Unreal Engine

ARTICLE: MORITZ JEKAT’S UNREAL PHARMACON

The CG video installation Wetlands of Pharmacology by artist Moritz Jekat, whose groundbreaking machinima, The blue seals. Extinct and happy (2023) premiered in Season 4 of VRAL,  explores themes of co-existence, care, and healing through an immersive virtual environment. The 17-minute digital video was created entirely within the Unreal game engine and features a group of humanoid alien characters who come together in an intimate setting to exchange emotional and physical knowledge.

Jekat was inspired by the writings of several theorists, including Donna Haraway, to experiment with empathy, emotional sharing, identity, and hospitality in the junction between physical and virtual worlds. In contrast to the high-speed consumption of virtual spaces, Wetlands of Pharmacology intentionally adopts a slow, caring pace as the characters share dreams, thoughts, and emotions. Jekat cleverly appropriates video game technology and aesthetics to reimagine care as a central theme, defying the combat and violence prevalent in most commercial videogames.

Facing a world in realignment, surrounded by the high speed, consumption oriented environment in physical and virtual life created a longing for healing, reconnecting and re-kin-ing, love, forgiveness and politics and ­alternative perspectives on what surrounds us and how we can coexist in this in between. In Wetlands of Pharmacology a group of humanoid alien-avatars retreated to a virtual space inside a computer game engine. A coming together in a caring pile of exchanging thoughts, emotions and dreams, brought together by subconscious writing and tools of the wetlands. A waterbed in the physical space functions as a connector. The pharmacon, defined as both cure and poison, refers here to the technical objects, biological or non-bodily organs and social relations through which we open ourselves to new futures and thereby create the spirit that makes us human.

The artist collaborated with other artists, i.e., Andrea Bocca, Antoine Simeao Schalk, Valentina Parati, Yuna-Lee Pfau, to collectively develop the script performed by the CG characters. Jekat used motion capture to “wear” the customized avatar bodies and give an intimate, first-person perspective to the viewer. The pharmacon concept, meaning both cure and poison, is embodied through the virtual environment acting as both a space of connection and potential isolation. 

The accompanying physical installation thoughtfully extends the themes into the gallery space. The waterbed sculpture invites intimate gatherings, while the mycelium-inspired soft sculptures reference the interconnectivity of networks. Overall, the project offers a poignant commentary on how technology and virtual spaces may provide opportunities for empathy and care rather than just consumption and isolation. The hybrid virtual/physical installation rewards deep observation and critical reflection from the viewer.

Wetlands of Pharmacology represents an experimental, collaborative approach to using virtual environments and video game technology as spaces for emotional connection and healing. The project succeeds through its conceptual depth, attention to intimacy and care, and its seamless integration between the virtual characters and the physical installation.

Matteo Bittanti 

Read more about the 2023 show at ECAL here

Works cited

Moritz Jekat 

Wetlands of Pharmacology

Digital video (2000 x 1000), color, sound, 17’ 44”, 2023, Germany

The collective script was developed with: Andrea Bocca, Antoine Simeao Schalk, Valentina Parati, Yuna-Lee Pfau.

Sound Design: Bindiram Noah Gokul
Sound Mastering: Tamara Meli

Waterbed and soft sculptures
in collaboration with
Felice Berny-Tarente and Marine Col

Read an interview with Moritz Jekat

All images and video trailer courtesy of the Artist(s)

MMF MMXXIII UPDATE: A CHAT WITH STANISLAW PETRUK

Stanislaw Petruk

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

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PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT 〰️

The Milan Machinima Festival is excited to present Stanislaw Petruk's The Remnants, a short film created with the Unreal Engine set five years after a global disaster, where the remaining population is struggling to survive as the planet slowly dies. The machinima portrays the struggle for survival and the harsh reality of human nature in a post-apocalyptic world.

The Remnants will be exclusively screened at the Museum of Interactive Cinema on March 25 2023 as part of the Utopia/Dystopia program. Buy your ticket here.

Born in 1987, Stanisław Petruk is a filmmaker and Sr. VFX artist at Avalanche Studios in Sweden. He has directed several shorts and worked on video games such as WWE Immortals, Mortal Kombat, Agents of Mayhem, The Walking Dead, and Saints Row. He lives and works in Stockholm.

Matteo Bittanti discussed the creative and technical process behind The Remnants with the filmmaker, Stan Petruk.

Matteo Bittanti: Although you’re very young, you’ve already lived in several countries. How would you describe, comparatively, the social and cultural perception of video games in Russia, Poland, and Sweden, where you currently live and work?

Stanislaw Petruk: The great thing about the games is that they are very international. And here I am talking not only about players, but also about developers. And I think on the development side it is even more visible. You can easily move from one company to another even in a different country and work pipeline will be identical, same about the language – English for all communication and documentation.

Matteo Bittanti: You describe yourself as a self-taught artist, as you crafted your skills as a VFX artist and as a filmmaker mostly through online courses, tutorials, and hard work. Can you discuss your upbringing as somebody who “grew up on the internet”, so to speak?

