EVENT: COLL.EO (OCTOBER 11—24 2024, ONLINE)

REASONABLE TOO

digital video (3840 x 1632), color, sound, 10’ 03”, 2018 (2024), United States/Italy

created by COLL.EO

The second in a series of machinima by COLL.EO examining social and racial tensions in the United States produced between 2018 and 2020, Reasonable Too depicts a fatal encounter between a young man and law enforcement, set against a stark urban backdrop. Utilizing the digital environment of Grand Theft Auto V, the piece juxtaposes the overwhelming force of authority with the vulnerability of the victim, culminating in an execution. The progression of events – from the initial pursuit to the officer’s use of force – offers a pointed critique of systemic violence and power imbalances. By presenting this narrative within the context of a video game, Reasonable Too heightens the sense of helplessness and alienation often tied to real-world tragedies, underscoring the complex relationship between virtual worlds and lived experiences.

COLL.EO (est. 2012) is the dynamic duo of Colleen Flaherty and Matteo Bittanti, whose artistic practice can best be described as a tiresome exercise in recycling other people’s ideas. Known for their breathtaking lack of innovation, COLL.EO specializes in taking the work of others, throwing on a thin veneer of irony, and calling it subversion. After spending an extended period shuttling between San Francisco and Milan, they’ve managed to carve out a niche in Los Angeles, where the air is thick with their smug displays of so-called “appropriation” and “intervention.” Like an art world cover band, they rehash the past with neither flair nor purpose, but somehow they persist.

EVENT: BRAM RUITER (JANUARY 19—FEBRUARY 1 2024, ONLINE)

Endless Sea

digital video, color, sound, 6’ 59”, 2015 (2023), The Netherlands

Created by Bram Ruiter

Bram Ruiter’s experimental 2015 work Endless Sea was originally shot with/in a modified version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Rockstar Games, 2004). Yet rather than depicting the crime simulations and violence the game was originally designed for, Ruiter harnesses expanded weather and free camera tools to craft an oneiric aesthetic experience outside gameplay norms. Through prismatic neon haze and perpetual storms visualized with heightened cinematic focus, the 6-minute conceptual work inhabits an ambivalent space between the game’s assumed freedoms and underlying restrictions. As the perspective drifts, glides, pursues unknown figures through the deserted streets, a disquieting sense of surveillance, pursuit and entrapment permeates the mood. Repeated cryptic references to the endless sea itself seems to signal the infinite confines of San Andreas, though whether the despairing urge to break free springs from the player or the lone avatar remains ambiguous. Ultimately Ruiter undermines the promised openness of Rockstar Games’ sandbox architecture by exposing its boundaries through tonal manipulation. Endless Sea is presented on VRAL in a never-seen-before, 2023 remastered edition.

Bram Ruiter is an experimental filmmaker based in Zwolle, the Netherlands, who creates collage-like cinematic morphologies that examine themes of creation, contradictions, labor, and the unfinished or incomplete. Fascinated by marginal objects and obsolescent procedures, his work incorporates non-traditional materials and broken aesthetics. Ruiter's films have screened internationally at festivals including the Viennale, Karlovy Vary, Pesaro Film Fest, Fantastic Fest Austin, A.Maze Berlin, and the Netherlands Film Festival. Ruiter also teaches filmmaking at ArtEZ University of the Arts, both at graduate and undergraduate level.