simulation

VIDEO ESSAY: PLAYFUL PERFORMANCES. THE SIMS AS AN EXPERIMENTAL PLATFORM

VRAL is currently presenting The Death Trilogy by Adonis Archontides, a tryptic of works starring his ersatz Sim-clones. To better appreciate the breadth and scope of this artwork, we are discussing his oeuvre. We continue our exploration with the in-game performance Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Adonis and Wade and the Effort of Consciousness.

Also known as Adonis x7 and Wade and the Effort of Consciousness, this project can be compared to a Socratic dialogue taking place within The Sims 4, where Adonis had created multiple Sim replicas of himself. This specific setting is a virtual environment operating as, “a microcosm of capitalist society”. In other words, The Sims 4 is the conduit through which Adonis can reflect upon societal norms and behaviors through a controlled, simulated environment where variables and parameters can be manipulated at will, thus serving as a laboratory for broader cultural and social commentary.

The interlocutor is a character named Wade, an interviewer who engages in a discussion with these various iterations of Adonis. Wade serves as a narrative device who helps elucidate the philosophical and artistic ideas being explored by Adonis in his project. This character could therefore be seen as a stand-in for the audience or an external observer, offering responses and questions that help deepen the exploration of the themes discussed. Wade is essential in facilitating the dialogue that bridges the virtual experiences within The Sims and deeper existential and artistic concepts evoked by Adonis and his replicas.

In the conversation with his clones, Adonis proposes using video games as an artistic medium rather than mere entertainment, emphasizing their empathetic potential and immersive capabilities. According to Adonis, digital games are primarily spaces, rather than stories. And they are tools rather than products. Above all, they foster a deep understanding and connection to different human conditions, which is something that only art can achieve. This is why Adonis mentions his 2014 thesis in which he explored in depth the notion of video games as art. Adonis x7 and Wade and the Effort of Consciousness is, in many ways, an update that further develops three major themes.

The first is the notion that virtual worlds can be conceived as artistic spaces for experimentation and exploration of aesthetic and philosophical concepts. Adonis argues, through his many alter egos, that games like The Sims allow for unique forms of storytelling and artistic expression. The artist suggests that these platforms can be used to stage performances and installations, such as his residency project involving the world of Eos from Final Fantasy XV. In fact, video games allow artists to transcend concrete and geographical limitations. Unlike IRL galleries or performance spaces, virtual environments allow…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Adonis Archontides

Adonis x7 and Wade and the Effort of Consciousness

Performance within The Sims 4, stills, text, 2019.

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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: HUI WAI-KEUNG (FEBRUARY 16 - 29 2024, ONLINE)

Parallel V

digital video, single-channel-projection, color, sound, 26’ 14”, 2023, Hong Kong

Created by Hui Wai-Keung

World premiere

Conceived by Hui Wai-Keung as a tribute to Harun Farocki, Parallel V is a continuation of his seminal Parallel I-IV series investigating the operational logic of computer games. The point of departure for Hui is a statement by the late German director on the computer-controller characters’ tendency to repeat the same actions over and over again: “This tragedy revealed the limitations of human freedom of action”. Hui discovered that all NPCs seem trapped in a time-space bond with the player, a relationship of ontological dependence. NPCs live life-like existences; repetitions are inevitable in their simulated lives. And yet, Hui suggests, the algorithmic bounds of games are not absolute, and NPCs still encounter contingencies. Thus, both NPCs and human beings might be better off following Friedrich Nietzsche’s admonition, embracing rather than rejecting repetition.

Hui Wai-Keung is a Hong Kong-born cross-disciplinary artist currently pursuing a PhD in Art Creation and Theory at Tainan National University of the Arts in Taiwan. Hui received his MFA from the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong and studied at the Hong Kong Art School. In recent years he has focused especially on game art and algorithmic art, exploring visual possibilities in digital hyperspace. Hui has exhibited widely in solo and group shows in Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Germany, Finland, Italy and the USA. Hui has completed artist residencies in Germany, Finland, South Korea, and Japan. Currently based in Taiwan, Hui continues to exhibit and conduct research into narrative, algorithms, possibility, contingency, reenactment, and history.

