Live simulation

ARTICLE: THE DISTANCE BETWEEN MY BED AND MY PC

VRAL is currently showcasing Filip Kostic’s 2019 game video Filip Kostic VS. Filip Kostic in a brand new format. Today, we conclude our exploration of the Serbian artist’s oeuvre with a closer look at his monumental project(s) Bed PC.

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Filip Kostic’s bed-centric projects, including Bed PC (2020), Bed PC 2 (2022), and Bed PC (Twin) (2022), examine the convergence of art, life, work and leisure in the context of the 2019/2020 pandemic lockdown.

Bed PC (2020) functioned as both a bed and a workspace in Kostic’s bedroom from 2020 to 2022. This work seamlessly blended art with everyday life, reflecting the artist’s “deep adaptation” to the pandemic’s new reality, not to mention its lingering effects. The follow-up, Bed PC 2 (2022), was designed for Scherben Gallery in Berlin. This transition marked a shift from a personal, functional piece to a public exhibit. It encapsulates Kostic’s evolution from a personal experiment to a broader exploration of art and technology before an audience. Similarly, Bed PC (Twin) (2022) made its debut at Hunter Shaw Fine Art in Los Angeles, expanding the scope and goal of the project. The term “twin” hints at the potential for parallel experiences, suggesting a deeper contemplation of the symbiosis between art, life, and work, but also about the possibility of sharing such experiences with others, both remotely and in situ.

Central to all these works is a custom-built water-cooled computer seamlessly integrated into the bed’s frame. Multiple screens form a protective cocoon, immersing the occupant in a multisensory environment. The installation includes peripherals like a keyboard, mouse, streaming microphone, and cameras for live streaming. It is ironic that Kostic’s attempt to reduce physical clutter to increase ‘efficiency’ relies on much “heavy equipment”.

Kostic’s experimentation reached a pinnacle with the Bed PC 24 Hour Stream (2021), an endurance performance where he continuously live-streamed on Twitch for a full day. During this marathon stream, he engaged in various activities, from gaming to art creation and insightful conversations with friends who called in. Topics ranged from art and gaming to the dynamics of motion versus sedentary lifestyles, the future of art and its institutions, and the cultural significance of Yugoslavian monuments. Among other things, he watched Adam Curtis’s documentary The Century of the Self (2002), reviewed some political ads, and slept, always on camera.

Among the key themes of this monumental series of artworks, at least four stand out…

(continues)

Matteo Bittanti


Works cited

Filip Kostic

Bed PC 

Custom built water cooled computer built into the frame of the bed. Variable screens to create a shield like shape, blanket, and pillows. Variable peripherals including keyboard, mouse, streaming microphone, and cameras for live streaming, 2020-2022.

All images and videos courtesy of the Artist

This is a Patreon exclusive content. For full access consider joining our growing community.

ARTICLE: FREE WILL IN THE AGE OF AI

VRAL is currently showcasing Filip Kostic’s 2019 game video Filip Kostic VS. Filip Kostic in a brand new format. Today, we discuss Open Loop (2017), which explores the concept of agency and determinism through the use of an AI character trapped in a repetitive cycle.

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Open Loop is a massive, real time installation by Filip Kostic which examines the notion of agency and determinism through the use of an AI character stuck in a repetitive - and ultimately nihilistic - sequence. Here, the AI character’s actions and behaviors unfold in real-time, mirroring the interactivity found in video games and digital environments. The original installation at Roger’s Office gallery in Los Angeles utilized eight monitors in order to create an immersive and engaging visual experience for viewers, evoking the “man cave” milieu of hard core gamers. The custom-built computer functioned as the central nervous system of the installation. This was not just any computer: it was meticulously designed and crafted to meet the high computational requirements of the AI simulation. It sported neon lights, a hallmark of gaming PCs, serving both functional and aesthetic purposes. In Open Loop, the neon lights symbolize the intersection of art and technology, blurring the boundaries between gaming and artistic expression. The gaming PC also has a transparent cabinet,  allowing users – in this case, Kostic – to showcase the internal components, e.g., powerful GPUs. In an upcoming article, we will discuss Kostic’s fascination for the custom built pc as a modern day sculpture. In the context of the installation, these transparent cabinets invited viewers to contemplate the inner workings of the AI simulation and the technology that drives it.

