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MMF MMXXIV: MADE IN ITALY

Image: Dall-e 3

The Milan Machinima Festival MMXXIV is proud to showcase the 2024 edition of Made in Italy, a curated screening of machinima created by emerging Italian artists. On Friday, March 15, three films will be screened in the Sala dei 146, with introductions by the artists themselves.

Made in Italy

March 15 2024, 14:00 - 15:00

Sala dei 146

IULM 6, IULM University

Via Carlo Bo 7, 20143 Milano

curated by Matteo Bittanti

Artists and filmmakers: Alberto Calleo, Simone Fiorentino, Elia “marasma” Strazzacappa.

The Italian machinima community is a vibrant, eclectic and experimental hub that thrives on collaboration and innovation, pushing the boundaries of creative expression through real-time computer graphics engines. These artists, often hailing from art and film schools, are not only redefining the intersection of virtual and physical realms but also addressing critical contemporary issues such as technological advancements and their societal impact.

Through their work, Italian machinima artists embark on explorations across a spectrum of themes, reflecting the multifaceted nature of modern society and the intricate dance between technology, art, and human experience. Their creations delve into the digital age’s influence on identity and self-expression, provide commentary on social and political dilemmas, blur the lines between reality and fiction, and ponder the implications of relentless technological integration into our lives. Additionally, they celebrate Italy’s rich cultural legacy by weaving traditional elements into digital narratives and experiment with the digital medium’s inherent visual properties, such as glitches and pixelation, to make unique artistic statements.

This year, the festival’s Made in Italy program honors the creativity and craftsmanship of three Italian machinima filmmakers, highlighting their diverse styles and thematic explorations:

Simone Fiorentino’s Hold On for Dear Life captures the essence of human resilience and connection in a war-afflicted city, offering a profound commentary on survival and solidarity amidst chaos.

Alberto Calleo’s The Desert of the Real, utilizing the Unreal Engine, reflects on the simulacrum concept, navigating the evolving dynamics between humans and technology, and the blending of physical and virtual experiences.

Elia “marasma” Strazzacappa’s Uncanny’s Dream presents a haunting reinterpretation of a Fabrizio De André’s song through the digital landscapes of Half-Life 2 and Garry’s Mod, exploring themes of nostalgia, alienation, and the digital footprint on the consciousness of younger generations.

Together, these works exemplify the innovative spirit and rich thematic depth of the Italian machinima scene, spotlighting the unique contributions of young Italian artists to the ongoing discourse on art, technology, and society in the age of video games and artificial intelligence.

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

MMF MMXXIV: ALBERTO CALLEO

We are delighted to announce the inclusion of Alberto Calleo’s The Desert of the Real in the Made in Italy program at the forthcoming Milan Machinima Festival.

Created with the Unreal Engine, Alberto Calleo’s The Desert of the Real is an engaging machinima that explores the concept of simulacrum, inspired by French philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s influential book, Simulacra and Simulation (1981). Calleo insightfully navigates Baudrillard’s forward-looking criticism on how reality merges with media, probing the significant effects this fusion has on the very nature of reality. Through the prism of technology, with a specific focus on video game technology, Calleo examines the changing relationship between humans and machines, as well as between the tangible and the virtual realms. He positions video gaming as a crucial form of expression in the realm of contemporary technoculture, highlighting its role in shaping and reflecting our understanding of these complex interactions.

Alberto Calleo works at the intersection of digital media and architectural design, currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Bologna’s Department of Architecture. His research ambitiously spans the convergence of digital media practices and design cultures, with a keen focus on speculative design and forward-thinking through video games and interactive media. Calleo is deeply engaged in the creative applications of 3D modeling, photogrammetry, aero-photogrammetry, and laser scanning. His commitment to advancing the field is evident in his participation in applied research projects alongside various national companies, where he continues to push the boundaries of digital media and design.

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

EVENT: HARDLY WORKING (LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL, ONLINE)

Total Refusal’s masterful video essay Hardly Working is now accessible on demand on the Locarno Film Festival’s website.

