EVENT: POYUAN JUAN (JUNE 6—19 2025)

Intrusion

digital video (3840 x 2160), color, sound, 15’ 42” seconds, 2021, Taiwan

created by Poyuan Juan

Intrusion draws upon the server migration incident that occurred between 2007 and 2011, when a large number of Chinese World of Warcraft players relocated to Taiwan servers following regulatory conflicts and censorship in mainland China. The video work reimagines this episode through the visual logic of the game itself: character models, rendered en masse, are subjected to simulated clustering algorithms and move in erratic, involuntary spasms, gesturing toward the violence of digital displacement and network congestion. Using stripped-down aesthetics — geometric primitives, textureless surfaces, and graphical glitches — the piece constructs a barren, destabilized environment suggestive of a digital ruin: a deserted server, abandoned infrastructure, a space left behind in cyberspace. At its core, Intrusion is a reflection on digital geography and geopolitical frictions. The migration to the Taiwan servers, prompted by stalled updates and censorship in China, resulted in login delays, overcrowding, and a degradation of the in-game experience. It also brought political tensions to the fore, with simplified Chinese characters dominating chat channels, gold-farming operations disrupting gameplay, and cross-strait hostilities surfacing in virtual space. By re-staging this moment, Intrusion contemplates the porous boundary between virtual architecture and real-world conflict, and how digital platforms unwittingly become zones of political entanglement.

Poyuan Juan is a Taipei-based artist whose work investigates the cultural afterlives of digital platforms, with a focus on online games, virtual environments, and the aesthetics of technological obsolescence. His solo exhibitions include presentations at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei Digital Art Center, and Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts. His work has also been featured internationally at the Athens Digital Arts Festival, Videotage (Hong Kong), videoclub (UK), the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, and the Milan Machinima Festival, where his War Game Map and Sino-French War was shown in 2022. Juan’s practice operates at the intersection of digital archaeology and new media art, tracing the residues of networked interaction and interrogating the material conditions of virtual experience. Drawing on his background in visual arts and his immersion in post-internet culture, he integrates machinima, game engines, and 3D imaging tools to create time-based works that explore cyberqueer narratives, online communities, and the collapsing boundary between simulation and memory. His work asks what remains when virtual worlds decay, and how histories unfold within algorithmic architectures.

EVENT: HARRISON WADE REISHMAN (JANUARY 17—30 2025, ONLINE)

Ida B. Wells: A Red Record

digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 39’ 34”, 2020, United States of America

created by Harrison Wade Reishman

Ida B. Wells: A Red Record is a biographical machinima that examines the life and contributions of Ida B. Wells, a trailblazing African American journalist and activist. Conceived during the Covid-19 lockdown through the innovative use of the Red Dead Redemption 2 game engine, the film transforms Wells’ seminal investigative journalism into a sophisticated cinematic narrative. By leveraging the intricate virtual environments of the game and employing a nuanced narration, the film reconstructs Wells’ relentless documentation of lynching atrocities in the American South during the 1890s, drawing extensively from her landmark publication, The Red Record. The production combines historical accuracy with the creative latitude afforded by video game aesthetics, deploying almost thirty characters to re-enact pivotal moments of Wells’ life. 

Hailing from Hurricane, West Virginia, Harrison Wade Reishman is an accomplished filmmaker and innovator in machinima whose work explores the confluence of traditional cinema and game-driven narratives. A graduate of the University of Virginia with dual degrees in Psychology and Marketing, Reishman combines narrative sophistication with technical expertise in his visual storytelling. His career trajectory includes roles as a UTA agent trainee and a television development executive at Entertainment One, where he contributed to acclaimed productions such as Hung (HBO) and Hell on Wheels (AMC). Transitioning to independent filmmaking, he received a Taliesin Nexus grant in 2018 to direct Crosswinds, and has since directed and produced a series of critically recognized short films. Currently based in Los Angeles, Reishman continues to push the boundaries of machinima as a transformative medium for storytelling.

EVENT: GLORIA LÓPEZ CLERIES AND SIVE HAMILTON HELLE (DECEMBER 20 2024—JANUARY 2 2025)

The Unreal

digital video, color, sound, 13’ 50”, 2019, Spain/Norway

created by Gloria López Cleries and Sive Hamilton Helle

A machinima set within a seemingly alien landscape, The Unreal uses a first-person perspective to guide the viewer through the gleaming surface of an untouched mine. The ambient soundtrack, coupled with a soothing voice-over, cultivates a tranquil atmosphere that invites meditation, while subtly revealing the mineral origins of technology and the extractivist dynamics embedded within it. Employing a practice-based methodology, the artists have harnessed video game software to construct an artificial world and engage with the appropriation of visual and narrative conventions associated with techno-colonialism.

Gloria López Cleries works as an artist, educator and researcher at the intersection of artistic research, visual culture and pedagogy. Originally from Valencia (Spain), López is based in Gothenburg, where she teaches on the MFA Fine Art programme at HDK-Valand. She holds a Master’s in Contemporary Art History and Visual Culture (MNCARS, Madrid), as well as an MFA from HDK-Valand (Gothenburg University). Her work critically engages with neoliberal rhetoric surrounding emotional capitalism, online models of productivity, and the politics of care and collectivity. Through her projects, she challenges the vocabularies and iconographies of online social networks. Her recent work explores the spiritual discourses of materiality and techno-mysticism.