As previously mentioned, Open Loop investigates the role of agency within AI systems. In this context, agency refers to the ability of an AI program or ”agent“, to make decisions based on its programming or training data. However, in Open Loop, the AI ”character“ lacks agency, as it is trapped in a predetermined, repetitive cycle of actions, unable to exercise free will. In this context, these actions or behaviors involve walking, dying, and respawning, all occurring devoid of any external control. 

Open Loop was originally conceived and developed in 2016, at a time when artificial intelligence was on the cusp of gaining cultural prominence and mainstream adoption. Back then, the artist was studying the design of Non-Player Characters (NPCs) in Unreal Engine and became fascinated by the limits of programmed behaviors. In many ways, he was ahead of his times: behavior trees in NPCs can now be seen as viral trends in livestreams and tiktoks where individuals mimic NPC behaviors, like Pinkydoll. His further research led him to explore the concepts of open and closed loop systems…

(continues)

Matteo Bittanti


Works cited

Filip Kostic

Open Loop

real-time AI simulation, eight monitors, custom built computer, custom GPU and CPU cooling loops, steel and acrylic structure, installed at Roger’s Office in Los Angeles, California, 2017

All images and videos courtesy of the Artist

This is a Patreon exclusive content. For full access consider joining our growing community.

EVENT: THEO TRIANTAFYLLIDIS: SISYPHEAN CYCLES (OCTOBER 13 - NOVEMBER 11 2023, VERONA, ITALY)

Theo Triantafyllidis, BugSim (Pheromone Spa), 2022
Live Simulation. Ultra Widescreen Display, Gaming PC. Sound by Holly Waxwing. Image courtesy the artist.

Theo Triantafyllidis: Sisyphean Cycles

Curated by Domenico Quaranta
@ Living Space

Via San Vitale 5, Verona, Italy
From October 13 to November 11 2023
Monday to Friday, 2 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Saturday, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Opening: October 13, 7 p.m.


As part of Art Verona 2023, the new space Spazio Vitale invites the public to experience Theo Triantafyllidis: Sisyphean Cycles, curated by Domenico Quaranta. This exhibition presents a unique convergence of four simulations created by the Greek artist living in Los Angeles, guiding viewers through a complex and captivating narrative journey within distinct ecosystems – digital worlds meticulously programmed by the artist to autonomously evolve. These live simulations by Theo Triantafyllidis are a testament to world-building, a creative practice that has garnered increasing interest in artistic, philosophical, and literary realms.

Triantafyllidis’s simulations breathe life into immersive digital environments, ranging from automated to interactive, adaptable to various display platforms, including virtual reality, augmented reality, and video installations. These “in vitro simulations” offer viewers the choice to observe them with scientific detachment or actively manipulate them. Triantafyllidis employs this medium to both critically dissect contemporary reality, shedding light on the individual and societal repercussions of communication technologies, and to simulate alternative realities that stem from entirely different premises.

The exhibition spotlights four recent installations, sequenced to follow a narrative progression from critiquing the present to constructing alternative universes: Ork Haus (2022), Radicalization Pipeline (2021), Ritual (2020), and BugSim (Pheromone Spa) (2022).

Theo Triantafyllidis, Ork Haus, 2022
Live Simulation, 4K Display, Gaming PC. Motion Capture Performance by Rachel Ho. Music by Daniel Burley & Gobby. Image courtesy the artist.

