VIDEO: THE POETICS OF GAME SPACES

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The poetics of video game spaces: On Fumi Omori’s Home Sweet Home

A video essay by Matteo Bittanti 

PART ONE

Fumi Omori’s latest project Home Sweet Home 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 environments 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 beloved game, Nintendo’s 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 is an investigation 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, at least according to the latest statistics. Employing the 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, the other intangible — affords a tantalizing glimpse into a distinct visual hacking methodology, a véritable trompe-l’oeil.

In an extensive interview, 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 the lauded contributions of Benjamin Freedman and Moritz Jekat, 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 advocated by both Bittanti and the discerning Italian emigré, De Mutiis. It is not by chance, then, that these three works share common concerns for such issues as memory, belonging, and loss.

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Matteo Bittanti

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EVENT: NATALIE MAXIMOVA (JUNE 16 - 29 2023, ONLINE)

The Edge of the World

machinima/digital video, color, sound, 8’ 50”, Russia, 2021

Created by Natalie Maximova

A video work that delves into the expansive and boundary-pushing landscapes of the sci-fi video game Cyberpunk 2077, The Edge of the World challenges the conventional perception of endless landscapes, prompting the viewer to question the existence – and perhaps the very meaning – of limits. By exploring the concealed boundaries, documenting the “raw edges” of the game world, and revealing the underlying representational principles, the artist suggests that digital reality is a culturally constructed product. The edges of these virtual realms, with their idiosyncrasies and unexpected functionalities, are not mere endpoints. Instead, they evoke the edges of our familiar world, inviting contemplation and reflection.

Natalie Maximova is an interdisciplinary artist and photographer based in Lausanne, Switzerland. She holds a degree from the ECAL/Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne and has also studied at the Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia. Maximova’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions worldwide, including the 6th and 4th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Balagan!!! Contemporary Art from Russia and Other Mythical Places in Kühlhaus Berlin and the Tbilisi Night of Photography. Her artworks are included in the permanent collections of the Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow and the CitizenM Hotel in Geneva. Maximova’s work has been featured in several publications including Il Giornale dell’Arte, Camera Austria, Bird in Flight, Calvert Journal, and Vice among others. She has also contributed to Screen Images In-Game Photography, Screenshot, Screencast, edited by Winfried Gerling, Sebastian Möring and Marco De Mutiis and published by Kulturverlag Kadmos in 2023.

ARTICLE: BENJAMIN FREEDMAN’S SPECTRAL GEOGRAPHIES

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In his seminal essay, “The spectral geographies of W.G. Sebald” (2007), John Wylie explores the ways in which the German writer W.G. Sebald evokes the uncanny and spectral dimensions of place in his literary works. According to Wylie, Sebald’s writing reflects a deep engagement with the power of place to evoke haunting memories and uncanny sensations. He notes how Sebald’s writing often portrays places as repositories of past traumas and histories that resist simple representation or understanding. Through his use of images, anecdotes, and digressions, Sebald creates a sense of place that is deeply layered and enigmatic, inviting readers to reflect on the ways in which place shapes our perceptions and memories.

The fascinating notion of spectral geographies returns in an eponymous series by Benjamin Freedman which was acquired by the prestigious GESTE Collection in February 2023. Spectral Geographies is a mesmerizing exploration of the urban palimpsest that is Jongno, Seoul, through the use of cutting-edge LiDAR technology. LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is a remote sensing technology that uses laser light to measure distances and create 3D representations of objects and environments…

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Matteo Bittanti

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ARTICLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT BENJAMIN FREEDLAND’S JAKE

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Benjamin Freedman employs sculpture, video, and photography to craft his lens-based creations. His artwork often requires him to delve deeply into intricate histories, conducting extensive research and employing a nearly forensic approach to analysis. Fascinated by photographic research as a type of pseudo-archaeology or meta-ethnography, Freedman frequently uses reinterpretation and disruption in his works to reveal restorative discoveries. As he explores the relative truths and deceptions inherent to the medium of photography, Freedman deliberately incorporates visual vocabularies from genres like video games, science fiction, and horror to produce expansive documentary projects.

Moreover, the use of digital technologies to fabricate false memories and to populate virtual spaces with the weight of recent history is a common thread running through Jake and Freedman’s latest projects, such as Bad Work (2022) and Home in the Valley (2022). While there is a playful quality to the use of digital technologies in these projects, it does not always evoke a sense of joy or amusement. For instance, in Bad Work, the simulated environment captures the unsettling and eerie ambiance of an office festooned for a holiday party, yet conspicuously absent of human presence. Freedman created a series of “photographs” using CGI which depict wine glasses on documents, thrown darts lodged in the ceiling, and abandoned heels under desks, collectively imply a boisterous and spirited occasion that subverts the oppressive ambiance of the workplace… 

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Matteo Bittanti

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EVENT: BENJAMIN FREEDMAN (APRIL 21 - MAY 4 2023, ONLINE)

Benjamin Freedman

Jake

digital video, one channel, color, sound, 6’ 46”, 2023, Canada

Jake is an experimental film that explores simulated environments and the inherent artificiality and fallibility of memory. Composed of footage captured in Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, a videogame set in a post-apocalyptic small town, the film presents semi photorealistic views that alternate between natural and domestic environments. Despite an effort towards realism, the footage remains uncanny as a disembodied voiceover of a young man plays overtop. Expressed in first person, the young man reminisces on his childhood memories that involve his family, the town itself and in particular, his first love named Jake. Written using OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology and recounted by a human actor, the narration eventually acknowledges that in spite of the town being simulated, like the nature of his memories of Jake, there is truth to the liminal space that divides reality and fiction. 

