AR3NA
digital video/machinima (2048x858), color, sound, 35’ (original), 2022, The Netherlands
Created by Jordy Veenstra, 2022
AR3NA is a visual study of Quake III Arena; its environments and its textures. It is also a complex work of media anthropology: a deeper critical look at more than two-hundred maps in which millions of battles have been fought since 1999. With a production time frame and a duration exceeding those of most experimental machinima, Veenstra’s AR3NA is a meta-commentary on video game play, architecture, space and places.
Jordy Veenstra is a video editor, motion graphics designer, 2D animator, and experimental filmmaker based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In his practice, Veenstra connects art and narrative with technology and software through the medium of experimental film. His work examines often overlooked social and artistic concerns. His works have been exhibited during the 2020 and 2022 editions of the Milan Machinima Festival and the equally astounding Regression Trilogy was featured as a show on VRAL in 2020.
KOSSOFF FLEES UKRAINE
digital video/machinima (2160 x 1440), color, sound, 31’ 12”, 2022, Northern Ireland
Created by Jason Rouse
Machinima, landscape painting, first-person shooters, walking simulators, and photogrammetry. Jason Rouse’s new artwork is a triumph of remediation as it incorporates, repurposes, and transforms a variety of media, genres, and aesthetics. It is simultaneously an art history lesson and a meditation on current events delivered via Unity 3D. As the title suggests, this work is about Leon Kossoff, one of the most influential British painters of the XIX century, who was also the son of two Ukrainian refugees fleeing persecution during the 1903-1906 pogrom. Kossof Flees Ukraine reconstructs that miraculous escape through the forests and mountains of Europe, while updating the narrative to another tragedy, the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The outcome is a document about the past that speaks about the contingent moment.
Jason Rouse (b. 1985) is an Irish artist living and working in Cardiff, Wales. In Rouse’s work, digital and traditional arts converge, creating unexpected results. Rouse has painted game landscapes, developed interactive games, and experimented with generative spaces. Rouse has been a finalist with Lumen Prize for Digital Art, exhibited at the inaugural Westmorland Landscape Prize and selected for the 2020 BEEP Painting Prize. He has received a Wales Art International grant for SWITCHed, an exchange program between Arcade Cardiff and Galerie RDV, Nantes. His album of solo Irish traditional music on Uilleann Pipes has won critical acclaim from both press and peers.
LAN PARTY NOTES
digital video (1280 x 720), sound, color, 10’ 20”, 2013 (United Kingdom)
Created by Mateus Domingos
Introduced by Riccardo Retez
LAN Party was an installation originally created by Vanilla Galleries in collaboration with Arc-Vel and Dexter and Finbar Prior, at the Two Queens art gallery in Leicester, United Kingdom, in 2013. The work focuses on the concept of respawn which, in the context of video games, indicates the live creation of a character or item after its death or disappearance. Respawning creates and endless loop of (simulated) life and death. Vanilla Galleries’ work contextualizes such concept in a cultural re-generation perspective, where death and rebirth are visualized through a specific interface, the first-person shooter LAN party. A specially designed custom map has been created by the collective as a place for them to exist and work over a period of time. The installation comprises a number of computers inhabiting the main gallery space at Two Queens and visitors are invited to participate in the contest of the Cultural Deathmatch in order to perpetuate the ongoing cycle of life and death within the setting of the local area network.
Also known as ghostglyph, Mateus Domingos is an artist/writer based in Leicester, United Kingdom. He was a founding member and co-director of Leicester’s artist run gallery and studio space Two Queens. He is a member of Phoenix Interact Labs and manages the publishing project Bruise. He is interested in text, narrative and new digital spaces. His work has included games, 3D printing, fictional alphabets, maps and film making. In 2012 he represented the United Kingdom in Maribor, the European Capital of Culture and World Event Young Artist. Recent exhibitions include Two Queens, Leicester, Phoenix & De Montfort University, Leicester and Modern Painters, New Decorators, Loughborough. In parallel with his artistic practice, he is a producer for the digital arts program at Phoenix, Leicester. He works on artist development opportunities and hosts a series of meetups exploring digital arts practices. He collaborates with Sweden-based Nathan Bissette under the moniker Dead Hand to produce sound, music, and broadcasts. Recently they have released a book of scores and started producing an experimental podcast. He holds a BA in Fine Art from Loughborough University. He lives and works in Leicester.