ARTICLE: WELCOME TO THE PASTURE

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VRAL is currently exhibiting Mikhail Maksimov’s The New Game Is Over. To better contextualize and appreciate his multi-layered oeuvre, we are examining recurring themes in the Russian avant-garde artist oeuvre. Today, we revisit Maksimov’s hysterical parody The Pasture (2016).

A satire of the contemporary artworld, The Pasture (2016) is a peculiar meta-horror game by Mikhail Maksimov, that combines the thrilling practice of art gallery curation with exciting survival horror gameplay. No, this is not the game where you get to destroy Jeff Koon’s artworks (even though his damn balloon dog haunts the virtual gallery), so please bear with me.

Borrowing heavily from established genres and, at the same time subverting the clichés with gusto, The Pasture allows players to explore an art gallery while avoiding two stalking monsters. Set in a contemporary generic White Cube, players chain-smoke their way through the predictably pristine ivory interior. Shapeshifting creatures — a metaphor for the hypocrisy that pervades this abstract jungle — populate the premises, but the true focus is on the menacing adversaries accompanying the player. These enemies maintain proximity, requiring constant backward movement to evade them. While maneuvering the gallery, players encounter significant Russian art sculptures, including a large set of sliced breasts (evoking Patrick Bateman’s psychotic pun, “keeping abreast”), collecting them to increase their score à la Pokémon. As the game is mainly targeted at millennials, the smartphone is the main interface — pics or it doesn’t exist! All the while, a “time until you die” bar fills the screen, dwindling if the player pauses. Prominently featured are three disembodied hands holding cups with tea bags hosting wriggling worms or the aforementioned mobile phones displaying videos of the smoking woman approaching. Beyond the gallery lies a graveyard-infested garden, beneath a banner declaring “International of death”, a theme consistent with Maksimov’s main obsession (don’t forget that his alter ego is the Postmanian mantra “dying fun”). Notably, players may occasionally manifest as a strange winged man, alternating between human and pig-like forms, sporting a cloud-covered blue top hat and brandishing a sizable phallic eggplant-like object. As the man, the floating arms may instead wield guns rather than the usual oddities. 

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Matteo Bittanti

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NEWS: MACHINIMA, ART, AND SOCCER: ON MARTA AZPARREN’S THE GOLKEEPER AND THE VOID

Marte Azparren, El Portero y el vacío, machinima, 3’ 56”, 2009, Spain

VRAL is currently exhibiting Juan Obando’s Pro Revolution Soccer, a modded version of Konami's popular soccer game celebrating a counter-historical event: a match between Inter Milan and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation soccer team that never took place. Today, we are showcasing another example of Game Art made by hijacking, appropriating and recontextualizing Pro Evolution Soccer, Marta Azparren’s El Portero y el vacío (The Goalkeeper and the Void, 2009). This article is part of an on going series.

Spanish artist Oscar Marta Azparren, a graduate of Madrid Complutense University with a degree in Fine Arts, has garnered international recognition for her eclectic body of work, which spans video art, visual arts, and net.art. Exhibiting her creations in key venues and events worldwide, Azparren’s artistic prowess has mesmerized audiences at festivals and retrospectives, solidifying her place in the contemporary art scene.

Azparren’s seminal work, El Portero y el vacío (The Goalkeeper and the Void), was featured in the 2016 exhibition GAME VIDEO/ART. A SURVEY. In her machinima, Azparren appropriated Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer in order to explore the relationship between football and sculpture, paying homage to the renowned Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida (1924-2002), who made significant contributions to the field of modern and contemporary art. Born in San Sebastián, Basque Country, Chillida initially pursued a career in professional soccer, playing for the Real Sociedad team from 1942 to 1943, when he was very young. He later retired because of a knee injury and turned his attention to art. His novel journey began with studies in architecture, but he soon shifted his focus to sculpture.

