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MMF MMXXIV: CARSON LYNN’S QUEER RAGE

Carson Lynn, A bronze anvil falls to the earth., digital video, color, sound, 6’ 35”, 2023.

Debuting in the Slot Machinima program at MMF MMXXIV, A bronze anvil falls to the earth. marks a seminal moment in Carson Lynn’s oeuvre. This work masterfully synthesizes digital artistry, game-based performance, and socio-political discourse into a singular, compelling narrative. Crafted in 2023, with a duration just shy of seven minutes, it epitomizes the transformative potential of machinima as a platform for both artistic innovation and poignant political dialogue.

In A bronze anvil falls to the earth., Lynn employs gameplay as a performative act, leveraging the dark, violent, feral world of Bloodborne to weave a narrative rich in Greek mythology and fueled by a palpable queer rage. This machinima blends the grim aesthetics and challenging gameplay of a video game renowned for its gothic environments, eldritch horrors, and brutally unforgiving combat with themes of resistance, suffering, and defiance against oppressive forces. Bloodborne’s setting, Yharnam, a cursed city plagued by a mysterious blood-borne disease transforming its inhabitants into beasts, serves as the perfect backdrop for Lynn’s counter narrative and relentless slaughter. The game’s emphasis on solitary exploration and the constant threat of death mirror the solitary struggle against the “blood-drunk beasts”, a metaphor for the violence and hatred faced by queer and trans individuals in the current environment. That is, the intense battles serve as a metaphor for the LGBTQ+ community’s real-world struggles against oppression, emphasizing the significance of perseverance and the quest for acceptance…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Carson Lynn, A bronze anvil falls to the earth., digital video, color, sound, 6’ 35”, 2023.

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PATREON: JOIN OUR GROWING COMMUNITY

Our Patreon for VRAL stands as a cornerstone for enthusiasts and scholars interested in the cutting-edge realm of  avant-garde machinima, offering 320+ meticulously curated posts that dive deep into the avant-garde aspects of this dynamic art form. For a modest monthly contribution starting at just $3.5, patrons unlock access to a rich repository of exclusive content that spans insightful articles, thought-provoking essays, and captivating videos. This subscription not only enriches your understanding and appreciation of avant-garde machinima but also plays a pivotal role in sustaining our endeavours, particularly the VRAL online platform which is about to begin its fifth season.

At the heart of our project is a commitment to supporting the talented artists we collaborate with. Every contribution we receive is directly reinvested into the project, ensuring that these creators are fairly compensated for their work and that the initiative remains viable for the long haul. Your support is invaluable to us, and we extend our deepest thanks for your continued belief in our mission.

March has been an especially vibrant month for our Patreon community. We have shared a wealth of material, including articles, essays, and videos that were made freely available in conjunction with the Seventh Edition of the Milan Machinima Festival, held from March 11-17, 2024. Below is just a glimpse of the diverse and rich content our patrons have exclusive access to, highlighting the breadth and depth of avant-garde machinima and its evolving landscape.

Join us on this exciting journey to explore and support the forefront of digital art and storytelling.

ARTICLE: GEORGIE ROXBY SMITH, GLITCH WITCH

VRAL is currently presenting Georgie Roxby Smith’s Blood Paintings as a single channel video. To fully appreciate the significance of this series, we will explore various artworks. Our discussion starts with Smith’s landmark 2012 in-game performance and machinima The Fall Girl.

Like an anxious dancer condemned to endless pirouettes, the female protagonist of Georgie Roxby Smith’s The Fall Girl spins helplessly down a bleak mountain passage in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, contorted by an inadvertent “death glitch.” With her avatar locked in this ceaseless loop of hellish torture, Smith captures extended footage exposing the anguished animation frame-by-frame in its punishing inertia. She isolates this doom loop from surrounding gameplay, forcing viewers to confront imagery typically blinked past and easily forgotten.

Removed from context, this tableaux vivant sui generis betrays the ingrained misogyny encoded subtly into gaming worlds, worlds populated largely by male creators and players enacting adventures through the restrictive lens of a decidedly masculine gaze. Bug or intentional vignette, the isolated scene reduces Skyrim’s expansive questing freedom to the ruthless physics binding female characters: they must ultimately submit to situations, no matter how treacherous, tied to their prescribed femininity. It’s in the game! It’s codified! It is what it is!

In other words, the revolution we witness here is literal, or, rather physical: the female character is spinning on her axis, over and over again. This revolution as continual rotation leads to a revelation. Through this glitch excavation, Smith moves beyond the industry’s celebratory talk of interactivity as freedom, “abdication of authorship”, “co-creation” and “emergent” player stories, pervasive in fandom studies and game studies. Instead, recalling feminist film theory traditions, she confronts gaming technology’s uncanny knack for magnifying the most disturbing drives and assumptions underlying popular culture. Stuck in her deadly spin, The Fall Girl becomes less individual than archetype or trope, a sacrificial testament to the cyclical violence awaiting game heroines straying beyond plastic pedestals into masculine power fantasies.