Ork Haus immerses viewers in the lives of a family of orcs within their domestic environment, where digital technologies dominate their daily existence. Interpersonal communication, home management, and escapism through simulations such as video games, VR, and streaming videos shape their lives. The artist employs “otor” as his recurring alter ego, reducing characters to fundamental impulses and modes of communication, emphasizing their entrapment within alternative realities as the world around them unravels.

Theo Triantafyllidis, Radicalization Pipeline, 2021
Live Simulation. Sound by Diego Navarro. Image courtesy the artist.

In Radicalization Pipeline, two seemingly endless hordes engage in violent combat wielding colossal melee weapons and distorted voices. A diverse array of characters, from citizen militias to fantastical creatures, enter the fray, perpetually battling and slowly sinking into a muddied landscape. Periodic interludes feature medieval renditions of familiar pop songs, enhancing the soundscape crafted by composer and sound designer Diego Navarro. By exploring phenomena like the rise of QAnon and the assault on the US Capitol, the artist underscores the connections between gamification, fantasy, and political radicalization. Triantafyllidis analyzes the “funnel” structure of social media that creates echo chambers and perpetuates confirmation bias, highlighting its role in cult formation, the spread of misinformation, and political radicalization. Radicalization Pipeline was featured in S03 of VRAL.

Theo Triantafyllidis, Ritual, 2020
Live Simulation. Image courtesy the artist

Ritual transports viewers to a seemingly familiar yet post-apocalyptic space, crafted through a video game’s graphics engine. In this desolate landscape, human civilization appears to have succumbed to cataclysmic forces, leaving only ruins behind. Amidst this devastation, a nascent ecosystem of insects and animals emerges, guided by a repetitive and hypnotic rhythm resembling a peculiar ritual.

Theo Triantafyllidis, BugSim (Pheromone Spa), 2022
Live Simulation. Ultra Widescreen Display, Gaming PC. Sound by Holly Waxwing. Image courtesy the artist.

Finally, BugSim (Pheromone Spa) unveils a microcosm of life within a carefully maintained terrarium. An overcrowded colony of ants toils tirelessly across a damp glass surface amidst lush vegetation. Their labor transforms fragile purple mud into a habitable structure, giving rise to a forest of flowering plants, pollinated by buzzing honey bees and inhabited by a thriving microfauna. This enclosed terrarium system, virtually self-sustaining, serves as an experiment in resilience and entropy, meticulously overseen by a mysterious figure.

Theo Triantafyllidis (b. 1988, Athens, Greece) is an artist who builds virtual spaces and interfaces for the human body to inhabit them. He creates expansive worlds and complex systems where the virtual and the physical merge in uncanny, absurd and poetic ways. These are often manifested as performances, virtual and augmented reality experiences, games and interactive installations. He uses awkward interactions and precarious physics, to invite the audience to embody, engage with and challenge these other realities. Through the lens of monster theory, he investigates themes of isolation, sexuality and violence in their visceral extremities. He offers computational humor and AI improvisation as a response to the tech industry’s agenda. He tries to give back to the online and gaming communities that he considers both the inspiration and context for his work by remaining an active participant and contributor. He holds an MFA from UCLA, Design Media Arts and a Diploma of Architecture from the National Technical University of Athens. He has shown work in museums, including the Hammer Museum in LA and NRW Forum in Dusseldorf, DE and various galleries such as Meredith Rosen Gallery, the Breeder, Eduardo Secci and Transfer. He was part of Sundance New Frontier 2020, Hyper Pavilion in the 2017 Venice Biennale and the 2018 Athens Biennale: ANTI-. Theo Triantafyllidis is based in Los Angeles.

Read more about Theo Triantafyllidis: Sisyphean Cycles

ARTICLE: FILIP KOSTIC’S FRAME RATE THEORY

VRAL is currently showcasing Filip Kostic’s 2019 game video Filip Kostic VS. Filip Kostic in a brand new format. Today, we present his 2020 follow up, Running at Frame Rate, which explores the tangible ramifications of computational prowess and the relentless pursuit of photorealism made possible by game-based tools like the Unreal Engine.