Chillida’s sculptures are characterized by their monumental scale, organic forms, and the exploration of space and material. He worked primarily with iron, steel, and stone, creating massive structures that often incorporated voids and negative spaces. His works embody a sense of harmony between the natural and the man-made, blending organic shapes with a modernist aesthetic. One of Chillida’s signature techniques involved carving directly into granite or alabaster, allowing the natural qualities of the material to guide the creative process. His sculptures often conveyed a sense of weight and tension, evoking a profound emotional and physical presence…

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Matteo Bittanti

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ARTICLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT NATALIE MAXIMOVA’S THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

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Natalie Maximova’s mesmerizing machinima The Edge of the World unfolds as an exploration of boundaries within the landscapes of Cyberpunk 2077 that is both a virtual dérive and epistemological inquiry. In this video essay, Matteo Bittanti explores its unexpected connections to a seminal movie of the 1990s. 

In Peter Weir’s seminal The Truman Show (1998), Jim Carrey masterfully embodies the eponymous character, Truman Burbank, orchestrating his escape from the confines of Seahaven Island—a virtual prison existing in a state of dual unreality. Not only does this idyllic town fail to manifest in the tangible realm of the United States — its supposed setting within the film’s intra and extra-diegetic reality — but it also lacks a proper existence within its own filmic world. In fact, Seahaven Island emerges as an elaborate fabrication, an expansive film set where its inhabitants willingly assume the roles of actors. Truman alone, akin to many protagonists of Philip K. Dick’s stories, remains oblivious to this deceitful charade.

As the reluctant victim of this perverse concoction gradually awakens to his spectacular “golden cage” imprisonment, he plots his liberation through a makeshift tunnel concealed within a basement. Astonishingly, in the globally broadcast reality show that commands an audience of millions, we witness Truman defying his captors by embarking on a daring escape aboard a humble sailboat, departing from Seahaven Island’s shores. Yet, the puppeteering TV producers — modern day demiurges — unleash a tempestuous storm in a desperate bid to sabotage Truman’s voyage. Although the protagonist teeters on the precipice of drowning, his unyielding spirit propels him forward, sailing until his vessel collides with the imposing barrier of the dome. 

His boat hit the wall. 

In the past two decades, “The boat has hit the wall” has transcended mere linguistic expression and evolved into a shared vernacular, encapsulating a particular scenario wherein the confines of systemic or structural obstacles render their eventual overcoming seemingly insurmountable. An intriguing example can be encountered  in a “peculiar” 2013 interview of Kanye West by Zane Lowe on BBC Radio One. 

With its distinct resonance, this phrase has indelibly imprinted itself upon the collective psyche, assuming a nuanced significance that sets it apart from the more prevalent idiomatic trope of “hitting a brick wall.” This mantra permeates the vernacular, albeit perhaps not as persistently as the notable slogans of another influential late 1990s Hollywood production, The Matrix, such as “a glitch in the matrix” (which inspired a captivating 2021 documentary by Rodney Ascher), the tantalizing “red pill vs blue pill” quandary, the paradoxical “there is no spoon”, not to mention the evocative “going down the rabbit hole” which can be traced back to Lewis Carroll’s timeless opus, Alice in Wonderland.

In the opening scene of Maximova’s The Edge of the World, an accelerated vehicle careens through the desert, mercilessly trampling cacti in its path—a stark departure from Truman’s maritime escapades. And yet, the end result is the same. The wall has been hit. In this case, “the car has hit the wall”. This powerful image reverberates with symbolic resonance, evoking, among other things, the failure of the Trumpian fantasy of an impregnable, fortified, six-feet tall wall.

Truth be told, we’re not on Seahaven Island anymore, Maximova’s alter ego emerges unscathed from the wreckage, poised to confront the seemingly impenetrable barrier. Climbing the rocky terrain, she discovers an opening — a portal to the unknown. As she gazes back at the sprawling metropolis of Night City, a sense of trepidation mingled with anticipation fills the air. And then, with a leap of faith, she plunges into the depths of the metaphorical “rabbit hole,” an allegorical passage to the realm where the conventional rules governing reality disintegrate. 