Even Lara Croft, hailed once as groundbreaking virtual female representation, submitted to famously voyeuristic death scenes accentuating her hyper-sexualized physique rendered vulnerable, as both Miltos Manetas and Peggy Ahwesh remind us…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Georgie Roxby Smith, The Fall Girl, in-game performance and machinima (color, sound, 8’ 07”), 2012.

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ARTICLE: COVER YOUR EYES BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

Babak Ahteshamipour

I Sometimes Cover my eyes (since I can’t control them in order to shut them) and dream the Occasions where We drop our Smiles (since I haven’t been getting that lately, it’s as if we’ve accepted believing fate, UFOs, time-travel and stuff)

digital video, color, sound, 5’ 12”, 2021, Iran/Greece

VRAL is currently exhibiting Babak Ahteshamipour’s Hey Plastic God, please don’t save the Robotic King, Let him drown in Acidic Anesthetic. To contextualize his practice, we are discussing key related artworks. Today, we focus on the hysterically titled I Sometimes Cover my Eyes and think of the Occasions where We Drop our Smiles...

In his 2021 video art piece I Sometimes Cover My Eyes (since I can’t control them in order to shut them) and dream the Occasions where We drop our Smiles (since I haven’t been getting that lately, it’s as if we’ve accepted believing fate, UFOs, time-travel and stuff) [sic], Babak Ahteshamipour creates a mesmerizing anti-materialist and anti-consumerist dreamscape. 

He collects digital detritus — ceramic pots, houseplants, sneakers, Lidl bags, furniture, electronics, Pepsi cans, FedEx boxes, ice cream cones — as if sorting through the leftovers of modern material culture. He then resurrects these forgotten items in surreal scenes resisting commodification. The video toggles between this constructed digital realm and close-ups of the source materials themselves, the actual objects behind the rediscovered digital ephemera.  The camera zooms in and out. A sense of dizziness pervades the screen. Whimsical yet solemn captions provide commentary.

The elaborate title nods to branding strategies emotionally elevating basic items into manufactured icons. We live in an era of overwhelming information denying critical thought outside consumerism’s framework…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Babak Ahteshamipour

I Sometimes Cover my eyes (since I can’t control them in order to shut them) and dream the Occasions where We drop our Smiles (since I haven’t been getting that lately, it’s as if we’ve accepted believing fate, UFOs, time-travel and stuff)

digital video, color, sound, 5’ 27”, 2021, Iran/Greece

All images courtesy of the Artist

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ARTICLE: THE GLITCH IS THE VIDEO GAME’S ID

VRAL is currently showcasing Chris Kerich’s latest project Three Impossible Worlds. To accompany the exhibition, we’ll be discussing several artworks that comprise his oeuvre. Today, we examine his twin projects Katamari Dreams and The Midday Channel.

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In twin projects The Midday Channel (2017) and Katamari Dreams (2016), Chris Kerich leverages live memory disassembling software to remix and reimagine two classic PlayStation 2 titles, Persona 4 (Atlus, 2008) and Katamari Damacy (Namco, 2004). Despite using the same core technique on both games, the resulting aesthetic experiences differ markedly, demonstrating how memory hacking can both reveal and recast the intrinsic software and artistic qualities of the source games.

Kerich’s innovative use of an emulator and disassemblers to manipulate games while running represents an emblematic example of game-based contemporary art for several reasons. First, it allows creative intervention into the original games, remixing assets and code to generate novel audiovisual spaces. By altering the game maps, assets, and code while the game runs, Kerich is able to reconfigure the “raw materials” of the original game worlds. This remixing and reimagining of game environments is a signature of artistic game modification.

Second, his process reveals and comments on the underlying software processes that power the games. By directly viewing and editing compiled game code, Kerich provides rare insight into the internal logic governing gameplay – peering “behind the curtain”, in a way that investigates games as software systems, not just entertainment experiences. This interrogative uncovering of obscured technical architectures is a key theme in Kerich’s practice and game-based art more broadly…

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Matteo Bittanti


Works cited

Chris Kerich

Katamari Dreams

Screenshots, gifs produced with live memory disassembling software to hack Katamari Damacy (Namco, 2004), 2016

The Midday Channel

Screenshots, gifs produced with live memory disassembling software to hack Persona 4 (Atlus, 2008), 2017

All images courtesy of Chris Kerich

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ARTICLE: JOHN CHAMBERLAIN LIVES ON

VRAL is currently showcasing Chris Kerich’s latest project Three Impossible Worlds. To accompany the exhibition, we are discussing several artworks that comprise his oeuvre. Today, we examine his series Dynamic Kinetic Sculptures.

