surveillance

THE MAKING OF A CYBERPUNK MASTERPIECE: CHAIN-LINK

A standout feature of the Slot Machinima program at MMF MMXXIV was the European debut of Steven Cottingham’s As Far as the Drone Can See. This remarkable 15-minute work delves into the intricate landscape of depicting warfare, offering a critical view on the surge of imagery from modern conflict zones. Cottingham introduces a female journalist within the military simulation software ArmA 3, challenging prevailing gender biases and probing the capacity of digital simulations to capture the nuanced realities of conflict. To fully appreciate his new work, it is useful to return toChain-Link, Cottingham’s remarkable full-length machinima, showcased on the VRAL platform in 2022.

The inception of Chain-Link can be traced back to the artist’s fascination with the creative possibilities inherent in the medium of machinima. As he explained in this interview, he views the genre as a blend of found footage and digital puppetry, where the constraints of the video game’s mechanics necessitate creative and often counterintuitive workarounds, imbuing the process with a unique form of ingenuity. This engagement with the medium allows for a reworking of game worlds into narratives that diverge significantly from their original contexts. Cottingham draws upon a wide array of influences, from the choreographic to the cinematic, to repurpose the virtual landscapes of video games into a canvas for storytelling.

At the heart of Chain-Link lies the tension between creativity and constraint, a theme that resonates both within the film’s narrative and its production process. The characters navigate a world where surveillance and control pervade every aspect of existence, mirroring the constraints Cottingham himself navigated in creating the film. This theme is not just a narrative device but also a reflection on the process of machinima, where the limitations imposed by the game engine and the available mods and add-ons prompt a constant negotiation with the material at hand…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Steven Cottingham

Chain-link, single-channel HD video, comprising machinima, 3D animation, and found footage with sound, 90’ 1”, 2022, Canada

Steven Cottingham

As Far As The Drone Can See, single channel HD Video, comprising machinima, 3D animation, and found footage with sound, 15’ 50”, 2023, Canada

Steven Cottingham, Liljana Mead Martin

MACHINE CINEMA, The making of Chain-Link, digital video, color, sound, 12’ 03”, 2023, Canada

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MMF MMXXIV: CAT BLUEMKE AND JONATHAN CARROLL

The Milan Machinima Festival is delighted to showcase Crowd Control by Cat Bluemke and Jonathan Carroll, as part of our special program, Game Video Essay. We cordially invite you to an exclusive screening on March 14, 2024 at IULM University, where you will have the unique opportunity to experience this captivating work alongside the creators themselves.

How will artificial intelligence shape the peasant revolts of the future? Looking at the ways that crowd simulation technology has intersected with a growing surveillance industry, this machinima focuses on the representation of the French Revolutionary mob in Assassin’s Creed Unity (2014). Reflecting on depictions of crowds in art history up to the contemporary crowd simulations of video games, Crowd Control examines how these technologies foreclose upon the possibility of collective action within the real world. 

Canadian artists Cat Bluemke and Jonathan Carroll specialize in game design, expanded reality, and performance. United under their collective persona as SpekWork Studio, they make experiences that span the digital spectrum, from interactive games and comics to immersive reality experiences and live performances. These projects probe technology’s ability to obscure the lines between work and play. They explore technology’s duality as both a labour-saving device and tool of exploitation. Their works often engage with the struggles of precarious and feminized workers, the demographic that often finds itself at the crossroads of technological advances and pitfalls. They draw inspiration from their lives as precarious digital freelancers while learning from their communities and the oppressive systems they seek to unravel. Recently they’re focusing on the ways work imprints upon our bodies and health by drawing on personal histories. With ten years of exhibition history, they’ve shown internationally with prominent institutions like Rhizome and the New Museum (2020) and the Venice Architecture Biennale (2018) as part of the American Pavillion’s corollary exhibits. Recently, they’ve exhibited with the Singapore Art Museum (2023), Art Gallery of Regina (2023), the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie (2022), InterAcess (2021), and Eyelevel Gallery (2021). With the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Rhizome, and multiple provincial arts councils, the pair has self-published much of their interactive work online, making them freely available to a global audience.

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

MMF MMXXIV: ADONIS ARCHONTIDES

We are elated to introduce Adonis Archontides’s Ya gotta wob’ere! Ya gotta wob’ere! (Don't give up! Keep trying!) at the 2024 edition of the Milan Machinima Festival.