What unfolds next is a dizzying descent — or rather, ascent — into an otherworldly space, where fragments of structures appear and vanish, creating an erratic, unpredictable choreography. The landscape, bereft of textures and logic, defies comprehension. In a disorienting shift of perspective, we become voyeurs in this strange realm beyond the visible, witnessing its broken beauty from multiple angles. Around the two-minute mark, the enigmatic protagonist finally materializes as the perspective switches from the first to…

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Matteo Bittanti

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ARTICLE: MORITZ JEKAT’S METAVERSE CAN YOU EAT ME

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In the so-called Age of the Metaverse — where technology is intertwined with the fabric of our daily lives, mostly for reasons related to surveillance capitalism — one artist has used this new reality to confront their emotional struggles. Moritz Jekat’s Metaverse can you eat me (2022) is a poignant and deeply introspective meditation on the complex and multifaceted nature of depression, love, loneliness, and desire in a highly technological era. The artist’s video diary of thoughts, set against the backdrop of a new home, new country, and new environment, reflects the internal turmoil of an individual struggling to reconcile conflicting emotions using a virtual character as conduit.

As the artist grapples with the debilitating effects of depression, a sense of isolation is compounded by the distance from their partner in Berlin, who is also struggling with their own depressive episode. The work serves as a powerful testament to the deeply personal and subjective experience of mental health issues and the role technology plays in such contexts…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Moritz Jekat

Metaverse can you eat me

digital video, color, sound, 11’ 16”, 2022, Germany

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ARTICLE: BENJAMIN FREEDMAN’S SPECTRAL GEOGRAPHIES

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In his seminal essay, “The spectral geographies of W.G. Sebald” (2007), John Wylie explores the ways in which the German writer W.G. Sebald evokes the uncanny and spectral dimensions of place in his literary works. According to Wylie, Sebald’s writing reflects a deep engagement with the power of place to evoke haunting memories and uncanny sensations. He notes how Sebald’s writing often portrays places as repositories of past traumas and histories that resist simple representation or understanding. Through his use of images, anecdotes, and digressions, Sebald creates a sense of place that is deeply layered and enigmatic, inviting readers to reflect on the ways in which place shapes our perceptions and memories.

The fascinating notion of spectral geographies returns in an eponymous series by Benjamin Freedman which was acquired by the prestigious GESTE Collection in February 2023. Spectral Geographies is a mesmerizing exploration of the urban palimpsest that is Jongno, Seoul, through the use of cutting-edge LiDAR technology. LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is a remote sensing technology that uses laser light to measure distances and create 3D representations of objects and environments…

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ARTICLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT BENJAMIN FREEDLAND’S JAKE

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Benjamin Freedman employs sculpture, video, and photography to craft his lens-based creations. His artwork often requires him to delve deeply into intricate histories, conducting extensive research and employing a nearly forensic approach to analysis. Fascinated by photographic research as a type of pseudo-archaeology or meta-ethnography, Freedman frequently uses reinterpretation and disruption in his works to reveal restorative discoveries. As he explores the relative truths and deceptions inherent to the medium of photography, Freedman deliberately incorporates visual vocabularies from genres like video games, science fiction, and horror to produce expansive documentary projects.

Moreover, the use of digital technologies to fabricate false memories and to populate virtual spaces with the weight of recent history is a common thread running through Jake and Freedman’s latest projects, such as Bad Work (2022) and Home in the Valley (2022). While there is a playful quality to the use of digital technologies in these projects, it does not always evoke a sense of joy or amusement. For instance, in Bad Work, the simulated environment captures the unsettling and eerie ambiance of an office festooned for a holiday party, yet conspicuously absent of human presence. Freedman created a series of “photographs” using CGI which depict wine glasses on documents, thrown darts lodged in the ceiling, and abandoned heels under desks, collectively imply a boisterous and spirited occasion that subverts the oppressive ambiance of the workplace… 

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Matteo Bittanti

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EVENT: SIMONETTA FADDA (MARCH 31 - APRIL 13 2023, ONLINE)

GAME OVER

One channel video (SD, 676x540), color, sound, 4’ 27”, 2002 Italy

Created by Simonetta Fadda


Driving at night in the video game-like suburban French city of Enghien Les Bains can be an exciting or demoralizing experience, depending on the driver or, perhaps, on the filmmaker. Simonetta Fadda’s carscapes are both delirious and hyper-real, suggesting a toxic convergence of realities.

