Performance

VIDEO ESSAY: THE ART OF VIRTUAL RESIDENCY

VRAL is currently presenting The Death Trilogy by Adonis Archontides, a triptych of works starring his ersatz Sim-clones. To better appreciate the breadth and scope of his work, we are discussing his Sims-based oeuvre. We continue our exploration with the in-game performance Adonis and the Labour of Artistic Production. This project stands out as one of the most inventive integrations of The Sims within an avant-garde context to date, where the processes of art-making and video game mechanics are seamlessly intertwined, creating a fruitful dialogue.

Adonis and the Labour of Artistic Production (2017-2018) centers on the personal and artistic journey of Adonis Archontides during his virtual art residency within The Sims 4, as captured through a series of Instagram posts. The project – which began in December 2017 and concluded in February 2018, in preparation of Archontides’ first solo exhibition, which opened on February 22nd, 2018 – explores themes of artistic creation, the transient nature of beauty and inspiration, and the interplay between personal life, gaming interactions, and creative expression. During his virtual residency, Adonis investigated the essence of artistic labor and the impact of the environment on creativity, sharing interesting insights into his artistic process. Like Marshall McLuhan, Adonis seems to share the idea that media – video games included – create environments, rather than just “content” or “messages”.

Like the subsequent work, Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Wade and the Effort of Consciousness, Adonis and the Labour of Artistic Production relies on digital platforms to chronicle the construction of identity and reality in virtual or digitally mediated environments. However, while the former focuses on the multiplicity of self and philosophical explorations within a simulated game world, the latter engages more with the physicality of the artistic process and its documentation in real-time, offering a more intimate look at the everyday life and productive cycles of an artist. Together, both projects showcase Adonis’s ongoing interest in merging life and art with digital means, continually pushing the boundaries on how art is created, experienced, and discussed in the age of video games. 

The residency was cleverly narrated through a series of posts on Instagram. Adonis and the Labour of Artistic Production developed in stages, from…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Adonis Archontides

Adonis and the Labour of Artistic Production

Performance documentation in The Sims 4, screenshots, Instagrams posts, 2017-2018

All images courtesy of Adonis Archontides

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ARTICLE: I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, BUT I NEED A VACATION SPOT

Federica di Pietrantonio, Vacation Spot in Gent (back to Rome), Rufa Space, Pastificio Cerere, Rome (Italy), 2019 photo by Eleonora Cerri Pecorella

Today is the last day to watch Federica Di Pietrantonio’s but I wanna keep my head above water. As a finissage, we revisit her groundbreaking project Vacation Spot (2019)

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As in the case of Letta Shtohryn's practice, this Sims-based machinima is part of a larger, multimedia project as Di Pietrantonio’s work ranges freely over painting, video, installations, and performances.

The heterogeneity of Di Pietrantonio’s approach and her ability to use different media to create an evolving universe in which the digital and the material converse with each other without any abrupt interruption is especially manifest in her project Vacation Spot, which she developed at Rufa Space, Pastificio Cerere in Rome as well as Gouvernement in Ghent, Belgium in 2019.

Di Pietrantonio's universe mixes avatars like the ubiquitous Foxy and classic icons of art, creating striking juxtapositions. Vacation Spot is closely related to Voyeurism, the short machinima we discussed a few days ago. But there are also objects - tangible objects - in the gallery space: her playground is all encompassing…

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Matteo Bittanti

Federica Di Pietrantonio, Vacation Spot in Gent, 2019, installation view, Gouvernement (Ghent, Belgium), photo by Andrea Frosolini

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NEWS: THE MMF MMXXII CRITICS' CHOICE AWARD GOES TO SAM CRANE

WE ARE HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THAT We are such stuff as dreams are made on has been awarded the 2022 Critics’ Choice Award.

The jury — which comprises Simonetta Fadda, Stefano Locati and Jenna NG — found Sam Crane’s attempt to perform Shakespeare within Grand Theft Auto Online “daring”, “wildly original”, and “pleasantly absurdist”. As one juror wrote, “Ionesco would have loved it”.

We are such stuff as dreams is featured in the NO DRAMA, PLEASE back-to-back program.