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Running at Frame Rate examines the fraught relationship between computer graphics, visual perception, and notions of photorealism. At its core, this digital installation explores frame rate, i.e., the frequency at which consecutive images are displayed, as a dynamic variable that impacts both the computer’s performance and the viewer’s phenomenological experience.

The “main character” is the computer itself, continuously optimizing its graphics rendering while pushing against its own limitations. Kostic personifies the machine, framing its real-time computations as a form of exertion, endurance, and even drama. The computer monitors its own stress levels, sometimes strategizing to work more efficiently or resetting itself when overworked [additional details about the nature of this dynamic performance are provided below].

The main goal of Running at Frame Rate is scrutinizing the literal and figurative “economics of realism” in CGI. Pushing frame rates ever higher makes tremendous resource demands: faster processors, more memory, more powerful GPUs, etc. Kostic implies there are hidden financial, social and environmental trade-offs involved. The piece renders visible these opaque costs by illustrating the computer’s escalating strain and struggle. When rendering crosses a complexity threshold, the machine visibly falters, failing to maintain smooth, glitch-free output.

Kostic suggests that blindly pursuing maximum specs and graphics fidelity has become an expensive, wasteful, and ultimately nihilistic arms race - an endless progression of incremental upgrades that lose meaning, purpose and value (think about the notion of marginal utilityin economics). As a game designer and artist, he offers a critique from within the industry…

(continues)

Matteo Bittanti



Works cited

Filip Kostic

Running at Frame Rate, software, installation, 2020, Serbia

Hereby presented as a “documentation of play through high end pc”, 16’ 50”

As of today, Running at Frame Rate is not available as a downloadable and playable game, but there are plans to make it accessible in the future. The artwork was originally presented at Ars Electronica in 2020 as part of art+science lab, the Belgrade Gardens.

All images and videos courtesy fo the artist and Ars Electronica

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ARTICLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT MARTINA MENEGON'S WHEN YOU ARE CLOSE TO ME I SHIVER

Martina Menegon, when I am close to you I shiver, installation shot by Georg Mayer, MAK, Museum of Applied Arts, Wien, 2020

MASS SUICIDE IN THE AGE OF CLIMATE EMERGENCY

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Currently exhibited on VRAL as a machinima, Martina Menegon’s when you are close to me I shiver was originally conceived as a live simulation. Presented as an installation featuring tablets, large screens, and an immersive soundscape designed by Alexander Martzin, when you are close to me I shiver is a multimedia experience bringing together the artist’s key concerns: the body as a site of conflict, self-representation as a political act, and climate change. Menegon imagines a future where humankind is close to extinction, a realistic outcome considering half a century of complete dismissal of climate change by the worlds’ governments. In this live simulation, the world is completely submerged by water, like in a Ballardian nightmarescape.

The survivors converge on a small island to die. Naked and vulnerable, they simply wait for the inevitable end. Such a scenario is both uncanny and familiar: after all, it was inspired by a powerful scene in David Attenborough’s Our Planet (2019) depicting more than 100,000 moribund walruses as they gather onto a small stretch of coast in Northern Russia in 2017 (“20 kilometers of a never ending walrus gathering”, as scientist Anatoly Cochnev described it). Some of the most graphic scenes show walruses falling from cliffs, evoking the image of a “falling man” jumping to his death as New York’s Twin Towers were about to crumble. The walrus gather on this place because of the melting ice in the Arctic: having nowhere to go, they choose death…

(continues)

Matteo Bittanti

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


EVENT: MARTINA MENEGON (SEPTEMBER 30 - AUGUST 13 2022, ONLINE)

when you are close to me I shiver

video recording of live simulation

digital video/machinima (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 7’ 47”, 2020, Italy

Created by Martina Menegon

Sound design by Alexander Martinz

when you are close to me I shiver is an algorithmically controlled live simulation, hereby presented as a video recording, that is, a real-time generated virtual experience that takes place in a version of the future in which humans, out of desperation, gather in masses on the last remaining piece of land. Inspired by the walrus scene in the documentary Our Planet narrated by David Attenborough and produced by Silverback Films, the project proposes a scenario encompassing ongoing environmental and personal crises. The video depicts a desolated island populated by 3D-scanned clones of the artist herself. Through these perceivable avatars, the artist creates a new identity that arises out of plurality, proprioceptively renegotiating the fragility of both the physical and the virtual self and its realities.