Ya gotta wob‘ere! Ya gotta wob’ere! (Don’t give up! Keep trying!) (2019) by Adonis Archontides is the third installment of a trilogy developed with/in The Sims 4 between 2018 and 2020, alongside Za woka genava (I think you are hot) (2019) and Sulsul! Plerg Majah Bliff? (Hello! Can I do something else please?) (2018). In all of these works, Archontides crafts challenging scenarios for Non-Player Characters (NPCs), exploring the challenges of our increasingly digital existence. Echoing Angela Washko’s seminal Free Will Mode, this work prompts reflection on control and chaos, agency and surveillance. In her essay titled “When our reflections/avatars die, do they go to heaven?”, Eria Dapola described Adonis’ performance as evocative of a world filled with silent but brutal conflicts, with the artist cast as a non-traditional hero navigating through passive-aggressive violence. The video work highlights the dynamic between the artist and avatar, showcasing a relentless survival effort in a confined, yet transparent space. Additionally, curator Chloe Stavrou suggests that Adonis (Sim) embodies a struggle of futile resistance against the game’s implacable algorithmic logic, culminating in inevitable failure followed by virtual resurrection. What is indisputable is that this repetitive cycle interrogates the concept of autonomy within digital spaces. A Sim running on a treadmill to their demise, compelled to repeat the action over and over, without any meaningful goal or higher purpose, is a poignant metaphor for life in the 21st century.

Adonis Archontides, a multidisciplinary artist with a background in Illustration & Visual Media from the University of the Arts London, creates works that are both satirical and introspective. His art delves into identity formation as a deliberate or unconscious act and explores the blur between fiction, reality, and simulation. His research includes an exploration of his namesake, Adonis, the ancient Greek deity of vegetation and desire, examining how interpretations of myths evolve over time. An enthusiastic gamer, Archontides sees significant artistic value in video games, often incorporating them into his practice. Recently, he has embarked on a collaboration with his own avatar in The Sims 4, weaving together Joseph Campbell’s concept of the hero’s journey and the artist’s career path into an episodic narrative. Archontides is based in Limassol, Cyprus, where he continues to live and work. His work Adonis and the Lockdown Tactics was featured in the 2021 edition of the Milan Machinima Festival. 

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

ARTICLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT STEVEN COTTINGHAM'S CHAIN-LINK

The Warden, still from Steven Cottingham’s Chain-link, 2022.

THE MOST PRESSING QUESTION ON EVERYBODY’S MIND IS: WHAT IS CHAIN-LINK, EXACTLY? ALSO: HOW IS THIS THING EVEN POSSIBLE?

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Here are seven possible answers (warning: spoilers ahead).

First, Steven Cottingham’s monumental machinima is a penetrating commentary on carceral capitalism, after the title of a seminal collection of essays by Jackie Wang for Semiotext(e)'s Intervention series about the ideology and practice of incarceration in America, including - but not limited to - predatory policing, the political economy of fees and fines, cybernetic governance, and algorithmic policing. On a narrative level, these themes are introduced through the converging stories of Genysys 3 Copy 2 aka "Copy" - a cloned human with the ability to hack & hijack corporate drones - and Matisse, a black hacker who (allegedly) forges cryptoart tokens.

The two meet in prison and, after some initial distrust, become (more than) friends and partners-in-crime. They share more than their cell. We also meet the mysterious The Warden - a White woman in suit-and-heels whose priorities seem to go beyond the simple management of the prison - and her subordinate, The Counselor, a black officer who somehow naively believes in the “correctional” purpose of the facility she supervises. Most of the action takes place within the walls of New Jericho’s maximum security prison. However, we soon understand that, in Cottingham's world, there is no real difference between the inside and the outside: Matisse argues that everyone is being surveilled. At all time. Thus, being imprisoned and being free is just a matter of semantics: the "algos" make sure that everything runs “smooth” and don't cause any trouble. In other words, control is omnipresent, predictive, and repressive: the police actively suppress any social gatherings by showing up en masse in what remains public spaces even before people start to gather. And when the protesters do eventually show up as predicted by the machinic pre-cogs, their game is over.

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Matteo Bittanti

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EVENT: STEVEN COTTINGHAM (NOVEMBER 18 - DECEMBER 1 2022, ONLINE)

Chain-link

single-channel HD video (1920 x 1080, MPEG-4 AAC, H.264) comprising machinima, 3D animation, and found footage with sound, 90’ 1”, 2022, Canada

Created by Steven Cottingham

WORLD PREMIERE

Bruce Sterling famously stated that the future is “old men, in cities, afraid of the sky”. In Steven Cottingham’s cyberpunk masterpiece filmed with/in an unrecognizable Grand Theft Auto V, Chain-link, the future is even more nightmarish: pervasive surveillance, carceral capitalism, and techno-feudalism.

Steven Cottingham is an artist based in Vancouver. His work concerns the politics of visualization. Recent exhibitions include Natalia Hug Galerie (Cologne, 2022), Artists Space (New York, 2022), The Polygon Gallery (North Vancouver, 2021), and Catriona Jeffries (Vancouver, 2021). From 2018 to 2021, Cottingham co-edited the art theory periodical QOQQOON, and in 2021–2022 he participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program. Chain–link (2022) is his first feature film.

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