This monumental game video essay spotlights digital gaming’s unsung background performers — the rote routines of NPCs (non-player characters). Populating worlds solely to represent banality and engage in trivial pursuits, this supporting cast of a laundress, stable boy, street sweeper and carpenter now occupy center stage. Captured through an ethnographic lens, their repetitive labor cycles, programmed patterns, and periodic bugs form a potent analog to modern working life under capitalism – an endless hamster wheel of menial, thankless tasks. Like Sisyphus sentenced to perpetually roll his boulder in futility, these NPCs epitomize the toil intrinsic to system dynamics tilted starkly against them by coded design. Their endless drudgery upholds the stage so that gamers can play.

In June 2023, the machinima has been featured on the New York Times as well in their “Op-Docs” section.

Hardly Working has been screened at the 2023 Milan Machinima Festival.

The artist, researcher and filmmaker collective and pseudo-marxist media guerrilla Total Refusal appropriates contemporary video games and writes about games and politics. They upcycle the resources of mainstream video games, creating political narrations in the form of videos, interventions, live performances, lectures and workshops. Since its foundation in 2018, their work has been awarded with more than 50 awards and honorary mentions - like the European Film Award or the Best Short Direction Award at the Locarno Film Festival. The current members of Total Refusal are:Susanna Flock, Adrian Jonas Haim, Jona Kleinlein, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner & Michael Stumpf



NEWS: NICOLAS BAILLEUL’S BOOLEAN VIVARIUM (2024)

French filmmaker and visual artist Nicola Bailleul, author of the groundbreaking film les survivants (featured at the 2022 edition of the Milan Machinima Festival), has completed his new film, Booolan Vivarium (no relation to Lorcan Finnegan’s masterpiece, Vivarium). Clocking at 55 minutes, this experimental video essay tells the story of two friends, Léo (Léo Hoffsaes) and Nicolas (Nicolas Bailleul), who create Vivarium, a video game in which they observe the rotting of a house strangely reminiscent of their own. Faced with the scale of the task, cohabitation becomes complicated and the duo is put to the test. The film, which has distinct kaufmanesque vibes, will make its debut at the upcoming edition of Cinema du Réel.

An artist and researcher, Nicolas Bailleul is a graduate of the Haute École des Arts du Rhin (Strasbourg) and holds a master’s degree in anthropological and documentary cinema (Université Paris-Nanterre). He is currently a PhD candidate at the Université Paris 8 under the supervision of Patrick Nardin in co-direction of Gwenola Wagon. Through the making of films and narrative installations, Nicolas Bailleul explores the notion of intimacy in the age of connected networks. He is particularly interested in new amateur practices (designated or claimed as such), uses and hijacks their tools and platforms, invests/infiltrates their online/offline spaces. Nicolas documents, fictionalizes and narrates these explorations. His thesis project focuses on the (bed)room in the age of new media.

Read more about Nicolas Bailleul’s work

NEWS: NICK CROCKETT ON THE AESTHETICS AND POLITICS OF THE ANTHROPOCENE

Nick Crockett

Nick Crockett

In this interview with Matteo Bittanti, artist and designer Nick Crockett discusses his ambitious multimedia work Fire Underground, which is featured in The Classical Elements program at the 2021 MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL. In this wide-ranging conversation, Crockett talks about the main inspiration behind the project, the challenges he encountered during the production, and what comes next. Fire Underground is a speculative fantasy on the most destructive and criminal industry in human history, the fossil fuel complex. In Crockett’s work, the history of coal mining in the eastern United States is narrated as an animated film developed with a video game engine. Set in a fictional version of Appalachia, Fire Underground was inspired in part by the West Virginia Mine Wars, the Homestead Steel Strike, the Whiskey Rebellion, the early history of paleontology, and Appalachian folk music and culture.