Project description: What happens if you try to perform Shakespeare inside a public lobby in Grand Theft Auto Online, a game space notorious for its aggression and gratuitous violence? You might expect the other players in your server — randomly allocated from anywhere in the world — to respond with heavy weaponry, perhaps a mini SMG, or a compact grenade launcher. And indeed, this is often what happens. Yet occasionally you may come across someone responding in an entirely unexpected manner... We are such stuff as dreams are made on appropriates the notoriously violent and misogynistic world of Grand Theft Auto, and transforms it as a space for live performance of Shakespeare. It also questions the very notion of “play”.

Watch an excerpt

A talented stage actor, critically acclaimed for his performances at the National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, in The West End, and on Broadway, Sam Crane began his career playing the renowned Polish artist and theater maker Tadeusz Kantor in A little Requiem for Kantor at the London International Mime Festival, went on to perform with contemporary physical theater pioneers Frantic Assembly, and most recently garnered stellar reviews and an Off West End nomination for his solo performance in Rage of Narcissus by Sergio Blanco. He has collaborated with influential artists such as Sir Mark Rylance, Katie Mitchell, and Robert Icke. A prolific screen actor, Sam has appeared in several television series including The Crown (Netflix), The Trial of Christine Keeler (BBC), COBRA (Sky), Poldark (BBC), Endeavour (ITV) and Call The Midwife (BBC). In the guise of his alter ego Rustic Mascara, he attracted over 50 thousand views in two weeks to his attempts to perform Shakespeare inside Grand Theft Auto Online. His machinima were featured in film retrospectives and art exhibitions in Europe (Videopark, Uzice, Serbia) and the USA (Pandemic Projections: Visions for a New Normal, New Jersey), among others.

Read an interview with Sam Crane

Watch We are such stuff as dreams

Learn more about Rustic Mascara

NEWS: BACK-TO-BACK NO DRAMA, PLEASE

How do you subvert a video game? Well, for instance you can make explicit the homoerotic tension within fighting games by portraying muscular characters as they embrace and exchange bodily fluids. Or you can turn Grand Theft Auto Online into a performative space where Shakespeare is condemned to endlessly respawn. At any rate, no drama, please: we’re just playing with games.

Featuring Sam Crane aka Rustic Mascara and Darío Alva aka cavecanems

Watch No Drama, Please

A CLOSER LOOK AT WELCOME TO MY DESERT NEXUS

VRAL is presenting Kara Gut’s Welcome to my Desert Nexus as part of our Fall 2021 program. Welcome to my Desert Nexus, which will be accessible online until September 30, is a three-act play performed within a video game, focusing on two players within Red Dead Redemption Online as they encounter existential quandaries in the digital desert. Part table-read, part live gaming event, Welcome to My Desert Nexus introduces theatrical forms of expressions, stimulating emotional responses in the audience, in the contexts of video games. The performance, which has a duration of 44’ 50”, is situated at the intersection of different spatialities, temporalities, and media. Among other things, the work is complemented by a script laser printed with custom stamped illustrations, saddle stitched and designed by fellow artist Clara Gatto with Bulk Space which was presented at Printed Matter’s Art Book Fair, 2021. The full script is accessible here in PDF form. Welcome to my Desert Nexus is indicative of the complexity of the video game form, which transcends the boundaries of the screen to engage multiple senses.

The intersection between theatre and digital gaming is becoming more and more prominent. In October 2020, amidst a global pandemic, Canadian playwright Celine Song performed Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull with/in The Sims 4 and broadcast her entire performance in two installments on Twitch, as part of New York Theatre Workshop’s Artistic Instigators program, which was introduced to support both creatively and economically artists unable to perform on stage due to Covid-19 restrictions. Song introduced alternative ways to experience the popular life simulator, blurring the boundaries between the performer’s body and the avatars acting on the screen.

More recently, a selected number of players of the popular post-apocalyptic video game Fallout 76 have begun reenacting scenes from popular movies and play, including A Clockwork Orange, Hamlet, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and West Side Story, and they are currently working on a major production of Macbeth. One of the most popular groups using Bethesda’s game as a stage is The Theatre Company, “operating the Charleston Playhouse Theatre, the Watoga Opera House, Grafton Globe, & Morgantown Moulin Rouge.” In all cases, these performance adopt a calmer, more distanced approach to the bleak themes of the original video game, ignoring its “established narratives”. Here’s an image of the troupe performing at Moulin Rouge theatre via their avatars (source: Twitter)

MOTH DANCE.jpeg

VRAL will be exploring these hybrid forms - “video game augmented theatre” - that re-imagine the very notions of “performance” and “play” using a variety of platforms, poetic language, and collective practices in the upcoming months.