Benjamin Freedman’s artistic practice spans multiple mediums, encompassing sculpture, video, photography and computer generated imagery with a marked interest in complex histories and the restorative potential of photographic research. Through his lens-based work, Freedman artfully reinterprets and disrupts the past, navigating the relative truths and deceptions inherent in the medium. Of particular note is his embrace of science fiction and horror visual vocabularies to expand his documentary projects, compellingly challenging the boundaries of the genre. Notably, Freedman self-published his first photography book in 2015, and has since exhibited extensively throughout the Greater Toronto area, including at Pumice Raft Gallery, Stephen Bulger Gallery, Ryerson Image Centre, 8eleven Gallery, Art Gallery of Mississauga, and Division Gallery, as well as internationally at the prestigious Aperture Foundation in New York City. Beyond his individual artistic pursuits, Freedman has also made significant contributions to the Toronto arts community, serving on steering committees for the Toronto Art Book Fair and SNAP! Live Auction, and as an artist advisory committee member for The Patch Project. He is currently pursuing a Master of Design, Photography at the École cantonal d’art Lausanne (ECAL) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

ARTICLE & VIDEO ESSAY: Albert Mason or, in game-photography as "Manifest Destiny"...

Request for RDR2 mod, https://foundynnel.tumblr.com

…OR, the queering of in-game photography

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Red Dead Redemption 2 is set in 1899, when photography was still considered a “new medium” or, as the cliché goes, a “medium in its infancy”. In fact, the device that turned photography into a mass medium in the United States, the Kodak Brownie, was introduced a year later, in 1900. Photography nonetheless plays an important role within the context of the game. On a narrative level, it is embodied by the character of Albert Mason, a real-life nature photographer that the player first encounters in a quest entitled “Arcadia for Amateurs”. French artiste-astronaute Elisa Sanchez (2021) describes her encounter with Mason in her autobiographical essay:

“Arcadia for Amateurs” is a side mission where I met Albert Mason. Arcadia, a country of villages in the mountainous part of the Peloponnese in ancient Greece, has become a symbol of a primitive and idyllic place where people lived happily and in love. It is also the name of one of the first homosexual associations in France, which made me hope for a romance between Arthur and Albert. But, of course, there was no way to make Arthur Morgan anything other than a strict heterosexual.  

Albert Mason is an amateur photographer who wants to take pictures of the wildlife of the United States. Clumsy, knowing neither the fauna nor the flora, he solicits my help to protect him from the wild animals he wants to photograph. The romantic visions of the Wild West conveyed by the press and popular literature - which describe the splendid sunsets and the rough comradeship of the men of the frontier and yet ignore the massacre of the native population and the hardness of life - inspired man living in the Eastern cities like Albert Mason to try their luck in the West, in search of a more fulfilling life. 

Mason’s character was inspired by George Shiras III, who was the first to use flash photography, thanks to the explosion of magnesium powder, to photograph the night life of animals. Albert Mason dreams of the Wild West as Arcadia: a wild country, which has not yet known the throes of civilization, filled with magnificent animals that are waiting for him to be revealed. Albert displays a sense of wonder that is quite similar to the one I felt when I entered the game. As fascinated as he is, I observe with binoculars dozens of animals, listed in an encyclopedia that grows richer as I discover them. I pick flowers, track raccoons and get mauled by grizzly bears, and I can’t help but feel the beauty of the moonlight or the reflection of the sun in the streams with each step. Red Dead Redemption 2 is fully aware of its aesthetics and incorporates a photo mode which allows the player to capture images of the great wilderness.”

As Sanchez writes, the fictional Mason is indeed based on a historical figure, George Shiras III, like several other characters featured in the game. The “real” Shiras was born into a wealthy family in Alleghany, Pennsylvania, later becoming part of Pittsburgh, in 1859. His father, George Jr., was an attorney who served on the United States Supreme Court for eleven years. Shiras III attended the most exclusive schools in the country: he was an undergraduate at Cornell and — following in his father’s footsteps — received his law degree from Yale. He eventually became the U.S. Representative from the state of Pennsylvania. He was also an amateur wildlife photographer and his photos were featured in the National Geographic. In 1906, the influential magazine published 74 of his photographs and in 1928, Shiras donated 2,400 of his glass plate negatives, which are now part of the National Geographic Society archive. In turn, Shiras III’s award-winning Midnight — a suite of ten photographs of deer taken at night, all of which were taken from a boat using a jack light and illuminated by flashlight — were instrumental in the somehow controversial transformation of the National Geographic from a technical magazine into a mainstream publication (Brower, 2008, pp. 173-174)…

Matteo Bittanti

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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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