JORDY VEENSTRA

EVENT: JORDY VEENSTRA (OCTOBER 13 - OCTOBER 26 2023, ONLINE)

Regression 4

digital video 4096 x 1716 (4k Scope), color, sound (Stereo, -14LUFS; Stereo, -23LUFS), 13’ 51” (original), 2023, The Netherlands

Created by Jordy Veenstra

Three years have passed since the unveiling of Veenstra’s Regression 3, a machinima that explored the aerial expanses of Grand Theft Auto V’s vast territory. Today, we stand at a significant juncture as Regression 4 further solidifies the significance of the series. This installment takes audiences on a highly experimental cinematic journey, focusing on the underwater realms of Los Santos and Blaine County and some of the many secrets found within.

Jordy Veenstra is a video editor, experimental filmmaker, machinima artist, and front end developer based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In his practice, Veenstra connects videogames, experimental narratives and technology through the medium of machinima and his “practice of distortion” framework, consisting of rules and values that revolve around the “distortion” of otherwise clear video-game generated images and audio, with the intent of moving away from perceiving the film as a “product from a videogame” and more as a “product of cinema” by using various values found in traditional cinema such as cinematic resolutions and aspect ratios, 24 frames per second, color grading, motion blur and grain. Veenstra’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the 2020 and 2022 editions of the Milan Machinima Festival, while Regression Trilogy has been featured on VRAL in 2020.

NEWS: A CLOSER LOOK AT REGRESSION

train ride.png

Currently exhibited on VRAL, Regression is an ongoing series by Dutch filmmaker Jordy Veenstra’s about the places, spaces, and means of transportation featured in Grand Theft Auto V’s fictional state of San Andreas. While working on the second installment in 2019, Veenstra created “a visual experiment “ titled Train Ride to test the different mods and camera angles he was going to use. The result is a relatively long video - clocking at 26 minutes and 10 seconds - with terrific vistas and a relaxed tempo. Veenstra describes the therapeutic effects of the video he made:

I would watch it every so often after a stressful day because of its ambience and peaceful atmosphere. It gave off a different atmosphere compared to the faster-edited Regression 2.

Train Ride was released alongside Regression 2.

As Veenstra writes,

The original footage of this film was shot without the use of Extended Video Export due to it originally being an experiment. I initially did not plan to release this film. Therefore, the quality of the film is less pristine than what I normally use and upload.

On the contrary, the viewing experience is truly remarkable.

Watch Train Ride below:

NEWS: THE WEIRD, THE EERIE, THE UNREAL (MARCH 13 2020)

Machinima is weird, eerie, and unreal. The final program of the 2020 MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL features a series of movies that manifest “a particular kind of perturbation”, symptoms that something “does not belong”, “a sense of wrongness” and “a signal that the concepts and frameworks which we have previously employed are now obsolete”. It also features “landscapes partially emptied of the human”, “failures of absence, failures of presence,” “a sense of alterity”. Finally, it features things “so strange as to appear imaginary; not seeming real”. In other words, machinima is weird, eerie, and unreal. You have been warned,


Il machinima è strano, inquietante e irreale. La selezione conclusiva del MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL 2020 propone cortometraggi che manifestano "un particolare tipo di perturbazione", sintomi che qualcosa "non appartiene", "un senso che le cose non tornano", "un segnale che i concetti e le strutture che abbiamo utilizzato in precedenza sono ormai obsoleti". Presenta anche "paesaggi parzialmente svuotati dell'umano", "fallimenti di assenza, fallimenti di presenza", "un senso di alterità". Infine, illustra cose "così strane da sembrare immaginarie, non reali". IOn altre parole, il machinima è strano, inquietante e irreale. Siete stati avvisati.

TRAILER

LOCATION/TIMES

Friday March 13 2020/Venerdì 13 marzo 2020

Sala dei 146 (IULM OPEN SPACE)

18:00 - 20:00

Please RSVP

LINE-UP/PROGRAMMA

Conor Bateman, PROCEDURAL: ZODIAC AND THE DIGITAL CITYSCAPE

digital video, color, sound, 10’ 06”, 2017. Australia.

Olivier Bonenfant, NAATAPLAWUQATSI (LIFE AS PLAY)

machinima/digital video, color, sound, 7’ 00”, 2016. Canada.

Leander Burk, FREE BALL

machinima/digital video, color, sound, 8’ 05”, 2019. Germany.

Ismael Joffroy Chandoutis, DÉTOURNEMENTS DE FONDS

digital video, color, sound, 1’ 47”. 2020. France.

Kent Lambert, RECKONING 7

machinima/digital video, color, sound, 4’ 34”, 2018. United States of America.

Carson Lynn, ODDBALL

machinima/digital video, color, sound, 3’ 28”, 2019. United States of America

Luke Reeves, 2020 MICROFILM

machinima/digital video, color, sound, 2’ 44”, 2020. Denmark.

Alessandro Tranchini, FRAGMENTS OF AN APOCALYPSE

machinima/digital video, color, sound, 05’ 34”, 2018. Italy.

Jordy Veenstra, DEPTHMAP

machinima/digital video, color, sound, 1’ 05”, 2019. The Netherlands.