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Like the previously discussed Piles(2018), Dynamic Kinetic Sculptures (2017) utilizes the mechanics of video games in unconventional ways in order to produce glitch art and reveal the underlying systems and hidden ideologies. However, whereas Piles employed violence and repetition to provoke discomfort, Keric’s previous work Dynamic Kinetic Sculptures taps into the joyful anarchy and broken physics of glitch art.

In this series, Kerich builds impossible vehicular constructions using the editor in the soft-body physics driving simulator BeamNG.drive. Vehicles are stacked, fused, and contorted into chaotic sculptures that burst into flames or cause extreme glitching of the physics engine when simulated. According to the artist, this project was inspired by the vernacular YouTube series Car Boys, in which the hosts push BeamNG to its limits to produce an absurdist, often hilarious spectacle.

BeamNG.drive is notable for its advanced soft-body physics simulation which allows vehicles to crumple, deform, and come apart in dynamic ways during crashes. Both Piles and Dynamic Kinetic Sculptures  use exploitation of game systems against their intended purpose in order to surface hidden logics, biases and prerogatives. But whereas the former is painstakingly structured and demanding of both artist and viewer in terms of duration and access (it was originally livestreamed on Twitch for 22 hours), Dynamic Kinetic Sculptures embraces playful serendipity, shorter length, and post facto consumption. It follows in a lineage of glitch art that finds meaning in rupturing systems through technical abuse rather than programmatic critique.

And while Piles implicates masculinity and power relations in its repetitive symbolic violence, Dynamic Kinetic Sculptures has no such explicit agenda beyond visible chaos. In fact, the Car Boys inspiration anchors it firmly in the juvenile but often creative energy of tinkering that many first experience in childhood, usually coded ‘male’: like video games, automobiles are connoted as “boys’ toys”, that is, tools and technologies that promote masculine ideals of competition, power, status, domination, and aggression through play, often emphasizing technical mastery and…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Chris Kerich

Digital Kinetic Sculptures

digital video/machinima, color, sound, various length, 2017, United States.

digital images, 2017, United States.

All images and videos courtesy of the Artist.

Read more about Chamberlain’s sculptures.

Read more about Brenton Alexander Smith.

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ARTICLE: FOLDERS FULL OF BODIES

VRAL is currently showcasing Chris Kerich’s latest project Three Impossible Worlds. To accompany the exhibition, we’ll be discussing several artworks that comprise his oeuvre. Today, we examine his monumental project Piles (2018).

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Piles is a video art project that explores the symbolic and political dimensions of piling up dead or unconscious bodies in video games. Between 2020-2021, the artist, Chris Kerich, livestreamed over 22 hours of gameplay footage on Twitch of him creating piles of bodies across seven different video games. His goal was to turn an uncritical and common practice in gaming communities into a critical interrogation of how games incorporate concepts of life, death, and bodies into their design.

The games selected represent a mix of big-budget productions titles like Hitman, independent games like Viscera Cleanup Detail (which we presented within the context of the 2021 Milan Machinima Festival in a 80 minute cut), and a game creation platform, Tabletop Simulator. This range allows for different perspectives on the theme. The piles created are meant to evoke real-life piles of bodies from sites of atrocity, like Abu Ghraib, where Kerich sees resonances with the unconstrained power to violate bodies often granted to players in games. As a straight white American man, Kerich implicates himself and his own position of power in creating these spectacles…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Chris Kerich

Piles (excerpt)

digital video/machinima (1152 x 720), color, sound, 14”, 2018-2020, United States.

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ARTICLE: STILL DIGGING, A DECADE LATER

VRAL is currently featuring Merlin Dutertre’s Lullaby (2019). To provide a richer context, we delve into some of the influential works that have shaped his artistic journey. In this segment, we examine Jon Rafman’s seminal A Man Digging (2013), which a decade ago dared to challenge conventional gaming paradigms, elevating the act of gameplay into an artful meditation on the very essence of existence itself.

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In a revealing interview, Dutertre traces his introduction to machinima back to his formative years in the 2010s, a time when YouTube played a central role in the making of his identity as a filmmaker. Back then, Dutertre engaged enthusiastically with French YouTube gaming content, even though the concept of machinima first eluded his full understanding and, therefore, appreciation. However, it was during his high school years that Dutertre’s curiosity was ignited, courtesy of Jon Rafman’s work, particularly A Man Digging (2013). Rafman’s unconventional approach, based on appropriating and recontextualizing Max Payne 3 (Rockstar Games, 2012), stood apart from the typical bombastic and often juvenile vernacular machinima fare. For Dutertre, that encounter was a true epiphany.

