Mikhail Maksimov

ARTICLE: WELCOME TO THE PASTURE

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

〰️

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT 〰️

VRAL is currently exhibiting Mikhail Maksimov’s The New Game Is Over. To better contextualize and appreciate his multi-layered oeuvre, we are examining recurring themes in the Russian avant-garde artist oeuvre. Today, we revisit Maksimov’s hysterical parody The Pasture (2016).

A satire of the contemporary artworld, The Pasture (2016) is a peculiar meta-horror game by Mikhail Maksimov, that combines the thrilling practice of art gallery curation with exciting survival horror gameplay. No, this is not the game where you get to destroy Jeff Koon’s artworks (even though his damn balloon dog haunts the virtual gallery), so please bear with me.

Borrowing heavily from established genres and, at the same time subverting the clichés with gusto, The Pasture allows players to explore an art gallery while avoiding two stalking monsters. Set in a contemporary generic White Cube, players chain-smoke their way through the predictably pristine ivory interior. Shapeshifting creatures — a metaphor for the hypocrisy that pervades this abstract jungle — populate the premises, but the true focus is on the menacing adversaries accompanying the player. These enemies maintain proximity, requiring constant backward movement to evade them. While maneuvering the gallery, players encounter significant Russian art sculptures, including a large set of sliced breasts (evoking Patrick Bateman’s psychotic pun, “keeping abreast”), collecting them to increase their score à la Pokémon. As the game is mainly targeted at millennials, the smartphone is the main interface — pics or it doesn’t exist! All the while, a “time until you die” bar fills the screen, dwindling if the player pauses. Prominently featured are three disembodied hands holding cups with tea bags hosting wriggling worms or the aforementioned mobile phones displaying videos of the smoking woman approaching. Beyond the gallery lies a graveyard-infested garden, beneath a banner declaring “International of death”, a theme consistent with Maksimov’s main obsession (don’t forget that his alter ego is the Postmanian mantra “dying fun”). Notably, players may occasionally manifest as a strange winged man, alternating between human and pig-like forms, sporting a cloud-covered blue top hat and brandishing a sizable phallic eggplant-like object. As the man, the floating arms may instead wield guns rather than the usual oddities. 

(continues)

Matteo Bittanti

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

ARTICLE: FOR A NEW KIND OF GAME TO EMERGE, TRADITIONAL GAMES MUST DIE

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

〰️

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT 〰️

VRAL is currently exhibiting Mikhail Maksimov’ The New Game Is Over. To better contextualize and appreciate his multi-layered oeuvre, we are examining recurring themes in the Russian avant-garde artist oeuvre. Today, we revisit Maksimov’s Infinite Graveyard (2020), which was presented on VRAL as a single channel video.

In the fall of 2020, Matteo Bittanti spoke with Mikhail Maksimov about his new interactive experience, Infinite Graveyard, an endless simulator of passing. The game, which developed and released during the Covid-19 pandemic, came to embody a period of global turmoil and transition. Predictably, the event also represents a missed opportunity for meaningful change. Since then, multiple crises have continued to mount: climate devastation, political paralysis, global conflict, the circus of billionaire-sponsored populism. As if the situation were not already bleak, a new kind of cinematic marketing campaign entitled Barbie has earned over one billion dollars at the box office. It is difficult not to feel a profound sense of despair about the current state of affairs. As Peter Turchin suggests, these times bear the hallmarks of an ending.

In this dreadful landscape is it useful to revisit Infinite Graveyard and the conversation with Maksimov, which felt very apropos in 2020, and clearly prophetic three years later. The Russian artist uses generative art and game elements to explore philosophical questions about death, space, technology, and architecture. He sees the generative process of cellular automata in Infinite Graveyard —which was presented on VRAL as a 666 minute long walkthrough — as representing death and entropy rather than life. The cemetery symbolizes the endless cycle of death. The work itself is meant as an oxymoron, with generative art typically associated with life creation being used to represent endless cessation and death. Today, Maksimov suggests, the creative act has become a record of destruction as creation itself is no longer possible.

