MEET THE JURORS: MARCO DE MUTIIS

Marco De Mutiis, courtesy of the Author

The seventh edition of the Milan Machinima Festival features an international jury panel comprising four esteemed members, including Marco De Mutiis.

Marco De Mutiis is a Digital Curator at Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland where he leads the museum research on algorithmic and networked forms of vision and image-making. He leads and co-curates different projects and platforms expanding the role and the space of the museum. These include the collaborative live stream programme Screen Walks (developed and co-curated with Jon Uriarte, curator of digital programmes at The Photographers’ Gallery in London), as well as Fotomuseum’s current experimental platform [permanent beta] The Lure of the Image.

Marco is also the co-director of the groundbreaking Master in Algorithmic and Networked Photography at Elisava in Barcelona, Spain, which will make its debut in September 2024.

He is a researcher and doctoral candidate at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at South Bank University where he focuses on the relationship between computer games and photography. He co-curated with Matteo Bittanti the group exhibition How to Win at Photography – Image-making as Play, exploring the photographic act through the act of play and the notion of games.

He has written, edited and contributed to several publications, including the recent book Screen Images – In-Game Photography, Screenshot, Screencast (co-edited with Winfried Gerling and Sebastian Möring). He is part of the artist duo 2girls1comp with Alexandra Pfammatter and his artworks have been shown internationally in galleries and festivals. He lectures and teaches regularly in different institutions and schools, including Master Photography at ECAL and Camera Arts at Lucerne University of Applied Arts and Design.

Read more about Marco De Mutiis’ work here.

NEWS: MMF MMXXII DISPATCH #2: JURY PANEL MMF MMXXII

The MMF MMXXII jury panel features an international cadre of critics, curators, and scholars: Simonetta Fadda, Stefano Locati, and Jenna NG.

Born in Savona, Simonetta Fadda is an artist, educator, essayist and translator. Her teaching activity include the Accademia di Belle Arti "Giacomo Carrara" (Bergamo), Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera (Milan) and Scuola Civica di Cinema e Televisione “Luchino Visconti” (Milan). Since the Eighties, she has been working with video art. Her artworks are featured in public and private collections in Italy and in Europe. She participated in major international events such as Movimenta – Biennale de l’image en mouvement, projet Mondes Flottants: Grandes Images, Nice, France (2017) and Parallel Program of the 13th Istanbul Biennial, Institut Français d’Istanbul, Istanbul (2013). In Italy she was featured, among others, at Festival del Nuovo Cinema di Pesaro, Pesaro – Italy (in We Want Cinema: cinema e video di ricerca 2018, and in Satellite 2016) and Bergamo Film Meeting, Bergamo – Italy (2010). Her video works were featured at Fondation du Doute, Blois (2018), Museo di Sant’Agostino, Genoa (2011), Museo d’Arte Moderna (MAMbo), Bologna (2008), Museo d’Arte (MAN), Nuoro, Italy (2008); Cinémathèque Française, Paris (2008); Kunst Haus Glogauer, Berlin (2007); Mach’mit Museum, Berlin (2007). In 2009, with Giuseppe Baresi, she produced the documentary In One Photo, about the artists active in the Brera district in Milan during the Sixties, including Piero Manzoni, Nanda Vigo, and Ugo La Pietra. A prolific writer and critic, Fadda is the author of the seminal Definition zero: origins of video art between politics and communication (Costa & Nolan, Milan 1999), the first Italian study on video as a medium of art and political activism (reprinted in an expanded format in 2017 by Meltemi Edizioni, Milan). In 2020, Franco Angeli published her new book, Media and art. Among her editing and translation work into Italian is Gene Youngblood’s Expanded Cinema.