In A Man Digging, Rafman embarks on a fascinating exploration of eerie virtual landscapes marred by abject violence. The artist skillfully interweaves game footage from the ultra-violent crime story with introspective voice-over narration that plunges into the puzzling transcendental categories of time and memory. Rafman’s narrative strategy – reminiscent of the style of the video essay – marks a radical departure from the expected role of a player. While countless online videos typically document in-game achievements, suggest ways of “gaining advantage” or provide detailed walkthroughs, Rafman’s approach is refreshingly unique. He deliberately eradicates every in-game computer-controlled character before recording footage, thereby setting the stage for an unparalleled viewing experience. We are left to contemplate the aftermath of a massacre. The calm after the storm. A Man Digging is an artistic walkthrough inspired by the avant garde practice of Chris Marker, whose works often take on an essayistic form, blending elements of documentary, fiction, and personal reflection...

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Matteo Bittanti


Works cited

Chris Marker, Ouvroir the Movie, digital video, color, sound, 29’ 49”, 2008, France

Jon Rafman, A Man Digging, digital video, color, sound, 8’ 20, 2013, Canada

Jon Rafman with Rosa Aiello, Remember Carthage, digital video color, sound, 13’ 43”, Canada

Rockstar Studios, Max Payne 3, Rockstar Games, 2012

All installation shots of A Man Digging © Moderna Museet

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ARTICLE: MERLIN DUTERTRE’S LES FANTÔMES RÊVENT AUSSI

Merlin Dutertre, Les Fantômes Rêvent Aussi, digital video, color, sound, 7’ 34”, 2018, France

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VRAL is currently showcasing Merlin Dutertre’s Lullaby (2019). In order to better appreciate his oeuvre, we will be discussing several of his most recent works. We begin with Lullaby’s predecessor, Les Fantômes Rêvent Aussi (2018). Taken together, the two films are aesthetically and thematically conjoined, forming a unique diptych.

French filmmaker Merlin Dutertre crafts introspective machinima works set in serene, dreamlike forest environments. His found footage film Les Fantômes Rêvent Aussi (2018), which we are presenting today, unfolds in a lush virtual forest meticulously designed using Zoo Tycoon 2, a popular 2004 business simulation game where players manage a zoo. Developed by Blue Fang Games and released in 2004, Zoo Tycoon 2 was highly popular, selling over three million copies worldwide. Its longevity is remarkable: nearly twenty years after release, it still has an active modding community. In the game, players are tasked with creating and managing a successful zoo by building enclosures, keeping animals happy, and maintaining the park grounds. Not exactly what John Berger had envisioned, but anyway.

Interestingly, Zoo Tycoon 2 is not a popular choice for making machinima. Nevertheless, Dutertre deliberately chose this game due to its remarkable creative adaptability in the construction of lifelike environments and its user-friendly tools, which seamlessly facilitated the customization of landscapes and animal behaviors in alignment with his creative vision. Zoo Tycoon 2’s capacity for animating autonomously animals gave his project an authentic documentary-style essence. Notwithstanding its somewhat anachronistic graphics, the game’s accessible and familiar interface ensured Dutertre’s adept filmmaking, allowing him to work with…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Merlin Dutertre

Les Fantômes Rêvent Aussi, digital video, color, sound, 7’ 34”, 2018, France

Lullaby, digital video, color, sound, color, sound, 11’ 51”, 2019, France

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NEWS: DA MAN! SCORES!

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VRAL is currently exhibiting Juan Obando’s Pro Revolution Soccer, a modded version of Konami’s popular soccer game celebrating a counter-historical event: a match between Inter Milan and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation soccer team that never took place. Today, we are presenting another example of Game Art made by hijacking, appropriating and recontextualizing Pro Evolution Soccer, Gweni Llwyd and Owen Davies’s Becoming a Legend (2020), which was originally exhibited on VRAL and it is now available on the artists’ website In this article, we revisit Becoming a Legend and we discuss the difference between avant-garde and vernacular machinima through the lens of Rebecca Cannon’s seminal essay, Meltdown (2006). This article is part of an ongoing series.

In a 2020 interview with Luca Miranda, artists Gweni Llwyd and Owen Davies discuss the creation of Becoming a Legend, whose genesis was inspired by their love for football video games and their inspiration from documentaries and other machinima works. The artists explain their use of Pro Evolution Soccer as they felt it was better suited to their original concept. Among other things, they preferred the mechanics of PES’s replay camera and found its visual aesthetic to be more otherworldly compared to the stricter dedication to realism of Konami’s main competitor FIFA, EA Sports’s popular football game. They also mentioned that using an out-of-date version of PES, the 2015 edition, gave the footage a slightly nostalgic feel, which aligned with their artistic vision. Furthermore, the artists appreciated the lack of licensing in PES compared to FIFA. They found it intriguing to have the action take place around fictional teams with strange names, which added a mythical quality to their artwork. This choice allowed them to create a unique atmosphere and contribute to the portrayal of their godlike, menacing but also comic-like figure, Da Man!.