(continues)

Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Stanislaw Petruk

The Remnants

digital video, sound, 7’ 7”, 2022, Sweden

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MMF MMXXIII UPDATE: INTRODUCING MARTIN BELL'S PRAZINBURK RIDGE

The Milan Machinima Festival is excited to present Martin Bell’s Prazinburk Ridge, a unique narrative short created with the Unreal Engine. Featured in the Counter-narratives program, Bell’s work will be available between March 19-26 2023 on the MMF website.

Martin Bell, a British animation and previs supervisor at Proof Inc., has made his mark in the animation world with his latest creation, Prazinburk Ridge. For those unfamiliar with the term “previs,” (or "previz") it refers to an important pre-production step in filmmaking. Specifically, previs - short for pre-visualization - plays a crucial role in which action sequences are animated and planned in advance to ensure that the sequence is perfected before any funds are expended on the shoot, which can become quite costly very rapidly. Incidentally, in the past, several filmmakers used machinima as a previs tool.

Prazinburk Ridge tells the true story of English rugby player Douglas Clark and his heroic actions during World War I on the Belgian battlefields. Clark, a Yorkshire rugby hero, enlisted in the army in 1916, with the first World War upon Britain and his international sporting career cut short. In 1917, he found himself on the mud-soaked battlefields of Ypres, in Belgium, during the Battle of Passchendaele. As part of the Army Service Corps, he was tasked to deliver munitions to artillery batteries shelling the front lines. During one fateful ammo drop, his team were attacked with gas and shell, and Clark had to rely on his old rugby training to save himself and his fellow soldiers. He would never be the same again. Prazinburk Ridge explores themes of bravery, resilience, and camaraderie, set against the backdrop of the Battle of Frezenberg, which the British misspelled as "Prazinburk."

Bell had been looking for a personal project for years, but found it difficult to make his own films in animation as he lacked a team. During the 2020 lockdown imposed by the government to limit the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, Bell decided to create a war film based on a personal connection to Clark’s story, which was originally discovered by his brother Steven. Bell found inspiration in Richard Linklater's Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood (2022) and adopted a cel-shaded style to achieve a traditional feel while shooting at 12 frames per second. By working within the technical limitations of the Unreal Engine, Bell created a unique, painterly, impressionistic look, reminiscent of the American filmmaker’s best work (my all time favorite is Waking Life, 2001).

Despite having little-to-no budget, and Bell as the only visual artist, Prazinburk Ridge was made possible by utilizing commercially-available assets, cutting-edge techniques and human ingenuity and perseverance. Bell used a real-time pipeline in Unreal Engine with live dynamics and simulation, alongside motion/performance capture and more common animation practices. Bell did all of his own performance capture, capturing raw data directly into Unreal using a first generation Noitom Perception Neuron mocap suit and an iPhone with the MocapX app. He also directed the actors and recorded all the dialogue himself, but ultimately replaced his lines with voice-over actors. The project took Bell more than 100 days spread over a couple of years to complete. Rather than waiting for distribution or completing a festival run, Bell originally released the film online on his website and is still promoting it while applying to international festivals. Bell described in detail the production process - from conception to execution - in an article published on Indie Film Hustle.

Prazinburk Ridge is Martin Bell’s first proper animated short after almost two decades in the computer graphics industry. His credits include Jurassic World, No Time To Die, 1917, and The Wheel of Time. Most recently, he was Visualisation Supervisor on Batgirl. Bell’s brother, Steven, originally uncovered the almost-forgotten story of Duggy. Duggy is the subject of Bell's second book via Pitch Publishing, The Man of All Talents: The Extraordinary Life of Douglas Clark. Together, the brothers became the biggest fans of the larger-than-life British legend. Both the book and short film have been endorsed by Clark’s estate and the project thus qualify as a true transmedia endeavor.

Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Martin Bell

Prazinburk Ridge

digital video/machinima (1280 X 720), color, sound, 10’, 2022, England

EVENT: JAKE COURI (FEBRUARY 10 - 23 2023, ONLINE)

A PRECARIOUS NIGHT AT PLUMB POINT

Digital video (2160 × 3840), sound, color, 24’ 04”, 2023, United States

Created by Jake Couri

A Precarious Night at Plumb Point finds our lead character positioned at sea, guided by the innate voyeurism hard coded into the world of gaming. Possessed by an internal dialogue, the viewer is presented with an assemblage-like simulation indicative of first-person exploration games, survival adventures, and cinematic trailers. Structurally based on the tragic fate of the first cruise ship intended for pleasure voyages, the SS Prinzessin Victoria Luise reached its unexpected demise the night of December 16th, 1906, after crash landing at Plumb Point Lighthouse. We follow our lead character aboard a modern-day cruise ship as he traverses through a series of environments led by the result of his perceived reality.

Jake Couri’s practice leverages digital space, employing computer-generated characters, environments, and conditions for the viewer to navigate. The artist examines the relationship between digital and physical reality, leaning on the possibility of making sense of the human condition through CGI avatars, cinematic effects, and theatrical sound composition. After completing a BFA in Fine Arts from Syracuse University, Jake Couri moved to San Francisco, where he received his MFA in Fine Arts with honors at California College of the Arts. His work has been shown at Superposition Gallery in Los Angeles, California (2019), Public Records in Brooklyn, New York (2020), and 4Culture in Seattle, Washington State (2021). He completed an artist residency at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass Village, Colorado (2019). He currently lives and works in New York City.

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