The conference’s success in fostering multidisciplinary dialogue sets a new benchmark for artistic interrogation of games, bridging the worlds of photography and machinima.

Fotoludica was the first of a series of events organized by IULM University on the topic of in-game photography as part of an ongoing research. Additional initiatives will take place in May 2024. For more information on the Fotoludica conference and its contributions to the field, please contact Matteo Bittanti at matteo.bittanti@iulm.it

Contact Information:

Matteo Bittanti

Università IULM

Via Carlo Bo, 2

20143 Milano

Event Information: Fotoludica
Date: March 14-15, 2024
Time: 10 AM - 1 PM
Location: Sala dei 146, IULM 6, Università IULM

MMF MMXXIV: GAME VIDEO ESSAY

Image by Dall-e 3

The Milan Machinima Festival MMXXIV is excited to unveil the 2024 Game Video Essay series, featuring a curated selection of international machinima that boldly departs from traditional narrative structures. Join us on Thursday, March 14, at Sala dei 146, IULM 6, for screenings of four groundbreaking works that push the boundaries of the documentary form, including two insightful presentations by the creators themselves.

Game video essay

March 14 2024, 14:00 - 17:00

Sala dei 146

IULM 6, IULM University

Via Carlo Bo 7, 20143 Milano

curated by Matteo Bittanti

Artists and filmmakers: Cat Bluemke and Jonathan Carroll, Guilhem Causse, Ekiem Barbier, and Quentin L'helgoualc’h, Gina Hara, Yemen Liu.

Introduced in 2019, Game Video Essay showcases innovative machinima that transcends traditional narrative structures to explore a wide range of topics, from cultural and philosophical to environmental and abstract, using video games as an expressive canvas. These works diverge from conventional storytelling in machinima, instead offering a rich analysis and commentary on diverse issues through the unique perspective of video games. By repurposing game visuals and mechanics, these essays invite viewers to engage deeply with subjects that challenge and expand the dialogue beyond gaming into a broader cultural and societal context.

The Milan Machinima Festival is proud to present these game video essays as a testament to the evolving potential of games and video essays alike, fostering a deeper appreciation for this dynamic form of expression. The featured works in this year’s program explore themes of environmental change, artificial intelligence, virtual identity, and the role of machinima in contemporary art.

Yewen Liu’s Irreversible documents Greenpeace Poland’s innovative project to recreate the Bialowieża Primeval Forest within the virtual world of Minecraft. The forest, which has faced numerous challenges such as deforestation and ecological shifts, serves as a poignant symbol of the ongoing struggle against irreversible environmental changes. Liu’s machinima captures this virtual reforestation effort, juxtaposing it against the backdrop of the forest’s real-world struggles.

In Crowd Control, Canadian artists Cat Bluemke and Jonathan Carroll examine the intersection of crowd simulation technology and the growing surveillance industry, focusing on the representation of the French Revolutionary mob in Assassin’s Creed Unity. By reflecting on depictions of crowds in art history and contemporary video game crowd simulations, the work questions how these technologies might shape the future of collective action and social unrest in an era of artificial intelligence.

Guilhem Causse, Ekiem Barbier, and Quentin L’helgoualc’h’s full-length documentary Knit’s Island delves into the online game DayZ, exploring a 250 square km virtual space where players enact a survivalist fiction. Using avatars, the filmmakers interact with the game’s community, blending in-game experiences with personal stories. The film investigates the dawn of virtual life integration and its implications for our world, offering insights into online interactions, virtual friendships, and the boundaries between digital and real-life identities.

Gina Hara’s MachinimaBodiesSpaceRhythm is a pioneering episodic series that showcases the voices of women and non-binary creators within the machinima sphere. Situated at the intersection of video games, cinema, and digital art, the series illuminates machinima’s unique, hybrid nature. Hara not only highlights machinima’s artistic potential but also prompts reflection on digital identities and the medium’s role in contemporary art.

These four works demonstrate the power of game video essays to explore complex themes and ideas, leveraging the unique affordances of video games to create compelling and thought-provoking experiences. By blurring the lines between gaming, cinema, and digital art, these essays challenge our understanding of what is possible within the machinima medium and invite us to consider the profound ways in which video games can shape our perceptions of the world around us.

As we navigate an increasingly digital landscape, the Game Video Essay platform serves as a vital platform for artists and filmmakers to interrogate the role of technology in our lives and to imagine new possibilities for creative expression. Through their innovative use of video game engines and their willingness to push the boundaries of traditional storytelling, these creators are charting new territories in the world of machinima and beyond.