Llwyd and Davies also examine the culture of football and the obsession with physical optimization, which is reflected in their portrayal of the grotesque character Da Man!. They explore the concept of self-optimization and its connection to neoliberalism, highlighting the constant pressure to improve and be productive. The artists suggest that video games, including football games, contribute to this ideology by rewarding player participation with symbolic rewards.

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Matteo Bittanti

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NEWS: MIGUEL GOMES’S ALGORITHMIC BALLET ON THE SOCCER PITCH

Miguel Gomes, Pro Evolution Soccer One Minute Dance After a Golden Goal in the Master League, 2004

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VRAL is currently exhibiting Juan Obando’s Pro Revolution Soccer, a modded version of Konami's popular soccer game celebrating a counter-historical event: a match between Inter Milan and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation soccer team that never took place. Today, we are showcasing another example of Game Art made by hijacking, appropriating and recontextualizing Pro Evolution Soccer, Miguel Gomes’s Pre Evolution Soccer One Minute Dance After a Golden Goal in the Master League (2004). This article is the first of a series.

In a delightful diversion that lasts a mere minute entitled Pro Evolution Soccer One Minute Dance After a Golden Goal in the Master League (2004), Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Gomes (b. 1972, Lisbon) playfully explores Konami’s popular soccer game Pro Evolution Soccer, infusing it with a captivating dance of joy that follows a triumphant goal. The viewer is invited to witness a symphony of robotic movements, as players Takemitsu, Berardo, Ringo Starr, Tomasson, Arnold, and Bonga grace the virtual field. Through skewed perspectives, uncanny choreographies, and a peculiar routine of replays, Gomes invites us into a world where algorithmic exultation reigns supreme, accompanied by the resounding clatter of a projector (!).

Unbeknownst to some, Miguel Gomes stands as one of the most accomplished Portuguese directors of our time, his cinematic prowess evident in his magnum opus, the epic Arabian Nights (2015). This monumental work — a visionary reinterpretation of the beloved tale One Thousand and One Nights — unfolds over an astonishing 382 minutes, masterfully set against the backdrop of contemporary Portugal. It comes as no surprise, then, that Gomes embraces a mantra that encapsulates his creative ethos: “Cinema is a game.” Trained at the esteemed Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema (Superior School of Theatre and Film Lisbon), Gomes initially carved his path (1996-2000) as a film critic and prolific author of insightful theoretical treatises on the art of cinema.

Originally commissioned by the revered Rotterdam Film Festival and showcased at prestigious cinema-based events worldwide, including the Austrian retrospective Viennale and the Sao Paulo Film Festival, Pro Evolution Soccer One Minute Dance After a Golden Goal in the Master League is almost twenty years old. This production coincided with the release of Gomes’s debut film, A Cara Que Mereces, in Portugal — a film that heralded his arrival on the directorial stage. Notably, Pre Evolution Soccer One Minute Dance… was five years prior to the pioneering work of Spanish artist Marta Azparren, who harnessed the same game fondly known among enthusiasts as PES, to craft the esteemed machinima The Goalkeeper and the Void (2009) which was shown, among others, in the context of the 2016 exhibition Game Video Art. A Survey at IULM University.

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Matteo Bittanti

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VIDEO: GLITCHED RITUALS, UNCANNY REPLICAS. DECODING NATALIE MAXIMOVA’S EPISODES

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As part of our ongoing coverage of Natalie Maximova’sThe Edge of the World, currently exhibited on VRAL, we are delighted to present an essay about Maximova's video piece Episodes (2021).

In recent years, within the context of contemporary art, the appropriation and recontextualization of video game assets has emerged as a powerful practice for artists to explore themes of identity, technology, and digital aesthetics. Through the repurposing of these virtual elements, artists navigate the complex terrain between video art and gaming, forging new pathways of artistic expression and broadening the very definition of machinima. This convergence offers a fertile ground for critical reflection, inviting viewers to ponder both the potential and the limitations of increasingly popular simulated horizons.