Jenna NG is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Film and Interactive Media in the Department of Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media (TFTI) at the University of York. She designed and taught a wide range of cinema and digital media courses, including convening and teaching the module "Coding the Frame: Space and Time with Digital Media", for the Screen Media and Cultures MPhil at Cambridge, and supervised several MPhil essays and theses. She was previously a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Cambridge. Jenna NG works primarily on theoretical, cultural and critical analyses intersecting digital and visual culture, with particular interests in the imaging technologies of CGI, mobile media, haptic devices, motion and virtual capture systems. Her research interests also include the philosophy of technology, the posthuman, computational culture, interactive narrative, and the digital humanities. She has published widely on digital and visual culture. Among her many publications is The Post-Screen Through Virtual Reality, Holograms and Light Projections: Where Screen Boundaries Lie (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021) and Understanding Machinima, Essays on filmmaking in virtual worlds (Bloomsbury, 2013).

Stefano Locati is a post-doctoral research fellow at IULM University in Milan, Italy. His research focuses on Chinese and Japanese cinemas, transmedia, adaptation studies, periodical studies. He holds a Ph.D. in Literatures and Media and a master’s degree in philosophy. Heis the author of Sistema media mix. Cinema e sottoculture giovanili del Giappone contemporaneo (The Media Mix System. Cinema and Youth Subcultures of Contemporary Japan, 2022), La spada del destino. I samurai nel cinema giapponese dalle origini a oggi (The Sword of Doom. Samurai in Japanese cinema from the origin to the present, 2018), Il nuovo cinema di Hong Kong. Voci e sguardi oltre l’handover (New Hong Kong Cinema. Voices and Sights beyond the Handover, 2014, with Emanuele Sacchi), and Evolution. Darwin e il cinema (Evolution. Darwin and cinema, 2009, with Elena Canadelli). He has co-edited with Dario Boemia the volume Book Reviews and Beyond. Critical Authority, Cultural Industry, and Society in Periodicals Between the 18th and the 21st Century (2021). He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Ca' Foscari Short Film Festival in Venice and the artistic director of Sognielettrici/Electricdreams International Film Festival in Milan.

NEWS: SIMONETTA FADDA JOINS THE 2022 MMF JUROR PANEL

We are delighted to announce that artist, writer and educator Simonetta Fadda has joined the international jury panel of the Milan MACHINIMA Festival.

Born in Savona, Simonetta Fadda is an artist, educator, essayist and translator. Her teaching activity include the Accademia di Belle Arti "Giacomo Carrara" (Bergamo), Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera (Milan) and Scuola Civica di Cinema e Televisione “Luchino Visconti” (Milan). Since the Eighties, she has been working with video art. Her artworks are featured in public and private collections in Italy and in Europe. She participated in major international events such as Movimenta – Biennale de l’image en mouvement, projet Mondes Flottants: Grandes Images, Nice, France (2017) and Parallel Program of the 13th Istanbul Biennial, Institut Français d’Istanbul, Istanbul (2013). In Italy she was featured, among others, at Festival del Nuovo Cinema di Pesaro, Pesaro – Italy (in We Want Cinema: cinema e video di ricerca 2018, and in Satellite 2016) and Bergamo Film Meeting, Bergamo – Italy (2010). Her video works were featured at Fondation du Doute, Blois (2018), Museo di Sant’Agostino, Genoa (2011), Museo d’Arte Moderna (MAMbo), Bologna (2008), Museo d’Arte (MAN), Nuoro, Italy (2008); Cinémathèque Française, Paris (2008); Kunst Haus Glogauer, Berlin (2007); Mach’mit Museum, Berlin (2007). In 2009, with Giuseppe Baresi, she produced the documentary In One Photo, about the artists active in the Brera district in Milan during the Sixties, including Piero Manzoni, Nanda Vigo, and Ugo La Pietra. A prolific writer and critic, Fadda is the author of the seminal Definition zero: origins of video art between politics and communication (Costa & Nolan, Milan 1999), the first Italian study on video as a medium of art and political activism (reprinted in an expanded format in 2017 by Meltemi Edizioni, Milan). In 2020, Franco Angeli published her new book, Media and art. Among her editing and translation work into Italian is Gene Youngblood’s Expanded Cinema.

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Siamo felici di annunciare che l'artista, scrittrice ed educatrice Simonetta Fadda è entrata a far parte della giuria internazionale del Milan MACHINIMA Festival.