As Crockett explains, 

I began thinking about coal after visiting Centralia, Pennsylvania n the summer of 2017, roughly four hours east from where I live in Pittsburgh. Centralia was a coal town which was slowly destroyed after a seam of coal caught fire below the town. This fire is still burning today, nearly 50 years later. During the presidential election of 2016, coal miners from some of the poorest places in the country entered public consciousness as avatars of an imagined white working class. They appeared on television news channels to confront candidates, pose for photo ops, and talk about the future of their industry, their homes, and their families. They were regarded by pundits variously as hardworking, heroic, backwards, lost, or even dangerous. As I wandered around Centralia, it was hard to reconcile the ruins with all these stories. I found myself wondering how anyone could identify so powerfully with a job that so obviously endangers their home, their families, their own bodies, not to mention the earth’s ecosystems and climate. I also wondered at the ease with which some could vilify people who live in places like Centralia. Mostly, I wondered where all these stories had come from.

Fire Underground has been exhibited as real time software, as a multichannel video installation, and as a feature-length film. It is screened as a fifteen minute cut at the MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL.

Nick Crockett is an artist from a former gold mining town in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains who makes experimental games and animation. Nick holds a BA in Design/Media Art from the University of California, Los Angeles and an MFA from the Carnegie Mellon School of Art in Pittsburgh.

The full interview is available here:

In questa intervista con Matteo Bittanti, l’artista e designer americano Nick Crockett discute del suo ambizioso progetto Fire Underground, incluso nel programma The Classical Elements al MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL 2021. In questa conversazione ad ampio raggio, Crockett illustra l’ispirazione principale alla base del progetto, le sfide che ha incontrato durante la produzione e ciò a cui sta lavorando. Fire Underground è una fantasia speculativa sull’industria più distruttiva e criminale di tutti i tempi: il complesso dei combustibili fossili. Nel lavoro di Crockett, la storia dell’estrazione del carbone negli Stati Uniti è narrata attraverso un racconto animato sviluppato con un motore di videogiochi. Ambientato in una versione immaginaria dell’Appalachia, Fire Underground è stato ispirato in parte dalle guerre minerarie del West Virginia, dall'Homestead Steel Strike, dalla Whiskey Rebellion, dalla storia antica della paleontologia e dalla musica e cultura popolare degli Appalachi.

Come ha spiegato Crockett,

Ho iniziato a riflettere sul carbone dopo aver visitato Centralia, Pennsylvania, nell’estate del 2017, a circa quattro ore a est da dove vivo a Pittsburgh. Centralia era una città carbonifera che fu lentamente distrutta dopo che un giacimento di carbone prese fuoco sotto la città. Questo fuoco brucia ancora oggi, quasi mezzo secolo dopo. Durante le elezioni presidenziali del 2016, i minatori di carbone provenienti da alcuni dei luoghi più poveri del paese sono entrati nella coscienza pubblica come avatar dell’immaginaria classe operaia bianca. Sono apparsi sui network di informazione televisiva per confrontarsi con i candidati, posare per i servizi fotografici e parlare del futuro del loro settore, delle loro case e delle loro famiglie. Erano considerati dagli esperti in vario modo come laboriosi, eroici, arretrati, persi o addirittura pericolosi. Mentre giravo per Centralia, era difficile conciliare le rovine con tutte queste storie. Mi sono ritrovato a chiedermi come qualcuno potesse identificarsi in modo così potente con un lavoro che mette in così evidente pericolo la loro casa, le loro famiglie, i loro stessi corpi, per non parlare degli ecosistemi e del clima della terra. Mi sono anche chiesto con quale facilità alcuni potrebbero denigrare le persone che vivono in posti come Centralia. Per lo più, mi chiedevo da dove provenissero tutte queste storie…

Fire Underground è stato presentato come software in tempo reale, come installazione video multicanale e come lungometraggio. È esibito come un cortometraggio di quindici minuti al MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL.

Nick Crockett è un artista originario di una cittadina situata ai piedi dell’arco montuoso della Sierra Nevada in California, specializzato nella produzione di videogiochi sperimentali e animazioni digitali. Crockett ha conseguito una laurea in Design/Media Art presso l’Università della California, Los Angeles e un MFA presso la Carnegie Mellon School of Art di Pittsburgh.

L’intervista è disponibile qui (in inglese):