Born in Savona, Simonetta Fadda is an artist, educator, essayist, and translator. Her teaching activities include the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti, Turin and Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan. Since the Eighties, she has been working with video art. Her artworks are featured in public and private collections in Italy and in Europe. She participated in major international events such as Movimenta – Biennale de l’image en mouvement, projet Mondes Flottants: Grandes Images, Nice, France (2017) and Parallel Program of the 13th Istanbul Biennial, Institut Français d’Istanbul, Istanbul (2013). In Italy she was featured, among others, at Festival del Nuovo Cinema di Pesaro, Pesaro – Italy (in We Want Cinema: cinema e video di ricerca 2018, and in Satellite 2016) and Bergamo Film Meeting, Bergamo – Italy (2010). A prolific writer and critic, Fadda is the author of the seminal Definition zero: origins of video art between politics and communication (Costa & Nolan, 1999), the first Italian study on video as a medium of art and political activism, which was reprinted in an expanded format in 2017 by Meltemi Edizioni. In 2020, Franco Angeli published her new book, Media and art. She also translated into Italian and edited Gene Youngblood’s seminal book Expanded Cinema.

ARTICLE: SØREN THILO FUNDER'S CHILDREN'S GAMES (PUZZLED)

Søren Thilo Funder, still from Children's Games (Puzzled) - FACTORY WORKERS UNITE, HD Video installation, 48'00", Dimensions Variable, 2019.

Working through the puzzle game.

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In his unique exploration of the intersection of play, community, and knowledge production, Søren Thilo Funder and Tina Helen aka FACTORY WORKERS UNITED document the playful assemblage of a 4000-piece jigsaw puzzle inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder's iconic painting Children's Games (1560). Titled Children's Games (Puzzled) (2019), this immersive video captures the artists and a diverse group of collaborators, adults and children, gathering around the seemingly mundane activity of piecing together a puzzle. Filmed from a bird's-eye view, the slow and deliberate process of (re)constructing the image from a myriad of fragments becomes a site for rich conversation and collective reflection.

The choice is not random: with Children's Games (1560), Pieter Bruegel the Elder offers a kaleidoscopic vision of childhood play, filled with an astonishing array of activities and characters. Yet, beneath the surface of this charming and whimsical scene lies a darker undertone. The chaotic jumble of bodies and games seems to suggest a world in which innocence and joy are constantly under threat from the violence and disorder that lurks just out of sight. Despite the painting's undeniable technical mastery and richly detailed composition, it is this underlying tension between play and danger that makes Children's Games such a powerful and enduring work of art. Bruegel's vision of childhood, with all its contradictions and complexities, remains as relevant and provocative today as it was when it was first painted over four centuries ago.

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ARTICLE: SØREN THILO FUNDER'S SANDBOX LIFE IS HELL

Søren Thilo Funder, cop2_cit (sandbox life is hell), Computer Generated Image, Photographic Print, Light box, 84x210cm, 2021

Hell is other people’s skins.

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In his 2021 thought-provoking artwork cop2_cit (sandbox life is hell), Søren Thilo Funder presents us with a simulacrum of a riot cop, constructed entirely from elements of a popular video game, Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar Games, 2013). This post modern twist on traditional portraiture challenges us to consider the role of simulation and representation in contemporary art. The avatar is presented as a deconstructed object, inviting the viewer to explore - and perhaps reassemble - its various components. From weapons to fabrics, each element is laid out for the viewer to piece together, offering an apparently playful, imaginative view into the world of game-based simulations. cop2_cit (sandbox life is hell) urges us to question the relationship between reality and simulation, and the ways in which games and other digital media can shape our perceptions of the world. 

