The 10th edition of GAMERZ. From dancing trash bag to dichotomic perception

View of the Fondation Vasarely. Photo Luce Moreau for GAMERZ

Adelin Schweitzer, Dichotomie #Eyeswalking, 2013

Here’s my -as usual- very belated and -as usual- very enthusiastic review of the GAMERZ festival which took place in Aix-en-Provence so many days ago i refuse to count.

«The liberation of the game, its creative autonomy, supersedes the ancient division between imposed work and passive leisure» May 17, 1960. Excerpt from the Situationist international manifesto.

The 10th edition of the festival celebrated thus the death of passive leisure in the hands of games and art as well as the transformation of the compliant consumer into a creative user and abuser of technology. The exhibitions across town also investigated how the digital environment impacts and disrupts people’s development at conscious and unconscious levels (cognitive, social, psychological, among others) and looked at how these often invisible adjustments can be harnessed in alternative social, economic, political or ecological practices.

The result is a free exhibition that proved, once again, that a digital art event can be both highly entertaining and smart. But the one thing that strikes me the most about GAMERZ is that, year after year, the festival manages to uncover and select young artists whose work i would otherwise not know about. And they are pretty good at spotting talents. The portfolio of artists like Labomedia, Antonin Foruneau, Jackenpopp, Maxime Marion & Emilie Brout or Paul Destieu has gone from strength to strength ever since i discovered their work at GAMERZ.

Here’s what the 2014 edition brought us (and there’s more to come):

Lucien Gaudion, Spectra, installation for prepared vinyl, 2011. Photo Luce Moreau for GAMERZ

Spectra, by Lucien Gaudion, is a vinyl printed with a chromatic circle, like the picture discs that were so popular up until the 1970s. As the record needle travels around the vinyl, the sound spectrum of each colour is made audible, from its lowest to highest frequencies, by a reading cell scanning the surface.

Ink Geyser (Mapping), Mathieu Tremblin, 2011-2014. Part of F.A.T. Lab, Like Jacking. Photo Luce Moreau for GAMERZ

Mathieu Tremblin, Ink Geyser (Mapping), 2011-2014. Part of F.A.T. Lab, Like Jacking. Photo Luce Moreau for GAMERZ

Mathieu Tremblin, Dancing Trashbag, 2011. Part of F.A.T. Lab, Like Jacking. Photo Luce Moreau for GAMERZ

Addie Wagenknecht & Pablo Garcia, Webcam Venus, 2013

F.A.T. Lab was exhibiting a series of artworks ranging from a Dancing Trashbag to a Cam bootleg screening of The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard.

Each of these artworks exploits the concept of LikeJacking Spam (a kind of spam targeted at social network) but by sharing their source code, the artists want to stimulate empowerment through poetic/activist/humorous perturbations.

Adelin Schweitzer, Dichotomie #Eyeswalking, multimedia installation, 2013. Photo Luce Moreau for GAMERZ

If one subtracts what the eye can see from what the ear can perceive, what remains of our perception of a given place ? What does our body become when it’s not anymore the actor of our perceptions?

These are the questions at the origin of Adelin Schweitzer‘s exploration of the notion of dichotomy. The artist was showing two pieces where natural and artificial perceptions play with and against one another.

Dichotomie #Eyeswalking is made of two videos that document Schweitzer’s walk in the snowy Canadian landscape. One gives a traditional, horizontal view of someone walking and is shown on a (traditional again) video screen. The other is shot from above, from a bouquet of balloons he is carrying along. It is screened inside a pedestal and you have to bend your head and watch inside goggles to watch that perspective. Constantly looking up to the wall screen in order to compare the two perspective is irresistible but if you stick to watching the perspective from above, it almost feels as if your body is pulled up and the scene is unfolding below your body.

Yro, Bernard Szajner, Jesse Lucas & Erwan Raguenes, Persystograf. Photo Luce Moreau for GAMERZ

Inspired by an old instrument called the hurdy-gurdy, the Persystograf is activated by a hand crank. It emits sounds and images that can be customized using additional control knobs.

Art of Failure, Flat Earth Society, 2008-2014. Photo Luce Moreau for GAMERZ

Art of Failure, Flat Earth Society

Flat earth society takes readings from the stylus of topographic radar, cuts them into vinyl and then plays them back with a stylus.

Gaspard and Sandra Bebie-Valerian aka Art-Act, Viridis. Photo Luce Moreau for GAMERZ

Gaspard and Sandra Bebie-Valerian aka Art-Act, Viridis

Viridis is both an online survival game and a fully-operative spirulina farm run by artists Gaspard and Sandra Bebie-Valérian.

The Viridis game is set in a post-apocalyptic world, in which humans owe their survival to spirulina, the “green counterpoison”. But what makes the game interesting is that it gives players the possibility to collaborate with the farmers on the daily management of the real spirulina farm. Players can convert their points into daily tasks or items, vote in referendums about the cultivation of spirulina, etc.

More images from the festival:

Screening of Machinimas selected by Isabelle Arvers. Photo Luce Moreau for GAMERZ