Read more about the 7th edition of the Milan Machinima Festival

MMF MMXXIV: GINA HARA

The Milan Machinima Festival is excited to unveil Gina Hara’s latest project Machinima Bodies Space Rhythm, as part of our Game Video Essay program. We warmly invite you to an exclusive screening event on March 14, 2024, hosted at IULM University. This presents a rare chance to experience Hara’s groundbreaking work firsthand, with the added privilege of an introduction by the artist herself.

Gina Hara’s Machinima Bodies Space Rhythm is a pioneering episodic series that delves into the realm of machinima filmmaking from the perspectives of women and non-binary creators. This project aims to showcase their distinct voices within the machinima sphere. Situated at the intersection of video games, cinema, and digital art, the series illuminates machinima’s unique, hybrid nature. Hara not only highlights machinima’s artistic potential but also prompts reflection on digital identities and the medium’s role in contemporary art. World premiere.

Gina Hara is a Hungarian-Canadian filmmaker and artist. She holds an MA in Intermedia, an MFA in Film Production and worked with film, video, new media, gaming, and design. Waning (2011), her first fiction film, was nominated for a Best Canadian Short award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Your Place or Minecraft (2016), a machinima web series focusing on game studies, is currently available on YouTube. Hara’s full length documentary Geek Girls (2017) explores the notion of subculture from women’s perspective and was screened internationally, including IULM University in 2018 during the Gender Play conference. Her artworks have been exhibited by several institutions including the New Museum in New York, the Budapest Kunsthalle and the City of Montreal.

Read more about the 7th edition of the Milan Machinima Festival

MMF MMXXIV: GINA HARA, RESIDENT ARTIST

The Milan Machinima Festival is proud to welcome acclaimed filmmaker Gina Hara as our inaugural Artist-in-Residence.

During her upcoming festival residency in Milan, Ms. Hara will present her latest work, partecipate in the upcoming In-Game Photography conference, while also leading a 1-day workshop for students enrolled in IULM’s Master of Arts in Television, Cinema and New Media, and specifically in the course taught by Matteo Bittanti entitled Video Games, Technology and Art.

Ms. Hara’s current projects build upon her extensive background in the context of game design, digital community and experimental cinema. As Creative Director of Montreal’s Technoculture, Art and Games Research Centre, she spearheads initiatives melding artistic imagination with videogame technology.

As an interdisciplinary artist, Ms. Hara holds an MA in Intermedia and an MFA in Film Production. Her broad experience encompasses film, video, gaming, new media and design. Her 2011 fiction short Waning received a Best Canadian Short nomination at the Toronto International Film Festival. Over the past decade, Ms. Hara has pioneered new frontiers in both filmmaking and creative Minecraft game video productions.

A true visionary in machinima filmmaking, Ms. Hara is the 2022 recipient of the prestigious Critics’ Choice Award for her stunning Sidings of the Afternoon. Unfolding entirely within Minecraft’s blocky realms, the work weaves an artistic dialogue across digital and physical realms, drawing inspiration from the photography and film innovations of legendary Bauhaus figure László Moholy-Nagy. Specifically, Hara explores how the Bauhaus movement’s ideals, creative techniques and uniting of fine art with function still reverberate through contemporary imagination and virtual spaces today. The film’s nonlinear narrative emerges through the lens of Maya Deren’s avant-garde classic Meshes of the Afternoon.

 
 

Her groundbreaking work Valley (2023) was featured in Season 3 of the VRAL. Inspired by the growing prevalence of AI counseling services, Hara developed a custom chatbot named Robin to simulate conversations spanning emotional issues like anxiety, self-doubt and growth. The dialogues touch on quintessentially human questions of purpose, connection and inner peace. Setting these intimate debates within a fantastical blocky gaming realm adds layers of irony and underscores the gulf between AI logical thinking and nuances of human psychology.

 
 

Her earlier film Geek Girls (2017) was screened at IULM in 2019 as part of the university’s Gender Play series events exploring the role of women in gaming culture. This original documentary reveals the overlooked women within fan communities. In fact, although geeky pop culture has gained prominence and visibility, little attention has focused on the many women shaping these worlds.With insight and humor, Hara’s camera follows female gamers, coders and sci-fi fans. She captured their exhilaration and solidarity, but also their frequent exclusion within male-dominated nerd spheres. From professional gamers facing online harassment to women developers battling death threats, Geek Girls spotlights a complex multiplicity of female experiences. Some women find community, some encounter gatekeeping. Most see both. Through intimate interviews, the film unpacks women’s engagement with today’s geek culture. Hara grapples with her own geeky identity on camera, situating herself within the world explored.