Thilo Funder reframes the notion of custom-made skins, that is, visual modifications to the appearance of an object in a digital environment, such as a video game or virtual reality simulation. In the context of video games, skins are often used to customize the appearance of playable characters or objects in the game world. They may be created by the game developers or by individual players, using custom software or other tools. Custom-made skins can take many forms, from simple color changes to more complex designs that incorporate new textures, patterns, or even three-dimensional models. Skins can be created using a variety of tools and techniques, including digital painting, 3D modeling software, and image editing programs. Once created, skins can be shared online and downloaded by other players, allowing for a vibrant and diverse ecosystem of user-generated content. There's a long tradition within the context of game art to redesign skins in order to appropriate, alter, and subvert the ideology inherent to a video game…

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VIDEO: JAKE COURI'S JETTISONED (2022)

Cargo cult

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Throughout this week, we’ll be exploring Jake Couri’s oeuvre. His remarkable A Precarious Night at Plumb Point is currently on display on VRAL.

We strongly recommend watching this video in full screen while wearing headphones.

Jettison: to get rid of as superfluous or encumbering: omit or forgo as part of a plan or as the result of some other decision; to drop (cargo) to lighten a ship's load in time of distress; to drop from an aircraft or spacecraft in flight.

Jake Couri's single-channel video is a post-human meditation of the idea of descent and arrival. Based on the G-11 Cargo Parachute Assembly, developed primarily for platform airdrops - as of today, the only cargo parachute of this size which is readily available for military use with a maximum payload of 5000 lbs (2267.9 kg) - the piece follows a cluster of three canopies as they slowly and gracefully descend through the atmosphere, giving the viewer the unique perspective of the payload itself. As the canopies idle in the emptiness of space, the clouds slowly disintegrate and reappear in a mesmerizing simulation of the in-between state of descent…

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VIDEO: JAKE COURI'S A STONE'S THROW (2022)

When the grid leads to grinding, appendices without bodies produce immaterial labor.

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Throughout the course of this week, we'll be exploring Jake Couri’s oeuvre. His latest work, A Precarious Night at Plumb Point is currently on display on VRAL.

Couri’s A Stone's Throw (2022) delves into the rich historical underpinnings of art history, drawing inspiration from the late Sixteenth-century print series Nova Reperta, illustrating recent geographical discoveries and various scientific inventions of the time. Introduced during a period of intense cultural and technological ferment, Nova Reperta showcases the spirit of innovation and creative experimentation of the late Renaissance. Through its meticulous and highly detailed engravings, it captured the excitement and energy of this historical moment, providing a visual testament to the artists and inventors who pushed the boundaries of illustration as an art form. 

Commissioned by Luigi Alamani between 1587 and 1589, the Nova Reperta series includes twenty prints numbered in the margins. The plates were designated by Jan Van Der Straet then engraved and published by Philippe Galle, his son Theodore and Jan Collaert in Antwerp. In addition to the engravings devoted to the discovery of the New World, Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, and Amerigo Vespucci to whom America owes its name, the rest of the collection - nineteen prints overall - illustrates man's progress in different areas of knowledge such as copper engraving, the compass, sugar refinery, distillation, the clockwork, and the oil painting technique.

Couri reinterpreted Nova Reperta through the lens of the digital medium - which he aligns with the aforementioned inventions - situating it within the framework of simulation games. The outcome, A Stone's Throw, is, in many ways, an update or, rather, a re-imagining, imbued with a melancholic and uncanny quality that invites the viewer to engage with the piece on a more philosophical level beyond its obvious visual appeal, the repetitive, mesmerizing patterns…

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VIDEO: JAKE COURI'S FIND YOUR RITUAL (2019)

How can technology ground itself if it's just floating in an ocean of bits?

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Throughout this week, we’ll be exploring Jake Couri’s oeuvre. His remarkable A Precarious Night at Plumb Point is currently on display on VRAL.

In Find Your Ritual (2019), Couri skillfully employs elements of self-help and wellness exercises to explore the relationship between the digital and the physical. The artist is concerned with the gradual, perhaps inexorable, shift towards a digital existence: in his work, Couri is equally interested in the phenomenon of human beings acquiring machine-like features as machines become more human-like. Both projects are ultimately doomed, but the hybrid nature of this convergence is nonetheless interesting. In this work, the androgynous digital avatar performing all kinds of contortions serves as a metaphor for the blurring of boundaries between the human and the machine, suggesting - both ironically and earnestly - that even artificial realities need a moment of relaxation. They, too, must find their ritual.