Martina Menegon (Italy, 1988) is an artist working predominantly with Interactive and Extended Reality Art. In her works, Martina creates intimate and complex assemblages of physical and virtual elements that explore the contemporary self and its phygital corporeality. She experiments with the uncanny and the grotesque, the self and the body and the dialogue between physical and virtual realities, to create disorienting experiences that become perceivable despite their virtual nature.

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EVENT: BENJAMIN HALL (NOVEMBER 12 - NOVEMBER 25 2021, ONLINE)

CROWDSOURCING

edited recording of live a simulation

digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 6’ 08”, 2021, United Kingdom

Created by Benjamin Hall

A live simulation created with Unity, Crowdsourcing examines the fatalistic relationship between predictability and chaos, and their conflation and obfuscation through systems of digital control. A large crowd congregates at the border of what Hall calls an “algorithmic predestination and aesthetic incoherence”. The crowd moves spasmodically: here the simulation does not reproduce the features of an ultra-detailed world, but rather its contours and contradictions.

Benjamin Hall is an artist, animator, filmmaker, game designer and writer. He received a BA Fine Art from the Glasgow School of Art, where he led DS2020 Simulator, a student project that virtually recreated his peers’ cancelled degree show as a free and accessible game-based space. Featuring the works of 136 graduates, DS2020 Simulator was discussed, among others, by BBC One, BBC Radio Scotland, the List UK and more. Benjamin’s work was featured in The Wrong Biennale (2019), Visual Arts Scotland’s Graduate Showcase (2020), HomeBrew Digital Commissions (2020), and Digital Artist Residency (2020). In September 2020, he moved to Jonava, Lithuania to transform the local public library into a virtual archival simulation. In 2021 he led the development of and participated in spur.world, an in-browser virtual multiverse featuring 14 fully explorable sub-worlds. Hall lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland.

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A CLOSER LOOK AT RADICALIZATION PIPELINE

VR#28-high.gif

The latest VRAL show features a video documentation of Theo Triantafyllidis’s groundbreaking live simulation Radicalization Pipeline, currently on display at Eduardo Secci Milano (June 3 - September 25 2021). To celebrate this event, Matteo Bittanti wrote a contribution in Italian, which provides contextual information.

Here’s an excerpt:

L'espressione radicalization pipeline – altrimenti nota come radicalizzazione algoritmica – indica il fenomeno per cui gli algoritmi che regolano il funzionamento di piattaforme come Facebook, Twitter, Discord, Gab e YouTube sospingono sistematicamente gli utenti verso contenuti ideologicamente controversi, privilegiando posizioni politiche estremiste e distruttive rispetto a quelle più moderate. Il tema – al centro di un intenso dibattito accademico e culturale – ha acquisito un’inedita visibilità in seguito all’intensificarsi di episodi legati alla crescente polarizzazione sociopolitica negli Stati Uniti, culminati con l’insurrezione armata dei gamer al Campidoglio lo scorso 6 gennaio 2021, senza contare numerosi attentati, omicidi e massacri avvenuti in diverse nazioni del mondo.