One notable exemplar of this artistic investigation is Elaine Hoey’s 2019 mesmerizing video work, Animated Positions. The piece prompts viewers to reconsider the underlying frames and symbolism ingrained within traditional art by juxtaposing it with the domain of video games. Specifically, Hoey delves into the tradition of 19th-century European nationalist paintings, unraveling the intricate role of art in the representation of jingoistic patriotic ideals that have acquired cultural symbolism in nation-state formation. Breathed anew, the bellicose postures and poses of male figures depicted in these historical paintings come to life through character animation sourced from the popular first-person shooter Call of Duty by Activision Blizzard. By comparing digital reenactments of war-like stances with the traditional aesthetics of nationalist art, Animated Positions defies romanticized notions of nostalgia associated with the nation-state, offering a critique of the pervasive violence underpinning modern nationalistic ideologies and the glorification of aggression found in mainstream video games.

When I say that Animated Positions exemplifies the practice of artistic decontextualization, I mean that Hoey skillfully appropriated characters’ animations from their original context, i.e., video games, thereby altering their meaning and relevance as she inserted it somewhere else, i.e, a specific Western tradition of sculpture and painting. The artist employs the strategy of decontextualization to illuminate and offer alternative interpretations by removing an element from its usual context, associations, and intended uses. For example, this approach suggests a connection between the artworld and the gaming milieu, particularly regarding representation. Furthermore, it implies that both art and games can function as forms of propaganda, even if they are not commonly recognized as such. Additionally, the artist proposes that the conventional distinction between high art and the vernacular lacks foundation, as they share similar themes, values, and objectives. Ultimately, Hoey’s use of decontextualization serves as a creative strategy to disrupt prevailing narratives, question societal norms, and foster critical engagement. Animated Positions reframes and reinterprets familiar ideas, inviting viewers to contemplate different perspectives and rethink the underlying assumptions or principles attached to the decontextualized items.

Natalie Maximova’s equally thought-provoking work, Episodes, is another compelling example of critical decontextualization through the repurposing of video game assets…

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Matteo Bittanti

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VIDEO: BENDING SPOONS, FORKING PATHS

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Bending spoons, forking paths: On Natalie Maximova’s There is no spoon


As part of our ongoing coverage of Natalie Maximova’s The Edge of the World, currently exhibited on VRAL, we are delighted to present a video essay about her more recent work There is no spoon (2021).

The phrase “There is no spoon”, echoing through the corridors of cinematic history and bookmarked in the annals of culture virality, is a staple ingredient of simulation theory. This enigmatic utterance alludes at the inexplicability of reality and the illusory constructs that envelop our perception. The alleged, counter intuitive absence of the spoon, therefore, is a puzzle that has ontological and epistemological implications. 

Let’s take a step back and try to unpack the concept.

In the dystopian universe of The Matrix (1999), this mantra emerges as a beacon of truth, challenging the accepted norms of existence. A young boy tells Neo about the paradoxical absence of the mundane utensil to suggest that within a simulation, anything is possible. The boy’s verdict “you’ll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself” can be read as an invitation to abandon biases, reject prejudices, and recognize the limitations of existing frameworks. On a more philosophical level, the maxim serves as a reminder that the physical manifestations we perceive as tangible objects are but constructs of our mind’s incessant activity, mere facades within the vast labyrinth of simulation. The spoon, a seemingly ordinary tool, becomes a potent metaphor for the illusions that veil our understanding, urging us to question the authenticity and veracity of our perceptions. Recognizing our constraints is the first step toward an epistemological liberation. 

As the narrative threads of simulation theory and video games intertwine, the parallel between the illusory world of The Matrix and the immersive interactive digital experiences becomes apparent. Video games, much like the simulated reality portrayed in the film, transport participants into meticulously crafted worlds, replete with intricately designed environments, characters, and narratives. In this boundless and often groundless domain, players embark on a number of quests, facing challenges and overcoming obstacles, all within a construct devoid of material substance and, perhaps, meaning.

The convergence of simulation theory and video games poses a captivating inquiry into the nature of agency and perception. Within the gaming realm, players navigate these digital landscapes, fully aware of the artifice that underpins their experiences. They become active participants, willingly immersing themselves in simulated realities, where the boundaries of what is real and what is fiction begin to blur. As we previously discussed, this confounding but enthralling situation is at the center of Maximova’s work The Edge of the World which seems to suggest that there’s no such thing as reality, just layers upon layers of simulation, connected by glitched areas, broken portals and literal or metaphorical rabbit holes.

Like its literary predecessor, the phrase “There is no spoon" serves as a poignant reminder of the ultimate conundrum, prompting players and observers alike to question the essence of their digital engagements. Are the avatars we control mere digital extensions of our own consciousness, or are they independent entities with their own sense of existence? Are the trials and triumphs we experience within the digital a reflection of our own realities — thus the underlying logic is memetic — or are they mere constructs of coded algorithms, and therefore purely compensative?