The video's setting - a room afloat in an ocean of simulated water - is a nod to the notion of the digital as an immersive experience. The viewer is transported into a virtual environment that is both familiar and uncanny. Couri's use of this setting further underscores the idea that our digital lives are becoming increasingly entwined with our physical lives. Attempting to reach some kind of balance, the avatar - the alter ego of the viewer - ultimately fails to achieve a sense of permanent control, mirroring our own inability to cope in a world that, in the second decade of the Twenty-first century,  has turned into full dystopia…

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ARTICLE: VOLARE: MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR MACHINIMA IS TAKING OFF

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Shortly after the release of Microsoft Flight Simulator (2022), a remarkable amount of experimental, avant-garde machinima landed in the White Cube. Three, in particular, stand out: The Cool Couple’s Flyin’ High, Luca Miranda & Riccardo Retez’ America (HD Remastered) and Sebastian Schmieg’s Lights will guide you home. 

First screened at the 2021 Milan Machinima Festival, America (HD Remastered) is a sui generis adaptation/replay of America (1986), Jean Baudrillard’s philosophical travelogue. Upping the ante re: the so-called “crisis of the real” denounced by Guy Debord in his 1967 treatise, The Society of the Spectacle, Baudrillard famously argued that reality itself has disappeared: it is no longer a mere representation because simulation took over and basically ate the world. After a series of provocative essays and books including Symbolic Exchange and Death (1976), Seduction (1979), Simulacra and Simulation (1981), Baudrillard wrote a groundbreaking non-academic book titled America (1986), entirely devoted to the land of simulacra. Thirty five years after its publication, this instant cult still provides illuminating insights into the unconscious of a puzzling country, ever so close to imploding or exploding, depending on the point of view. America is a road (and plane) trip across the “New World of banalities”: on America’s freeways, malls, deserts, and cities, Baudrillard experienced an overwhelming, ecstatic emptiness. In his account, the desert is the central metaphor of American culture: empty, vast, radiant, and completely indifferent to history, knowledge, and culture. In short, America chronicles the desert of the real. To reenact Baudrillard’s journey, Mirand and Retez appropriated Microsoft Flight Simulator, a game that uses algorithms and accurate datasets to reproduce the landscape of the United States. They flew over Los Angeles which Baudrillard describes as “an incandescent immensity, stretching as far as the eye can see”. America (HD Remastered’s stunning vistas of Los Angeles are directly lifted from a virtual plane. The video is accompanied by Baudrillard’s original words read by a text-to-speech software tool in French.

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Matteo Bittanti

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ARTICLE: A FEW THOUGHTS ON VIDEO GAME LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS

Jason Rouse, DayZ En Plein Air, Oil on board, 12’ x 18’, 2014

The emerging genre of video game landscape paintings is rife with contradictions. This is why it is so interesting.

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In Jason Rouse’s artistic practice, the distance between the canvas and the screen tends to disappear. What is at stake, here, is the same convergence that Anne Freidberg discussed in her masterful book The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft (2006), an overlap that applies both to framing devices and to what we could call, after John Berger, ways of seeing. This is especially manifest in Kossoff Flees Ukraine, in which a scanned painting of Leon Kossoff is imported through photogrammetry into a video game development toolkit and then “animated” via algorithms, images and sounds. The painterly nature of Kossoff Flees Ukraine is also evoked through the “slow pace” of the video itself, which in turn alludes to the popular first-person shooter/open world DayZ (Bohemia Interactive, 2018). We can look at a previous work by Rouse, DayZ En Plein Air (2014), as the ideal companion piece to Kossoff Flees Ukraine.