Matteo Bittanti

EVENT: VRAL #30_KARA GÜT (SEPTEMBER 17-30 2021)

WELCOME TO MY DESERT NEXUS (DEEP INSIDE MY DESERT HEART)

digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 44’ 50”, 2021 (United States)

screen recording of a live/virtual performance at Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, New York on June 13 2021

Created by Kara Güt

Welcome to My Desert Nexus is a three-act play performed within a video game, which follows two players within Red Dead Redemption Online as they encounter existential quandaries in the digital desert. Part table-read, part live gaming event, Welcome to My Desert Nexus combines the aesthetics of theater and video games. The original play consists of an in-person presentation performed live at Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, New York on June 13 2021 resembling that of a live gaming event in which the players and their battle stations occupy the stage. Additionally, Welcome to My Desert Nexus was simultaneously streamed on the internet and accessible to anyone. The performance featured the four actors on stage controlling their avatars and reading their lines live. The narrator, in addition to controlling an avatar, performed live cuts via video switcher, allowing the screen to switch between the actors’ perspectives based on who was talking. This specific iteration of Welcome to My Desert Nexus, which is now presented on VRAL, starred Tommy Martinez as Charlie, Emma Levesque-Schaefer as Frances, Noah D’Orazio as Shepherd, and Kara Güt as Narrator. The original soundtrack was composed by Justin Majetich.

Kara Güt investigates the new contours of human intimacy shaped by an increasingly pervasive online lifestyle, constructed detachment from reality, and the power dynamics of the virtual. Using image and screen-based media, Güt explores the ontological necessity of certain digital spaces. She is specifically interested in how the patriarchal conversation within these contexts can be subverted by the artists and the participants’ intervention to generate new meaning. Working with video, screen capture, and the web, video games, and other digital spaces, Güt creates artworks that are sculptural in nature. She is interested in expressing the mythos of the digital and its manifestations in the physical realm. This notion – which takes the form of objects that play with language, translation, faux-intimacy, consumerism, and a metamorphosis born from the lore of digital, and internet lifestyles – informs her practice. A multidisciplinary artist with an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Güt is the recipient of the Peter MacKendrick Endowment for Visual Artists, Güt has been featured on Refigural Magazine, The Unstitute, and the Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography among others. Her work is part of the Cranbrook Art Museum collection as well as several private collections. Güt currently lives and works in Columbus, Ohio.

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NEWS: KAMILIA KARD ON CROSSING INVISIBLE BOUNDARIES

The MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL is proud to present Kamilia Kard’s 30 minute performance Walking Against, Walking Through in machinima form. Part of THE CLASSICAL ELEMENTS special screening series, Kard’ performance was made with/in indie game Journey (Thatgamecompany, 2012). In the original game, the player takes the role of a robed figure in a desert, traveling towards a mountain looming in the distance but it often encounters invisible borders that cannot be crossed. Any attempts to cross the invisible line are doomed to fail. The border is intangible, like air or, rather, simulated wind: when players try to cross the last dune, they are pushed back automatically.

As the artist writes,

No matter how vast it may seem, the desert is still a prison. I climb a dune and walk along its edge, repeatedly trying to climb over it, to find a hole along this impalpable fence. This endurance performance, prompted by hope yet inevitably voted to failure, give the viewer and I the chance to think about the current state of confinement and, more broadly, about the growing number of invisible borders limiting our personal freedom in a globalized, hyper-connected, and apparently borderless society: the soft control of the media, the biopolitical invasion of our private space, the terms and conditions overseeing online public space, the gender and racial bias still regulating our society and preventing women access to a given space or status.

For Kard, playing Journey acquired new meanings in the times of quarantine and confinement.