Radicalization Pipeline è anche il titolo della mostra personale dell’artista di origini greche Theo Triantafyllidis nel nuovo spazio milanese del project space di Eduardo Secci. L’artista, che risiede a Los Angeles, si è ispirato ai sempre più frequenti conflitti ispirati ai/dai videogiochi – dalla campagna di molestie online #Gamergate ai deliri complottisti dei seguaci di Pizzagate e QAnon, senza dimenticare le sparatorie in livestream motivate dall'odio razziale o dalla misoginia – per creare una serie di opere incentrate sugli effetti nefasti della ludicizzazione (gamification), la crescente popolarità di un genere parafascista come il fantasy e l'estetizzazione della politica in chiave memetica, che ha visto il trionfo politico di veri e propri troll, forse l'ultimo stadio del processo di anti-politica in corso da circa trent'anni. Figure come quella di Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Josh Hawley sono gli esempi più eclatanti del trolling istituzionale. Se è vero che la parola ferisce più della spada, è anche vero che l'immaginario del gamer è contrassegnato da un'ossessione patologica per gli armamenti. Non a caso, nello spazio milanese di Eduardo Secci sono esposte numerose armi in ceramica in grès smaltato di colore scuro ispirate ai più popolari videogiochi: dalle mazze ferrate alle sciabole, dalle lance alle asce. I nomi degli oggetti che compongono l'arsenale - Hippie Breaker, Soyboy Shedder, Chadslayer, Snowflake Skorcher, Normie Slicer, Stormbringer e altri ancora- richiamano tanto la nomenclatura dei personaggi dell'immaginario digitale quanto i termini dispregiativi resi popolari dai social media e da imageboard come 4chan.

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EVENT: VRAL #28_THEO TRIANTAFYLLIDIS (JULY 23 - AUGUST 5 2021)

RADICALIZATION PIPELINE

Digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 15’ 01”, 2021 (Greece)

Created by Theo Triantafyllidis

July 23 - August 5

Introduced by Matteo Bittanti

You may disagree about the root causes, but the diagnosis is crystal clear: reality has imploded. The symptoms are everywhere. Video game fantasies, themes, characters, and narratives – which used to be confined to the imaginary – now shape our everyday life. In a world where meme presidents plan insurrections, global corporations are actively destroying the planet, social media are a toxic cesspool, a new kind of superstition – conspiracy theories, lore, false narratives – has become the dominant epistemological currency. In this uncertain, hyper violent, and chaotic scenario – complicated by metacrises, climate catastrophe, and ongoing pandemics – artists have been among the few to clearly identify the culprits and to imagine possible alternatives. In his latest work, Radicalization Pipeline, Greek artist Theo Triantafyllidis simulates the perpetual clash of two endless hordes fighting to death with large melee weapons. A wide range of characters – from citizen militias to fantastical creatures, from street protesters to hooligans – kill each other tirelessly. There’s no resolution. There’s no closure. Just mutual destruction. This is the Game over age. We now live in the world that video games made.

Theo Triantafyllidis (b. 1988, Athens, Greece) is an artist who builds virtual spaces and interfaces for the human body to inhabit them. He creates expansive worlds and complex systems where the virtual and the physical merge in uncanny, absurd and poetic ways. These are often manifested as performances, virtual and augmented reality experiences, games and interactive installations. He uses awkward interactions and precarious physics, to invite the audience to embody, engage with and challenge these other realities. Through the lens of monster theory, he investigates themes of isolation, sexuality and violence in their visceral extremities. He offers computational humor and AI improvisation as a response to the tech industry’s agenda. He tries to give back to the online and gaming communities that he considers both the inspiration and context for his work by remaining an active participant and contributor. He holds an MFA from UCLA, Design Media Arts and a Diploma of Architecture from the National Technical University of Athens. He has shown work in museums, including the Hammer Museum in LA and NRW Forum in Dusseldorf, DE and various galleries such as Meredith Rosen Gallery, the Breeder, Eduardo Secci and Transfer. He was part of Sundance New Frontier 2020, Hyper Pavilion in the 2017 Venice Biennale and the 2018 Athens Biennale: ANTI-. Theo Triantafyllidis is based in Los Angeles.

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