This outcome has a myriad of implications, including many related to game design. For Maksimov, it is very important to subvert common video game tropes like respawning and disposable non-player characters to make philosophical statements…

(continues)

Matteo Bittanti

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

ARTICLE: TRANSHUMANIST LANDSCAPES OF THE ANTHROPOCENE

Mikhail Maksimov, S.A.R. Online Sessions, online game, 2021 [2020]

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

〰️

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT 〰️

VRAL is currently exhibiting Mikhail Maksimov’ The New Game Is Over. To better contextualize and appreciate his multi-layered oeuvre, we will examine several works by the Russian avant-garde artist. Today we discuss the groundbreaking Sanatorium Anthropocene Retreat: Online Sessions (2021).

Russian artist Mikhail Maksimov continues his avant-garde explorations of technology, culture and identity in his interactive artwork, S.A.R. Online Sessions. Developed as an extension of his S.A.R. project for the 17th Venice Biennial of Architecture’s Russian Pavilion in 2020, this multiplayer video game offers players an immersive journey through virtual realms where posthumanism and transhumanism take center stage. For the record, S.A.R. stands for Sanatorium Anthropocene Retreat.

Awakening within a deserted digital replica of the Russian Pavilion during the heights of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, participants embody a protean entity bereft of identity. Through each interaction within the abandoned ruins, their avatar cycles through human, non-human, and posthuman forms—from sleek android to microscopic virus. This fluid transformation catalyzes a meta-exploration of anthropocentrism’s limitations and new frontiers of interconnection that transcend humanity’s constraints.

Maksimov utilizes the medium of gaming to examine anti-anthropocentric philosophies like antihumanism, posthumanism, and transhumanism. Players piece together fragments from a dystopian future while their ever-evolving virtual identity becomes a conduit for contemplating the Anthropocene’s dawn and the inevitable end of human reign. Themes of environmental collapse, consolation, and care emerge within the game’s decaying digital landscape.

Interestingly, the Russian artist releases all his work on Steam and itch.io, because he argues that contemporary art could be effective only if it is widely accessible. In an interview with Metal magazine contributor Lucy McLaughlin, he stated: “the distribution of video games, as opposed to cinema and contemporary art, does not depend on curatorial arbitrariness and isn’t linked to the cinema industry, which imposes restrictions on the artist.” Game power to the people.

(continues)

Matteo Bittanti

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

ARTICLE: ON “THE PSEUDOSCIENCE OF DIGITAL PHYSICS”

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

〰️

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT 〰️

VRAL is currently exhibiting Mikhail Maksimov’s The New Game is Over.To better contextualize and appreciate his multi-layered oeuvre, we will examine several works by the Russian avant-garde artist. We begin with The Death of Father Men (2018).

The Death of Father Men is a 2018 video work by Mikhail Maksimov inspired by the unsolved mystery surrounding the tragic murder of Orthodox priest and intellectual Alexander Vladimirovich Men also known as Father Men in 1990. The work, which combines video game footage, CGI and real life footage, defies clear labels or easy definitions. Balancing on the threshold between an enigmatic video-game and an avant-garde cinematic experiment, The Death of Father Men is a truly uncanny piece. 

In a fascinating conversation with Vladimir Nadein on Vdrome that touches on Maksimov’s interdisciplinary practice spanning video, gaming, animation and other media to explore ideas of mortality, mysticism, and technology’s relationship to reality, the artist explains — cryptically — that he imitated neural network algorithms to generate speculative simulations of Father Men’s death. Among the most interesting tidbits Maksimov's analogy between means of transportations, such as trains — which figure prominently in this video, as well as in The New Game is Over — and media like video games that can effectively transport someone to another state of being. The former moves bodies, the latter minds. 