Created almost a decade ago, DayZ En Plein Air is the outcome of the artist’s ongoing study of the relationship between the medium of painting and the medium of the video game. Such exploration can be described as a process of de-contextualization: Rouse translates digital artifacts into paintings and vice versa. This practice, by all means, is far from unique. It is, in fact, relatively common within contemporary art: consider, for instance, the work of such artists as Aram Bartholl and Miltos Manetas. The former has consistently, almost compulsively introduced elements, assets, and even behaviors that originated within the domain of video games into the real world: such intrusions often trigger a cognitive dissonance in the viewer, whose impact is enhanced by a powerful aesthetic experience concocted by the German artist. In the meantime, Manetas has recreated through the medium of painting the iconography of digital tools such as Google Maps, as part of his ongoing, encyclopedic project Internet Paintings…

Matteo Bittanti

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Bohemia Interactive, DayZ, video game, 2018

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EVENT: HILLEVI CECILIA HÖGSTRÖM (JANUARY 7 - 20 2022, ONLINE)

A HAND IN THE GAME

Digital video, color, sound, 35’ 08”, 2017, Sweden

Created by Hillevi Cecilia Högström

A hand in the game is a video essay documenting the artist’s experience with SimPark (1996), a simulation published by Californian game company Maxis in which players cultivate and manage a successful park. Developed by Roxana Wolosenko and Claire Curtin, SimPark was explicitly targeted toward children: its objective was to educate the young about ecology and biodiversity. SimPark was accompanied by a 77-page manual which included tips on how to incorporate the game in the curriculum. Twenty years later, the artist intentionally tried to “mismanage the park enough to terminate all living things” in order to bring forth the simulation’s underlying ideology, which is grounded in capitalistic values and neoliberal imperatives. Specifically, Högström played four iterations — titled Termination 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 respectively — by altering the main variables, from the ratio between tropical, desert, and cold regions to the degree of animal agency, not to mention the effects of climate change upon the flora and fauna. The more she played, the more she realized that SimPark is deeply flawed: a supposedly pedagogical aid becomes a tool of disinformation.

Hillevi Cecilia Högström was born in 1994 in Jönköping, Sweden. She is currently completing her M.A. in Fine Arts at Malmö Art Academy. Previously, she received a B.A. in Fine Arts at the Iceland University of the Arts. Her work is concerned with the Anthropocene, which she defines as “the point in time where humans became an actual geological force capable of reforming the surface of the planet”, and its effects on the world. Her recent exhibitions include A Hand in the Game (solo, 2017), Bachelor Exhibition, Kubburin, Reykjavík, Iceland, and Full Vision (2020), Jönköpings länssmuseum, Jönköping, Sweden, Af stað!, Norræna Húsið, Reykjavík, Sweden (2019), and the 6th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art (2018), Main Project, Moscow, Russia. Her video works were featured at several international festivals, including EXiS (2021), Seoul, South Korea, and Impakt Algorithmic Superstructures (2018), Utrecht, Netherlands. Högström works and lives in Malmö, Sweden. 

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EVENT: VRAL #15_ANTOINE CHAPON (DECEMBER 11 - DECEMBER 24 2020)

MY OWN LANDSCAPES

Digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 18’, 2020 (France)

Created by Antoine Chapon, 2020

Introduced by Luca Miranda

Warfare is being gamified. The American army has been recruiting soldiers through video games since the early zeroes: America’s Army is, after all, the title of a popular video game. Recruits are trained with digital simulations and use game-like controllers to launch countless attack strikes via drones in remote lands: systemic murder by proxy. Even soldiers fighting on actual battlefields cannot escape the video game curse: those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder are subsequently treated with digital simulations. But in My Own Landscapes, Chapon tells a different story: Cyrille creates and inhabits a virtual island, an utopian landscape where the soldier and his peers can escape reality, find illusory solace, and create a different identity: in fact, his experience is narrated by a female voiceover. Nevertheless, many paradoxes remain.

Antoine Chapon is a French artist and filmmaker based in Paris. He studied fine art, philosophy and social studies. In 2019, he learned literary Arabic at the Saint-Joseph University in Beirut. His work questions the relationship between fact and fiction, the role of the archive, and new technologies in documentary, and the possibility of making new forms in the age of digital reproduction. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including Open Codes: The World as a Field of Data at the ZKM, Karlsruhe Museum. His first film My Own Landscapes (2020) won the award for best short film at the Visions du Réel Festival in Nyon, and the award for best short documentary film at the Norwegian Short Film Festival. It was also presented at the 2020 Torino Film Festival.

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