Nata a Savona, Simonetta Fadda è artista, educatrice, saggista e traduttrice. Svolge attività didattica presso alcune delle più importanti istituzioni artistiche italiane, tra cui l'Accademia di Belle Arti "Giacomo Carrara" (Bergamo), l'Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera (Milano) e la Scuola Civica di Cinema "Luchino Visconti" (Milano). Dagli anni Ottanta lavora con la video arte. Le sue opere sono presenti in collezioni pubbliche e private in Italia e in Europa. Ha partecipato a eventi internazionali come Movimenta - Biennale de l'image en mouvement, projet Mondes Flottants: Grandes Images, Nizza, Francia (2017) e Parallel Program of the 13th Istanbul Biennial, Institut Français d'Istanbul, Instanbul, Turchia (2013). In Italia è stata presente, tra gli altri, al Festival del Nuovo Cinema di Pesaro, Pesaro (nel 2018 a We Want Cinema: cinema e video di ricerca e nel 2016 a Satellite) e al Bergamo Film Meeting (2010). I suoi lavori video sono stati presentati alla Fondation du Doute a Blois (2018), al Museo di Sant'Agostino di Genova (2011), al Museo d'Arte Moderna (MAMbo) di Bologna (2008), al Museo d'Arte (MAN) di Nuoro (2008), alla Cinémathèque Française a Parigi (2008), al Kunst Haus Glogauer a Berlino (2007), al Mach'mit Museum a Berlino (2007). Nel 2009, con Giuseppe Baresi, ha prodotto il documentario In una foto, sugli artisti attivi nel quartiere di Brera a Milano negli anni Sessanta, tra cui Piero Manzoni, Nanda Vigo e Ugo La Pietra. Scrittrice e critica, Fadda è autrice del seminale Definizione zero: origini della videoarte tra politica e comunicazione (Costa & Nolan, 1999), il primo studio italiano sul video come mezzo d'arte e attivismo politico (ristampato in versione ampliata nel 2017 da Meltemi Edizioni). Nel 2020, Franco Angeli ha dato alle stampe Media e arte. Tra i suoi numerosi lavori di cura editoriale e traduzione in italiano spicca Expanded Cinema di Gene Youngblood.

NEWS: MEET OUR JURORS: HENRY LOWOOD

Henry Lowood, Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections and Film & Media Collections in the Stanford University Libraries (Image courtesy The Library of Congress, 2013)

We are thrilled to announce the first juror of the 2020 MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL: Henry Lowood!

Henry Lowood is Curator for Germanic Collections and Harold C. Hohbach Curator, History of Science & Technology Collections in the Stanford University Libraries. As a curator, he is part of the Humanities Research Group in Green Library, the Department best known for the Lane Reading Room and a wonderful group of colleagues. Henry Lowood has written several essays on such topics as game studies, game preservation, and machinima.

Among his most recent books are The Machinima Reader (2012) with Michael Nitsche and Debugging Game History (2016) with Raiford Guins, both published by MIT Press and Machinima! Teorie, pratiche, dialoghi with Matteo Bittanti in 2013, published by Edizioni Unicopli. Along with Guins, Lowood is now editing a new series for MIT Press about the history and culture of gaming.

Since 2000, Lowood has headed a project first funded by the Stanford Humanities Laboratory and, since the demise of SHL, continued in the Libraries. Almost twenty years late it is called How They Got Game: The History and Culture of Interactive Simulations and Videogames. Among the results of this project are courses such as History of Computer Game Design or The Consumer as Creator in Contemporary Media. The main focus of the project is the history and preservation of digital games, virtual worlds and interactive simulations as emerging new media forms. Among other projects, Lowood curated the Machinima Archive for the Internet Archive, which is dedicated to the academic investigation and historical preservation of the emerging art form known as machinima..

From 2008 to 2013, Lowood led the HTGG Stanford group in a project first funded by the U.S. Library of Congress called "Preserving Virtual Worlds." We worked with the University of Illinois, University of Maryland, Rochester Institute of Technology, Linden Lab, the Internet Archive, and others on this exciting project.

For some twenty years, Lowood was editor of the "Current Bibliography in the History of Technology" of the Society for the History of Technology. This bibliography is one of the components of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine database available through the Libraries' database page.

Read more about Henry Lowood