 
 

No less remarkable is Hara’s 2015 immersive multimedia installation that transforms the popular game Minecraft into a thought-provoking experiment on the rise and fall of civilizations, MindCraft, created with Pierson Browne and Joachim Desplande.

In its original open-world form, Minecraft offers players endless freedom to create, destroy, and explore fantasy realms limited only by their imagination. Yet in Hara, Browne and Desplande’s hacked version of the game, players face a starkly different scenario. Instead of an infinite sandbox, participants find themselves confined to a small, isolated island in the sky, surrounded on all sides by a vast, empty void. With minimal living space and finite resources, players must band together to survive and build a lasting society on this isolated island, passing hard-won knowledge from one generation to the next. Each person’s gameplay decisions collectively determines whether this microcosm world thrives or perishes over time.

By subverting Minecraft’s utopian promise, MindCraft confronts participants with important questions on sustainability, cooperation, and the delicate balance between creation and destruction. As they build an uncertain future for those who come next, players may gain insight into the enduring question: What legacy do we choose to leave?

 
 

In 2016, Hara directed and produced the award-winning machinima documentary web series Your Place or Minecraft? exploring the intersection of gaming and academia.

This episodic show transports viewers to the richly modded virtual realm known as the “mLab server” on Minecraft, owned by a game research center at Montreal’s Concordia University and inhabited by real-life students and professors from the center itself. As their academic lives and virtual adventures intertwine, the series captures the compelling stories that emerge. The seven episodes follow the players as they navigate collaborative projects, interpersonal conflicts, ambition, joy and frustrations, all within Minecraft’s possibility space.

Part documentary and part social drama, Your Place or Minecraft offers a window into the bonding and clashes that arise when academics build together in a virtual sandbox. The show spotlights not only their creations but also their real-world relationships as revived through the lens of gameplay. With insightful humor and immersive filming, the webseries encapsulates the joys, politics and collaborative challenges of scholarship.

 
 

We eagerly anticipate the insights and inspiration Ms. Hara will contribute as our first Game Artist-in-Residence at the 2024 Milan Machinima Festival.

Read more about Gina Hara’s work

VIDEO: GINA HARA'S YOUR PLACE OR MINECRAFT? (2016)

A TERRIFIC ONLINE ETHNOGRAPHY

Patreon-Exclusive content

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We're happy to share with our Patreon subscribers Your Place or Minecraft?, directed by Gina Hara in 2016. A precursor to Hara's more experimental work with Mojan Studios' world-building game (think Sidings of the Afternoon or Valley), Your Place or Minecraft? documents the activities of a handful of Canadian academics playing together. The full series, which debuted on YouTube six years ago to great critical acclaim, comprises eight episodes.

Both entertaining and revealing, Your Place or Minecraft?, takes place in the virtual land of the mLab server, one of the most modded Minecraft servers in the world. But what makes it really special is that it is owned by academic game research centres of Concordia University where the players - students and professors - all work together in real life. Their IRL friendships, objectives and conflicts result in fascinating, self-reflexive and sometimes explosive gameplay. Hara's modus operandi, connecting gaming, research, and film making, is a testament to the ethnographic potential of documentary-based machinima

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Matteo Bittanti

This is a Patreon exclusive article. To read the full text consider joining our Patreon community.

VIDEO: GINA HARA IN CONVERSATION WITH MARIE LEBLANC FLANAGAN

CONTEXT IS KING

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We are happy to share with our Patreon subscribers — courtesy of Ada X — a video recording of the presentation of AI The End, which Gina Hara produced during her residency in late 2021. The conversation was moderated by Marie LeBlanc Flanagan and took place on Zoom on December 9th, 2021. In the video, Hara provides crucial information about her creative process, the underlying logic of AI and Minecraft, and the development of AI the end, Valley’s precursor. The entire conversation is approximately 45 minute long.

ARTICLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT GINA HARA'S VALLEY

YES, THE FUTURE DOES SOUND LIKE A CHATBOT

Patreon-exclusive content

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Exclusively featured on VRAL until September 15 2022, Gina Hara’s latest project Valley was originally developed during a three month artist residency at Ada X (October-December 2021) under a different title. Originally founded in 1996 as Studio XX, Ada X (2020-) is a bilingual feminist artist-run center located in Montréal, Canada committed to exploration, creation, and critical reflection in media arts and digital culture. Its main goals are making accessible, demystifying, equipping, questioning, and creating art and culture to contribute to the development of a digital democracy. Ada X hosts residencies, workshops, discussions, exhibitions, performances, and educational activities. Hara’s residency was supported by Algora Lab, an interdisciplinary academic laboratory that fosters a deliberative ethics of AI and digital innovation and analyzes the societal and political aspects of the emerging algorithmic society. Gina Hara is an artist-filmmaker with a background in new media and video art. Her work focuses on marginalized narratives from feminist and immigrant perspectives, specifically in the context of social media and games culture. Entitled AI the End, the original video - which you can watch here - was officially unveiled on Thursday December 9, 2021.

Gina Hara’s ongoing interest in the proliferation of artificial intelligence assistants offering pseudo mental-health help online piqued during the Covid-19 pandemic, which was marked by social isolation and an unprecedented lack of IRL interactions. Specifically, Hara draws a parallel between video game playing and AI-assisted mental health. Such a comparison is remarkable because it provides a possible explanation for the rise of digital gaming as neoliberalism became the world’s dominant ideology: taken to its extreme yet logical consequences, we may suggest that there’s a direct connection between mental disorders and video games. The more psychologically unstable we become due to the conditions of the environments we live in, the more we play Minecraft and the likes. Which is to say: the more unstable, precarious, broken, and unpredictable the World becomes, the stronger the need to exert some kind of control and agency over another kind of world, a simulated world in which we are cast as a powerful demiurge. As the Neoliberalism project succeeded in excising democracy from politics, disenfranchising the masses and replacing it with the so-called “freedom to choose” which pair of sneakers you can buy on Amazon, video games introduced a form of pseudo participation through interactivity. TED Talk “gurus” and Silicon Valley’s “edgelords” call this phenomenon “democratization”, a word that  like “friend”, “community”, “like” has no real meaning outside of the Big Tech bubble, or rather, has purely transactional implications.

(continues)

Matteo Bittanti

This is a Patreon exclusive article. To read the full text consider joining our Patreon community.

EVENT: GINA HARA (SEPTEMBER 2 - SEPTEMBER 15 2022, ONLINE)

VALLEY

digital video/machinima (1280 x 720), color, sound, 7’ 06”, Hungary/Canada

Created by Gina Hara

Inspired by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) software in mental health contexts, Gina Hara uses the world of Minecraft as a backdrop for a series of exchanges with an AI-powered chatbot, called Robin, developed specifically for the project. Both the process and the resulting narrative are documented in this short machinima.

Gina Hara is a Hungarian-Canadian filmmaker and artist. She holds an MA in Intermedia, an MFA in Film Production and worked with film, video, new media, gaming, and design. Waning (2011), her first fiction film, was nominated for a Best Canadian Short award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Your Place or Minecraft (2016), a machinima web series focusing on game studies, is currently available on YouTube. Hara’s full length documentary Geek Girls (2017) explores the notion of subculture from women’s perspective and was screened internationally, including IULM University in 2018 during the Gender Play conference. Her artworks have been exhibited by several institutions including the New Museum in New York, the Budapest Kunsthalle and the City of Montreal. Hara lives in Montreal, where she works as Creative Director of the Technoculture, Art and Games Research Centre.

WATCH NOW

NEWS: GINA HARA'S SIDINGS OF THE AFTERNOON WINS THE 2021 CRITICS' CHOICE AWARD

Gina Hara

Gina Hara

Gina Hara’s experimental short shot entirely in Minecraft, Sidings of the Afternoon won the 2021 Critics Choice Award 2021. The jurors were impressed by this short video inspired by Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), light works by Lászlo Moholy-Nagy, and Bauhaus urban design. Henry Lowood praised Hara’s work for demonstrating how the trajectory of art traverses all media, from film-making to video games. Featured in the Glitch ‘n scapes program curated by Luca Miranda, Sidings of the Afternoon illustrates the artistic legacy and influence of the Bauhaus on our everyday lives and imagination.

As Gina Hara wrote,

Follow my train of thought, my shifting perception of the space around me, my fleeting relationships with nature and my urban cell. Seasons passing by while I stare at the same three objects in my house. What is outside, what will we find when we emerge? How will we move on when our toxic relationship with a virus that paralyzed our urban bodies end? Scathed or unscathed? Dreams, algae, shadows, flowers and knives.

