remaster

MMF MMXXIV: STEFAN PANHANS AND ANDREA WINKLER

We are excited to feature Stefan Panhans and Andrea Winkler’s »If You Tell Me When Your Birthday Is« (Machinima version) at the 2024 edition of the Milan Machinima Festival.

Stefan Panhans and Andrea Winkler’s »If You Tell Me When Your Birthday Is« (Machinima version) merges 3D scanning, CGI, avatars, and motion capture with dialogue reflecting AI-driven communication, all set in a vibrantly constructed virtual world. This absurdist mini-drama, divided into three segments, employs real-time graphics to navigate through surreal landscapes - from a BMX course cluttered with office chairs to an otherworldly forest filled with giant pills. The narrative follows two characters wandering fantastical settings, their dialogue laden with misinterpretations and emotional depth, driven by digital patterns and AI mimesis. These avatars, combining 3D models with the actors’ facial scans, move through a series of visually striking, absurd environments that blur the lines between the digital and the physical. Produced during a fellowship at the Academy of Theatre and Digitality in Dortmund, the film critically examines the intricacies of communication with artificial intelligences that saturate modern life. It intentionally highlights the digital-analog conflict and the charming flaws of integrating these realms, rejecting seamless integration for a portrayal filled with comedic and eerie inaccuracies. Through this, »If You Tell Me When Your Birthday Is« (Machinima version) not only entertains but also probes the complexities of our increasingly digital existence.

Stefan Panhans and Andrea Winkler explore contemporary media and its effects on the mind and body through video, photography, installation, and text. Panhans (born in Hattingen, Germany) undertakes a mental archaeology of hyper mediatization and digitalization, examining their influence on the mind and power relations in society. His work also engages with racism, celebrity worship, stereotypes, and diversity. He studied at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg. Winkler (born in Fällanden, Zurich, Switzerland) examines similar themes through sculpture, video, and installation. She studied at Slade School of Fine Art in London under John Hilliard and Bruce McLean, after completing a degree in Visual Communication at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg under Wolfgang Tillmans and Gisela Bullacher. Together, the duo create interdisciplinary works that critically investigate contemporary media culture and human-technology interactions through experimental aesthetics. Their collaborations take the form of video, performance, and installation. Their 2016 video, À Rebours. Mod#1.I, was recently featured on VRAL.

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MMF MMXXIV: THOMAS HAWRANKE

We are delighted to present Thomas Hawranke’s Play As Animals at the upcoming Milan Machinima Festival in a new format.

Originally coiceived as a two-channel found footage installation exploring the nuanced existence of animals in the virtual realm of Grand Theft Auto V, Play as Animals is presented as a single-channel video within the context of MMF MMXXIV. This work artfully assembles YouTube clips, video sequences, and sound fragments into a compelling visual narrative, highlighting the often-overlooked animal perspectives within a digital world primarily shaped by human stories. Hawranke examines the portrayal of these virtual beings, reflecting on human stereotypes and addressing the game-engineered discrimination they face. By stepping into the roles of these non-human characters, players are invited to view the game’s world through a fresh lens, challenging established norms and inviting a reevaluation of their interaction with the virtual environment. Indirectly, Hawranke asks the viewers: What insights emerge from exploring a trailer park on all fours, or experiencing the quietude of farm life? How does navigating the urban jungle as a pack alter one’s perception of the city? Does a fin's playful breach of water’s surface convey deeper meanings, and can one truly play with mice while sporting paws?

Born in 1977 in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany, Thomas Hawranke is a media artist and researcher whose practice investigates the influence of technology on society and the impact of computational logic onto human-animal-machine relationships. In his eclectic interventions, Hawranke operates at the intersection of performance and video art: a central concern of his is bringing to the surface the ideologies that inform everyday life. Hawranke graduated in Media Art at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne and received a PhD from the Bauhaus-University in Weimar, Germany, with a dissertation on the modification of video games, also known as modding, as a method for artistic research. Since 2005, he has been a member of susigames, an independent art label founded in 2003 that investigates alternative gaming’s approaches, and he is the co-founder of the Paidia Institute in Cologne. His works have been presented at several exhibitions and festivals, including the zkm_gameplay in Karlsruhe and the RENCONTRES INTERNATIONALES PARIS/BERLIN. Hawranke lives and works in Cologne, Germany. His recent collaboration with Lasse Sherfigg, Colossal Cave Adventure - The Movie, was featured on VRAL. 

Read more about the 7th edition of the Milan Machinima Festival

MMF MMXXIV: BRAM RUITER

We are delighted to showcase the remastered, previously unreleased Infinite Skies by Bram Ruiter at the upcoming Milan Machinima Festival.

Infinite Skies, a machinima created by Bram Ruiter and Martin Gerrits during their film school years, explores themes of grief and purgatory. Crafted in the attic of Gerrits’s parents’ home in 2011, this project represents an early, bold foray into complex subjects by the creators, then just 22 years old. Initially viewed by Ruiter as overly edgy, he has since come to recognize its nuanced depth upon revisitation. Echoing the thematic and aesthetic qualities of Ruiter’s later work, Endless Sea, this predecessor inadvertently suggested a trilogy that remained incomplete with the unrealized Unending Earth. This video work marks an early milestone in Ruiter's journey into digital storytelling, setting its narrative against the expansive, generative landscapes of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and drawing inspiration from Philip Solomon’s game video art. Infinite Skies encapsulates a period of raw experimentation and unbridled creativity in Ruiter’s career. Revisited and remastered in 2024, Ruiter’s early work is now being presented for the first time, showcasing his evolving appreciation for the intricate exploration of complex themes.

Bram Ruiter is an experimental filmmaker based in Zwolle, the Netherlands, who creates collage-like cinematic morphologies that examine themes of creation, contradictions, labor, and the unfinished or incomplete. Fascinated by marginal objects and obsolescent procedures, his work incorporates non-traditional materials and broken aesthetics. Ruiter’s films have screened internationally at festivals including the Viennale, Karlovy Vary, Pesaro Film Fest, Fantastic Fest Austin, A.Maze Berlin, and the Netherlands Film Festival. Ruiter also teaches filmmaking at ArtEZ University of the Arts, both at graduate and undergraduate level. His groundbreaking machinima Perpetual Spawning was awarded the Critics’ Choice Award at the 2019 Milan Machinima Festival and his remastered version of Endless Sea was featured in S04 of VRAL.

Read more about the 7th edition of the Milan Machinima Festival