When examined through the lens of simulation theory and game design, this enigmatic observation — “There is no spoon” — confronts us with the profound paradox of existence within constructed realities. It beckons us to peel back the layers of illusion and seek a deeper understanding of the simulacra that shape our perception, understanding, and desires.

This paradox lies at the center of Natalie Maximova’s eponymous video work, which invites the viewer to embark on a profound expedition, akin to traversing a boundless video game devoid of prescribed objectives or known destinations. There is no spoon explicitly references the aforementioned line from The Matrix that explores the intersection of reality as a distinct entity and our perception of it. 

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Matteo Bittanti

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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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ARTICLE: SØREN THILO FUNDER'S CHILDREN'S GAMES (PUZZLED)

Søren Thilo Funder, still from Children's Games (Puzzled) - FACTORY WORKERS UNITE, HD Video installation, 48'00", Dimensions Variable, 2019.

Working through the puzzle game.

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In his unique exploration of the intersection of play, community, and knowledge production, Søren Thilo Funder and Tina Helen aka FACTORY WORKERS UNITED document the playful assemblage of a 4000-piece jigsaw puzzle inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder's iconic painting Children's Games (1560). Titled Children's Games (Puzzled) (2019), this immersive video captures the artists and a diverse group of collaborators, adults and children, gathering around the seemingly mundane activity of piecing together a puzzle. Filmed from a bird's-eye view, the slow and deliberate process of (re)constructing the image from a myriad of fragments becomes a site for rich conversation and collective reflection.

The choice is not random: with Children's Games (1560), Pieter Bruegel the Elder offers a kaleidoscopic vision of childhood play, filled with an astonishing array of activities and characters. Yet, beneath the surface of this charming and whimsical scene lies a darker undertone. The chaotic jumble of bodies and games seems to suggest a world in which innocence and joy are constantly under threat from the violence and disorder that lurks just out of sight. Despite the painting's undeniable technical mastery and richly detailed composition, it is this underlying tension between play and danger that makes Children's Games such a powerful and enduring work of art. Bruegel's vision of childhood, with all its contradictions and complexities, remains as relevant and provocative today as it was when it was first painted over four centuries ago.

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Matteo Bittanti

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ARTICLE: SØREN THILO FUNDER'S SANDBOX LIFE IS HELL

Søren Thilo Funder, cop2_cit (sandbox life is hell), Computer Generated Image, Photographic Print, Light box, 84x210cm, 2021

Hell is other people’s skins.

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In his 2021 thought-provoking artwork cop2_cit (sandbox life is hell), Søren Thilo Funder presents us with a simulacrum of a riot cop, constructed entirely from elements of a popular video game, Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar Games, 2013). This post modern twist on traditional portraiture challenges us to consider the role of simulation and representation in contemporary art. The avatar is presented as a deconstructed object, inviting the viewer to explore - and perhaps reassemble - its various components. From weapons to fabrics, each element is laid out for the viewer to piece together, offering an apparently playful, imaginative view into the world of game-based simulations. cop2_cit (sandbox life is hell) urges us to question the relationship between reality and simulation, and the ways in which games and other digital media can shape our perceptions of the world. 

Thilo Funder reframes the notion of custom-made skins, that is, visual modifications to the appearance of an object in a digital environment, such as a video game or virtual reality simulation. In the context of video games, skins are often used to customize the appearance of playable characters or objects in the game world. They may be created by the game developers or by individual players, using custom software or other tools. Custom-made skins can take many forms, from simple color changes to more complex designs that incorporate new textures, patterns, or even three-dimensional models. Skins can be created using a variety of tools and techniques, including digital painting, 3D modeling software, and image editing programs. Once created, skins can be shared online and downloaded by other players, allowing for a vibrant and diverse ecosystem of user-generated content. There's a long tradition within the context of game art to redesign skins in order to appropriate, alter, and subvert the ideology inherent to a video game…

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Matteo Bittanti

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VIDEO: JAKE COURI'S JETTISONED (2022)

Cargo cult

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Throughout this week, we’ll be exploring Jake Couri’s oeuvre. His remarkable A Precarious Night at Plumb Point is currently on display on VRAL.

We strongly recommend watching this video in full screen while wearing headphones.

Jettison: to get rid of as superfluous or encumbering: omit or forgo as part of a plan or as the result of some other decision; to drop (cargo) to lighten a ship's load in time of distress; to drop from an aircraft or spacecraft in flight.