What can a filmmaker do when they are locked in during a pandemic? They make a film using a computer. With the participation of game scholars and academics from the Technoculture, Art and Games Research Centre, a town was built in Minecraft following the principles of Bauhaus. Just like the designers and artists of Bauhaus, we also need to rethink the way we use spaces, objects, cities. Beyond thinking about medical safety, as humans we need spaces that expand beyond our bodies’ physical circumference. Just like the light-shadow structures built by Moholy-Nagy, our inner worlds are bigger than the space our bodies take up. In Siding of the Afternoon, optimism for our future takes shape in a metaphor of see-through spaces and overlays, echoing the way our apartments expanded through videoconference windows connecting to and merging with other spaces all cross the world.

Gina Hara is a Canadian-Hungarian filmmaker and artist. She holds an MA in Intermedia, an MFA in Film Production and worked with film, video, new media, gaming, and design. Waning (2011), her first fiction film, was nominated for a Best Canadian Short award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Your Place or Minecraft (2016), a machinima web series focusing on game studies, is currently available on YouTube. Hara’s full length documentary Geek Girls (2017) explores the notion of subculture from women’s perspective and was screened internationally, including IULM University in 2018 during an event entitled Gender Play. Her artworks have been exhibited by several institutions including the New Museum in New York, the Budapest Kunsthalle and the City of Montreal. Hara lives in Montreal, where she works as Creative Director of the Technoculture, Art and Games Research Centre.

Il cortometraggio sperimentale di Gina Hara girato interamente in Minecraft, Sidings of the Afternoon si è aggiudicato il Critics Choice Award 2021. I giurati sono rimasti molto colpiti da questo breve video ispirato a Maglie del pomeriggio (1943) di Maya Deren, i giochi di luce di Lászlo Moholy-Nagy e la progettazione urbana del Bauhaus. In particolare, lo storico del machinima Henry Lowood ha elogiato il lavoro di Hara per aver sottolineato poeticamente come la traiettoria dell’arte attraversa tutti i media, dal cinema ai videogiochi. Presentato nel programma Glitch ‘n scapes curato da Luca Miranda, Sidings of the Afternoon celebral’eredità artistica e l’influenza del Bauhaus sulla nostra vita quotidiana e sulla nostra immaginazione.

Come ha scritto Gina Hara,

Segui la mia linea di pensiero, la mia percezione mutevole dello spazio intorno a me, i miei rapporti fugaci con la natura e la mia cellula urbana. Stagioni che passano mentre fisso gli stessi tre oggetti in casa mia. Cosa c'è fuori, cosa troveremo quando emergeremo? Come andremo avanti quando finirà la nostra relazione tossica con un virus che ha paralizzato i nostri corpi urbani? Feriti o illesi? Sogni, alghe, ombre, fiori e coltelli.

Cosa può fare un regista bloccato durante una pandemia? Girare un film usando un computer. Con la partecipazione di studiosi di giochi e accademici del Technoculture, Art and Games Research Center, all’interno di Minecraft abbiamo costruito una città seguendo i principi del Bauhaus. Proprio come i designer e gli artisti del Bauhaus, anche noi dobbiamo ripensare il modo in cui utilizziamo gli spazi, gli oggetti, le città. Oltre a pensare alla sicurezza ​sanitaria, in quanto esseri umani abbiamo bisogno di spazi che si espandano oltre la circonferenza fisica del nostro corpo. Proprio come le strutture luce-ombra costruite da Moholy-Nagy, i nostri mondi interiori sono più grandi dello spazio occupato dai nostri corpi. In Siding of the Afternoon, l'ottimismo per il nostro futuro prende forma in una metafora di spazi trasparenti e sovrapposizioni, riecheggiando il modo in cui i nostri appartamenti si sono espansi attraverso finestre di videoconferenza che si collegavano e si fondevano con altri spazi di tutto il mondo.

Regista e artista canadese-ungherese, Gina Hara ha conseguito un Master of Arts in Intermedia e un Master in produzione cinematografica, per poi cimentarsi con il cinema, il video, i new media, i videogiochi e il design. La sua prima opera fiction, Waning (2011) ha ricevuto una candidatura come miglior cortometraggio al Toronto International Film Festival. Il suo successivo progetto, Your Place or Minecraft (2016) è una docu-serie machinima disponibile su YouTube. Il documentario Geek Girls (2017) esplora la cultura geek femminile ed è stato proiettato a festival internazionali e nel 2018 è stato presentato a Gender Play, un evento organizzato dall’Università IULM di Milano. Le opere di Hara sono state esibite al New Museum di New York, alla Kunsthalle di Budapest e presso istituzione artistiche di Montreal. Hara risiede a Montreal, in Canada dove dirige il Technoculture, Art and Games Research Centre.