Additionally, Maksimov argues that video game worlds can be seen as forms of simulated digital reality governed by software physics and logic. When he talks about”digital physics”, he is likely alluding to the philosophical concept that the universe itself could be some kind of computer simulation, which is the main premise of the so-called simulation hypothesis. By capturing moments within video game environments, Maksimov suggests artists can isolate and manipulate aspects of a physics-based virtual world in creative ways, editing bits of digital existence (“chunks”) into artworks…

(continues)

Matteo Bittanti

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

EVENT: MIKHAIL MAKSIMOV (JULY 28 - AUGUST 10 2023, ONLINE)

The New Game Is Over

video walkthrough (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 10’ 15”, Russia

Created by Mikhail Maksimov

VRAL is delighted to present an artist walkthrough based on Mikhail Maksimov’s latest project, The New Game Is Over, an interactive experience which revolves around a remarkable machine that generates emotions and desires, allowing players to take on the role of a demiurge. In this position of power, players can develop, preserve or even destroy self-sustainable systems. The New Game Is Over is a commentary on the intricate interplay between creation and destruction, growth and decay.

Mikhail Maksimov is a Moscow-based artist and filmmaker whose multimedia practice bridges architecture, technology, and moving image. After receiving degrees in Architecture and Photography, Maksimov began exhibiting experimental films and installations that investigate game aesthetics, 3D graphics, algorithms, and neural networks. His works have been featured internationally at Manifesta 10 (2014), Locarno Film Festival (2018), Hamburg KurzFilmFestival (2019), Riga Biennial (2020), Venice Architecture Biennale (2021), Art for the Future Biennale (2022), and DA Z festival in Zurich (2022), among others. Blurring the real and virtual, Maksimov’s practice contemplates emerging technologies and their role in shaping our social environments and collective imagination.

EVENT: VRAL #12_MIKHAIL MAKSIMOV (OCTOBER 30 - NOVEMBER 12 2020)

INFINITE GRAVEYARD

digital video, color, sound, 666’, 2020 (Russia)

Created by Mikhail Maksimov

Introduced by Matteo Bittanti

Mikhail Maksimov first encountered videogames at the age of twelve. His first time was with Clive Townsend’s Saboteur! (1985) on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Subsequently, he fell in love with first-person shooters – Doom II in particular – which he played on a personal computer installed in a dentist’s office (true story). Later in life, Maksimov turned his fascination for gaming into an area of artistic experimentation because he felt that unlike cinema and contemporary art, video games are less reliant on curatorial arbitrariness and can reach a broader public via alternative channels, e.g. the internet, rather than a traditional museum or gallery. Infinite Graveyard is part of Maksimov’s ongoing exploration of gaming mechanics and aesthetics. Presented on VRAL as a 666 minutes gameplay video recorded by the artist, Infinite Graveyard is a commentary of the endless cycle of death in an age marked by toxic positive thinking, stultifying gamification, and neoliberal imperatives.

Mikhail Maksimov is an artist and filmmaker whose practice revolves around game engines, 3D graphics, algorithms, and neural networks. Among his most recent (and radical) projects is SAR, Sanatorium Anthropocene Retreat! (formerly known as MOMAM, Museum of Modern Art Massacre), a dystopian first-person shooter set in the artworld and inspired by the writing of Bruno Latour and Donna Haraway. After graduating in Architecture from the Moscow State Construction University and receiving an MFA from the Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia, Maksimov took part in several exhibitions and festivals, including the Moscow Modern Art Biennale, Venice Biennale of Architecture, New Horizons International Film Festival, the Moscow International Film Festival, Manifesta, Kansk Video Festival, the International Festival of Cinematographic Debuts “Spirit of Fire”, Locarno Festival, Hamburg KurzFilmFestival, Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, and many more. Maksimov lives and works in Moscow.

WATCH NOW

Media coverage: Matteo Lupetti, ArtTribune (in Italian)