Jake Couri's single-channel video is a post-human meditation of the idea of descent and arrival. Based on the G-11 Cargo Parachute Assembly, developed primarily for platform airdrops - as of today, the only cargo parachute of this size which is readily available for military use with a maximum payload of 5000 lbs (2267.9 kg) - the piece follows a cluster of three canopies as they slowly and gracefully descend through the atmosphere, giving the viewer the unique perspective of the payload itself. As the canopies idle in the emptiness of space, the clouds slowly disintegrate and reappear in a mesmerizing simulation of the in-between state of descent…

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Matteo Bittanti

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VIDEO: JAKE COURI'S A STONE'S THROW (2022)

When the grid leads to grinding, appendices without bodies produce immaterial labor.

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Throughout the course of this week, we'll be exploring Jake Couri’s oeuvre. His latest work, A Precarious Night at Plumb Point is currently on display on VRAL.

Couri’s A Stone's Throw (2022) delves into the rich historical underpinnings of art history, drawing inspiration from the late Sixteenth-century print series Nova Reperta, illustrating recent geographical discoveries and various scientific inventions of the time. Introduced during a period of intense cultural and technological ferment, Nova Reperta showcases the spirit of innovation and creative experimentation of the late Renaissance. Through its meticulous and highly detailed engravings, it captured the excitement and energy of this historical moment, providing a visual testament to the artists and inventors who pushed the boundaries of illustration as an art form. 

Commissioned by Luigi Alamani between 1587 and 1589, the Nova Reperta series includes twenty prints numbered in the margins. The plates were designated by Jan Van Der Straet then engraved and published by Philippe Galle, his son Theodore and Jan Collaert in Antwerp. In addition to the engravings devoted to the discovery of the New World, Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, and Amerigo Vespucci to whom America owes its name, the rest of the collection - nineteen prints overall - illustrates man's progress in different areas of knowledge such as copper engraving, the compass, sugar refinery, distillation, the clockwork, and the oil painting technique.

Couri reinterpreted Nova Reperta through the lens of the digital medium - which he aligns with the aforementioned inventions - situating it within the framework of simulation games. The outcome, A Stone's Throw, is, in many ways, an update or, rather, a re-imagining, imbued with a melancholic and uncanny quality that invites the viewer to engage with the piece on a more philosophical level beyond its obvious visual appeal, the repetitive, mesmerizing patterns…

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VIDEO: JAKE COURI'S FIND YOUR RITUAL (2019)

How can technology ground itself if it's just floating in an ocean of bits?

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Throughout this week, we’ll be exploring Jake Couri’s oeuvre. His remarkable A Precarious Night at Plumb Point is currently on display on VRAL.

In Find Your Ritual (2019), Couri skillfully employs elements of self-help and wellness exercises to explore the relationship between the digital and the physical. The artist is concerned with the gradual, perhaps inexorable, shift towards a digital existence: in his work, Couri is equally interested in the phenomenon of human beings acquiring machine-like features as machines become more human-like. Both projects are ultimately doomed, but the hybrid nature of this convergence is nonetheless interesting. In this work, the androgynous digital avatar performing all kinds of contortions serves as a metaphor for the blurring of boundaries between the human and the machine, suggesting - both ironically and earnestly - that even artificial realities need a moment of relaxation. They, too, must find their ritual.

The video's setting - a room afloat in an ocean of simulated water - is a nod to the notion of the digital as an immersive experience. The viewer is transported into a virtual environment that is both familiar and uncanny. Couri's use of this setting further underscores the idea that our digital lives are becoming increasingly entwined with our physical lives. Attempting to reach some kind of balance, the avatar - the alter ego of the viewer - ultimately fails to achieve a sense of permanent control, mirroring our own inability to cope in a world that, in the second decade of the Twenty-first century,  has turned into full dystopia…

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Matteo Bittanti

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VIDEO: JAKE COURI'S CHEAPSHOT (2020)

In CHEAPSHOT, Jake Couri masterfully blends the digital and the physical, creating a surreal digital landscape in which the main character, the viewer’s alter ego, performs EFT.

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Throughout this week, we’ll be exploring Jake Couri’s work, whose remarkable video A Precarious Night at Plumb Point is currently on display on VRAL.

We’ll begin with CHEAPSHOT (2020), which we briefly mentioned in our interview. 

In CHEAPSHOT, Couri employs digital art techniques to present a fluid and ever-shifting world that blurs the distinction between reality and the virtual realm. Utilizing computer graphics through Unreal Engine, the artist conjures a sense of hyperreality, echoing Jean Baudrillard's apt definition. This effect is further amplified by the use of aural cues, as sound designer Aaron Emmanuel's aural dissonance creates a feeling of disquiet and instability. The sudden alternation of gentle sounds with unexpected and jarring noise mirrors the emotional upheavals caused by the barrage of information, constant notifications, and overwhelming stimuli that come with living in a perpetually connected, “always on” digital world.

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Matteo Bittanti

This is a Patreon exclusive article. To access the full content consider joining our Patreon community.