Watch the artist discuss her project:

Kamilia Kard is an artist and a researcher born in Milan. After earning a degree in Political Economy at the Bocconi University of Milan, she turned to art and received a BA in Painting and an MA in Net Art both from the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera in Milan. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Digital Humanities at the University of Genova. She teaches Multimedia Communication at the Brera's Academy and the Academy of Carrara. Her research explores how hyper-connectivity and new forms of online communication modified and influenced the perception of the human body, gestures, feelings, and emotions. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including Galerie Odile Ouizeman, Paris, Dimora Artica, Milan, Metronom, Modena, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, EP7, Paris, IMAL, Brussels, Fotomuseum, Winterthur, Switzerland, La Triennale di Milano, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sao Paulo, Brazil, La Quadriennale of Roma at Palazzo Delle Esposizioni, Hypersalon, Miami and Museum del Novecento, Milan. She edited Alpha Plus. An Anthology of Digital Art (Editorial Vortex 2017). She was a speaker at the Machine Feeling conference (Transmediale and Cambridge University), a series of panels focused on AI, machine learning, and the new forms of social and cultural language they spawned. She was Visiting Fellow at Paris Sciences et Lettres EnsadLab in the research group of François Garnier Spatial Media, focusing on the themes of cognition and agency within VR environments.

Il MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL è orgoglioso di presentare la performance in-game di Kamilia Kard Walking Against, Walking Through documentata sotto forma di machinima nell’ambito delle proiezioni speciali THE CLASSICAL ELEMENTS . Kard ha utilizzato il videogioco indie Journey (Thatgamecompany, 2012), nel quale l’utente assume il ruolo di una figura avvolta da una tunica nel deserto in cammino verso una montagna che si staglia all’orizzonte. Dopo aver raggiunto la montagna, l’artista ha fatto ritorno al deserto per testarne l'illusoria infinità, concludendo che i progettisti non hanno creato un confine visibile, riconoscibile, “solido” per marcare i bordi del territorio, come l’abisso invalicabile dei videogiochi del passato o come il fondale dipinto nel set di The Truman Show: qui, il confine è invisibile, poroso eppure insuperabile.

Come ha dichiarato Kard:

Per quanto vasto possa sembrare, il deserto resta comunque una prigione. Salgo una duna e cammino lungo il bordo, tentando ripetutamente di scavalcarla, di trovare una fessura lungo questo recinto impalpabile. Questa performance di resistenza, motivata da un senso di speranza, ma inevitabilmente votata al fallimento, sollecita una riflessione sulla condizione di reclusione e, più in generale, sul numero crescente di confini invisibili che limitano la nostra libertà personale in un società globalizzata, iperconnessa, apparentemente senza confini: il soft control dei media, l’invasione biopolitica del nostro spazio privato, i termini e le condizioni che sovrintendono allo spazio pubblico online, il genere e i pregiudizi razziali dominanti che impediscono alle donne l’accesso a determinati spazi e status.

Per l’artista, giocare a Journey ha acquisito un nuovo significato nell’era dell’isolamento e della reclusione pandemica.

In questa intervista Kard discute la sua opera:

Kamilia Kard è un’artista e docente nata a Milano. Dopo aver conseguito una laurea in Economia Politica, passa a studi artistici ottenendo un diploma triennale in Pittura e una laurea specialistica in Cinema e Video, Net Art all’Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera di Milano. Attualmente è dottoranda in Digital Humanities all’Università degli Studi di Genova. Insegna Comunicazione Multimediale all’Accademia di Brera e Modellazione Digitale 3D all’Accademia di Carrara. La sua ricerca esplora come l’iperconnettività e le nuove forme di comunicazione online abbiano modificato e influenzato la percezione del corpo umano, della gestualità, dei sentimenti e delle emozioni. Le sue opere sono state presentate a livello internazionale, tra cui Galerie Odile Ouizeman a Parigi, Dimora Artica a Milano, Metronom a Modena, Victoria & Albert Museum a Londra, P7 a Parigi, IMAL a Brussels, Fotomuseum a Winterthur, Svizzera, La Triennale di Milano, il Museo di Contemporary Art, São Paulo, Brasile, La Quadriennale di Roma al Palazzo Delle Esposizioni, Hypersalon, a Miami and il Museo del Novecento, Milano. Ha curato Alpha Plus. An Anthology of Digital Art (Editorial Vortex 2017). Ha partecipato come relatrice alla conferenza Machine Feeling (Transmediale e Cambridge University), una serie di panel focalizzati sul tema dell’intelligenza artificiale, del machine learning e delle nuove forme di linguaggio sociale e culturale da loro derivanti. È stata Visiting Fellow a Paris Sciences et Lettres EnsadLab nel gruppo di ricerca di François Garnier Spatial Media, focalizzandosi sui temi della cognitività e agentività all’interno degli ambienti VR.