Right now i’m wrapped up inside a Book Sprint, a one week-long collective authoring of a book. Our A/S/T Book Sprint explores the work of contemporary artists who are working at the intersection of art/science/technology, with a focus on the recent shift from artist/inventor dependent on industry or academy (as embodied by pioneering programs from the 1960s such as Art and Technology at LACMA and Experiments in Art & Technology), to independent agent (artists conducting scientific research or technological experiments outside the framework and discourse of an institution)
Category Archive: games
Today i return to the GAMERZ festival in Aix-en-Provence because 1. i want to remind you that this truly unique event is going to close on Sunday 2. i just interviewed the lovely Isabelle Arvers who not only curated a machinima show for the GAMERZ exhibition but is also one of the most respected experts in art and video games, 8it music and free + opensource culture in France
The installation borrows the name of the famous tennis champion, except that the sole role humans can play here is the most humble one: picking up lost balls. That’s if they dare to approach NADAL. In this degenerated form of tennis, several tennis ball machines propel balls on a meticulously calibrated trajectory that animate and play with the architectural space
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GAMERZ festival runs until the 19th December and spreads in various cultural centers all over the city. The focus of the festival is gaming of course but the installations, performances, talks and videos by 85 French and international artists also reach out to other areas where contemporary art and new technologies interact. Not strictly and solely game thus but there’s always an element of entertainment. Which doesn’t prevent some of the works to come with a critical agenda as well
The movie that received most attention from both the public and the members of the File Prix Lux is War of Internet Addiction, a machinima advocacy production that voices the concerns of the mainland Chinese World of Warcraft community. Although the machinima was created with WoW players in mind, the video strikes a chord with the broader public by pointing the finger to the lack of Internet freedom in the country and conveying a general feeling of helplessness
The latest project from New Zealand-based artists SWAMP is the Tardigotchi, a toy which houses two pets: a living organism called tardigrade and an alife avatar with a partially autonomous behaviour
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Enter the Casino art center and you will find video consoles, a trampoline, a pin-ball machine, games of dart, a billiard table, a playground, etc. Yet, every single work is playing with you rather than the opposite. You instantly loose every single game of Mortal Kombat, the ceiling of the room where a huge trampoline lies is far too low for you to even stand on your feet, the hula hoop is monopolized by a plastic cactus, the mohair bascketball net is 130 m long, fences deny any access to the playground, etc
The exhibition presents six international positions on the subject of computer games and electronic toys. The spectrum includes interactive computer games, developed by artists, a film collage of modified content of commercial games as well as small toy robots; furthermore four photos from a series showing male adolescents during a LAN-party
Music take center stage in the exhibition but Playlist has also a very physical dimension that deals with the pleasure of manipulating and tweaking the devices and the aesthetic delectation in the vintage look of the game arcades and handheld consoles
Chip music is low-key. Its scene is relatively small, its sound is raw and lo-fi, but more importantly, its tools are outmoded goods of mass consumptions. This obsolescence of the media was at the heart of curator Quaranta’s reflections for the exhibition
The exhibition, curated by Domenico Quaranta for Laboral’s new Mediateca Expandida, explores the role played by music in the adoption and manipulation of obsolete technologies: vinyls, old computers, game platforms, etc. I’m going to be the usual procrastinator and promise that i’ll come back with a report later on this week. In the meantime, here’s a link to the catalog of the exhibition and to videos by the extremely talented Raquel Meyers
The German independent filmmaker has been investigating the relationship between technology and information for decades. His talk in Barcelona explored the way blurry, raw images from surveillance and sophisticated computer-generated images are now competing with “the real thing”
Just back from LOOP video art festival and fair in Barcelona. The event is for video art lovers only. So what was a video art sceptic like me doing there? Well, i was busy becoming a convert. I’ll come back with the why and how in a lengthier post. In the meantime, here’s an example of an artwork i discovered (and unsurprisingly liked) at LOOP
The Iraqi born artist, who gained worldwide fame in 2007 with his performance Domestic Tension (aka. Shoot an Iraqi), explained why media art has the potential to contribute to a discussion about today’s most burning political and social issues
When a snuff movie for mouse and cursor meets a sewing machine and a paper shredder all they can talk about is the effect that a symbolic death in a computer game can have in the physical space
How are people’s lives being affected by online games and what is the role of real world ethics and behaviour codes in such virtual spaces?
The International Symposium on Electronic Art takes place biannually in various cities throughout the world. This year, the main exhibition features 16 works developed specifically for ISEA2008 by international and local artists. Priscilla Bracks reports from Singapore
Daphne Dragona about the relationship (or lack thereof) between commercial and art games, the distinction between game and play
I talked with the director of a documentary which explores the life of young people in China who earn a living by playing online games for 10 to 12 hours a day, and produce virtual goods which are sold to richer gamers all over the world for real money.
Wooden boxes that deliver Situation(ist) quotes, order you to bring them to their friends upstairs within 30 seconds, and treat you like delinquents or servants
Play is being reformed and reversed; it embodies social and political acts and issues; it becomes a tool for activism; it mingles the virtual and the real; it revitalizes other disciplines; play can be misused and exploited; while stereotypes are challenged, questions are raised and different understandings are offered
A video commentary on the banality of warfare, the fine line that separates authoritarian control from abuse of power and the ease with which society is incorporated into the mechanisms of institutional violence
When i interviewed Wafaa about his latest art work last week, i had no idea his project would be censored and his view silenced
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Mary Flanagan’s Giant Joystick
Despite the negative press, SL’s user base tripled and continues attracting about a half million new sign-ups a month. How can this possibly be happening?
Putting play on the urban agenda, with an emphasis on spontaneity, creativity and a top-down approach
Steven Poole has released a free (as in cost-free and DRM-free) PDF version of the recently revised edition […]
Angelo Vermeulen is currently in residency at the Aesthetic Technologies Lab in Athens, Ohio to work on his […]
I just realized today that although my stay in Zurich for the Digital Art Weeks last month was […]
Some of the most popular images on my flickr stream are those game-inspired flags that Vuk Čosić introduced […]
In case you have some time to kill in front of the screen, here are some vids for […]
“The virtual communities created by online games have provided us with a new medium for social interaction and […]
nOtbOt, by Walter Langelaar, is a self-playing videogame. Viewers who try to get hold of the controller can […]
Intimate Game Controllers, by Jennifer Chowdhury (she of The Cell Atlantic CellBooth!) and Mehmet Sinan Ascioglu, is a […]
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Already a couple days ago during re:publica, Aram Bartholl presented an overview of his artistic work which very […]
A few weeks ago, Rafael Mizrahi told me about the 4th Kinnernet, a hyper-geek event organized each year […]
The Ludic Society‘s Tagged City Play for Real Players in Real Cities was recently presented at Social Hacking, […]
Like probably many people i wouldn’t think of using a phone booth anymore but i feel a pang […]
Nirmala Shome is currently busy fiddling with scissors, glue and bits of cardboard. She is meticulously constructing a […]