Sive Hamilton Helle is a filmmaker, visual artist, and lecturer based in Oslo. She holds an MFA in Film from HDK-Valand and a BA in Film from the London College of Communication. Hamilton Helle’s works have been screened and exhibited at venues such as The Photographer’s Gallery, Fotomuseum Winterthür and the Göteborg Film Festival. Known for her worldbuilding process, she often combines multiple perspectives and crafts narratives that blur the lines between fiction and reality. Recently, her work has focused on complex landscapes shaped by colonialism and industrial activity.

EVENT: ISABELLE ARVERS (NOVEMBER 22—DECEMBER 5 2024, ONLINE)

Liquid Forest

machinima, color, sound (soundtrack: Gaël Manangou, Congo), 8’ 37”, 2023/2024, France/Congo

created by Isabelle Arvers

Does the white man really not know that if he destroys the forest, the rain will stop? And that if the rain stops, he won’t have anything to eat or drink?” This question, posed by Yanomami activist and philosopher David Kopenawa in La chute du ciel, strikes at the heart of today’s ecological crisis. Scientist Antonio Donato Nobre, in his 2010 TEDxAmazonia talk, deepens this understanding of interconnectedness by describing how each tree “sweats,” releasing over 1,000 liters of water into the atmosphere daily—an essential part of what he calls vertical rivers. Without forests, these rivers vanish, and with them, water itself. This crisis is not confined to the Amazon. In West Africa and Madagascar, iconic baobabs — known for their spongy wood that acts as natural cisterns, storing water critical to local communities — have been dying at alarming rates over the past decade. Liquid Forest immerses viewers in these vertical rivers, offering a journey through baobabs and corals that dissolves binaries and unveils fluid, interconnected realities. The work invites audiences to inhabit a universe where everything is interlinked, delivering a sensory experience that highlights the fragile equilibrium of ecosystems and the pressing need to protect them.

Isabelle Arvers is a French artist, curator, and scholar whose pioneering work at the intersection of art and video games has shaped new media practices for over two decades. She holds a Ph.D. in Art & Games Decolonization, and her research focuses on the artistic, ethical, and critical implications of digital gaming. Arvers is widely recognized for her exploration of video games as a medium for artistic expression, particularly through machinima, which transforms video games into creative tools. As a curator, she has organized numerous exhibitions and festivals worldwide, from Playtime at Villette Numérique in Paris to Jibambe na Tec in Nairobi, and her work is deeply embedded in decolonial, feminist, and queer approaches to gaming culture. Arvers’s projects also focus on challenging borders – both digital and geographical – through initiatives like the antiAtlas of Borders exhibitions. In addition to her curatorial practice, Arvers’s activism and research have led her to collaborate with artists globally, particularly in non-Western countries. Her Art and Games World Tour sought to amplify the voices of marginalized game creators and explore how video games can serve as tools for resistance and alternative storytelling. Her association, Kareron, continues to produce projects related to cyber feminism and alternative media, including TRANS//BORDER, a tribute to Nathalie Magnan. Arvers has also contributed critical essays to a range of publications and curated workshops on machinima and game art to democratize these practices.

EVENT: HUGO ARCIER (OCTOBER 25—NOVEMBER 07 2024)

LIMBUS IV

single channel video (UHD), color, sound,  8’ 27”, 2024, France

created by Hugo Arcier

Limbus by Hugo Arcier is an ongoing machinima series that explores inaccessible spaces within video games such as Rage, Grand Theft Auto V and now Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II through the use of glitches and modding. By positioning the camera in impossible perspectives, such as beneath the ground, Arcier reveals hidden layers of these virtual worlds, transforming glitches from technical errors into aesthetic opportunities. Drawing on the concept of “limbo” as a state of ambiguity and incompleteness, the series presents these digital environments as fragile and transient, exposing the hollowness of the virtual spaces we inhabit. Like its predecessors, Limbus IV invites viewers to reflect on the nature of virtual reality, subverting the conventional structures of video games to offer a philosophical meditation on presence and absence, unrealized potential and shadows of lost data.

Hugo Arcier transcends the conventional boundaries of artistic practice, positioning himself as an “artist in a digital world”. Harnessing the expansive potential of 3D computer graphics, Arcier channels his creative vision into a diverse range of mediums, seamlessly weaving together videos, prints, and sculptures. While his initial foray into the artistic realm was through the realm of special effects for renowned feature filmmakers such as Roman Polanski, Alain Resnais, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, it is through this trajectory that he cultivated an unparalleled mastery of digital tools, particularly in the realm of 3D graphic imagery. Arcier’s artistic prowess has garnered global acclaim, with his works showcased in prestigious international festivals, including Elektra, Videoformes, and Némo. His creative explorations have further permeated the hallowed walls of Magda Danysz and Plateforme Paris, alongside art venues like the New Museum and the New Media Art Center of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. Notably, Arcier’s distinctive artistic voice has resonated across the global art landscape, finding a home in revered institutions like Le Cube, Okayama Art Center, and the iconic Palais de Tokyo. He lives and works in Paris.