MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL MMXXI
FROM VIDEO GAMES TO VIDEO ART
March 15-21 2021
Online event
Milan, Italy
An official event of the Milan Digital Week, the MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL showcases audiovisual non-interactive works produced with video games otherwise known as machinima. This year, the retrospective will take place exclusively online due to the ongoing pandemic. The program feature six sections: IN FOCUS, GAME VIDEO ESSAY, GRAND THEFT CINEMA, [CODE] CONFINEMENT, GLITCH 'N SCAPES, and SPECIAL SCREENING. Selected artists include Iono Allen, Adonis Archontides, Nilson Carroll, Nick Crockett, Luca Giacomelli, Gina Hara, Kamilia Kard, Chris Kerich, Felix Klee, Eddie Lohmeyer, Luca Miranda, Alessandra Porcu, Riccardo Retez, Alessandro Tranchini, Lena Windisch, XUE Youge (薛 又 戈), and HU Yu (胡 煜).
The main theme of the MMXXI edition, From Video Games to Video Art, alludes to the variety of artistic manipulations of video games and their evolution into game videos. The authors deconstruct digital environments by subverting and reinterpreting their constitutive codes. From a matrix of postmodern cinematic citations embedded in Grand Theft Auto V to the notion of “limbo” as an existential condition, the selected machinima critically examine the logic, politics, and ideologies of the contemporary moment, triggering unexpected epistemological short circuits.
As in previous years, a Critics’ Choice Award will be awarded to the most significant machinima by an international jury composed of critics, curators, and academics: Valentino Catricalà (Artistic Director of the Media Art Festival in Rome), Marco De Mutiis (Digital curator of the Fotomuseum Winterthur), Stefano Locati (member of the Scientific Committee of the Ca 'Foscari Short Film Festival of Venice and Co-director of the Asian Film Festival of Bologna), Henry Lowood (Curator for the Germanic Collections and the History of Science and Technology Collections at Stanford University), and Jenna NG (Professor of Film and Interactive Media at the University of York).
Curated by Matteo Bittanti with Gemma Fantacci, Luca Miranda, and Riccardo Retez, the MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL 2021 is an official event of Milano Digital Week organized in collaboration with GAMESCENES. Art in the age of video games and the M.A. in Game Design at IULM University. A follow-up to the 2016 exhibition GAME VIDEO/ART. A SURVEY, the MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL brings to Milan idiosyncratic video works that lie at the intersection of video art, cinema, streaming, and digital games.
All the works will be accessible for free on festival website from 15 to 21 March 2021.