financialization

ARTICLE: FILIP KOSTIC IS GAMING THE ARTWORLD

VRAL is currently showcasing Filip Kostic’s 2019 game video Filip Kostic VS Filip Kostic in a brand new format. To contextualize this specific artwork as well as the artist’s oeuvre, we will be discussing a series of artworks influenced, inspired and/or developed with video games and game tools, such as the Unreal Engine. Today we are happy to present Booty Bay Open Studios (2020).

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Kostic’s amusing Booty Bay Open Studio is a fascinating intersection of art and gaming unfolding through the virtual persona of “Jerrysaltz the Undead Warlock,” clearly modeled after Jerry Saltz, America’s preeminent art critic. Situated in the fantastical realm of World of Warcraft, this avant-garde initiative poses compelling questions about the valuation and interpretation of art within a simulated, magical world. Employing a diverse toolkit of visual aids – ranging from in-game photography to meticulously constructed diagrams, mind maps, and charts – the project engages participants in an enthralling artistic journey in a land ruled by Orcs, Goblins, and Warriors.

The setting for this experiential foray into art criticism is the fictitious Booty Bay Studios, hereby described as an iconic trading hub, renowned as the largest of its kind in all of Azeroth and the Horde territories. The experience transcends the usual paradigms of art exhibits, turning into what can only be described as a whimsical, yet incisive, art crawl. But the true depths of the project’s humor and subtext can be fully grasped only by those proficient in two distinct dialects: the specialized lexicon of WoW’s geography and gameplay mechanics, and the nuanced vocabulary of contemporary art critique.

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Matteo Bittanti

Work cited

Filip Kostic

Booty Bay Open Studios, digital video, color, sound, 7’ 18", Serbia, 2020

All images and video courtesy of the artist

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EVENT: RICARDO MIRANDA ZÚÑIGA (FEBRUARY 18 - MARCH 3 2022, ONLINE)

FINTECH FOR THE PRECARIAT

digital video (3840 x 2160), color, sound, 11’ 37”, 2017, United States

video documentation of an immersive world application

Created by Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga, 2021

FinTech for the Precariat is an immersive urban environment populated by Greed, Lust, Gluttony, Envy, gig workers and twelve voices from New York City’s financial spectrum. As the user wanders around this environment, she stumbles upon its inhabitants — from financial brokers to recent college grads to computer programmers and cultural workers —, gaining an understanding of their financial perspectives. It has been projected that the 2020s will be the decade of the “FinTech Revolution”. This marketing hyperbole is on the heels of many such revolutions sold on the broken promises of democratization and prosperity for all. FinTech for the Precariat asks a simple question: Who are the winners and losers in this “game”?

Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga is a new media artist. He approaches art as a social practice that seeks to establish dialogue in public spaces. Zúñiga received a B.A. in Practice of Arts and English Literature at University at California, Berkeley, and later an M.A. in Fine Arts a from Carnegie Mellon University. Born in San Francisco in the early Seventies in a family of immigrants from Nicaragua, Zúñiga’s practice explores such themes as immigration, discrimination, gentrification, globalization, and commodification. His works have been exhibited internationally, often behind the contexts of art galleries and museums.

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