EVENT: BRENT WATANABE (MAY 19 - JUNE 1 2023, ONLINE)

Brent Watanabe

MINE

machinima/digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 37’ 06”, United States, 2023

The latest work by Brent Watanabe is a thought-provoking exploration of the intersection between virtual reality and contemporary culture. Originally conceived as a semi-narrative interactive experience, MINE spans eight mesmerizing episodes, each presenting a different facet of our complex relationship with consumption, waste, the environment, and the digital world. Originally presented on Meta/Facebook VR platform Horizon Worlds, visitors are invited to journey through a kaleidoscopic array of immersive and fully-realized virtual environments, each revealing a new layer of insight and critique. From the grotesque realities of animal exploitation to the dark allure of gaming, guns, and surveillance, MINE is a bold and unflinching statement on the pressing issues of our time. The original work has been reimagined as a single-channel walkthrough video edited by the artist for VRAL. 

Brent Watanabe’s art practice defies categorization, fusing traditional techniques with cutting-edge technology to create installations that are at once visually arresting and intellectually engaging. Drawing on his extensive background in drawing and sculpture, Watanabe uses computer programming and electronics to create kinetic sculptures that are at the forefront of a new wave of digital art. Watanabe’s work has been recognized both nationally and internationally, with his groundbreaking 2016 project, San Andreas Deer Cam, receiving over 800,000 visitors in its first three months alone and being featured in publications such as New York Magazine, the BBC, and WIRED. In addition to his solo work, Watanabe has participated in group shows and screenings around the world, including Through Machine Eyes at the NeMe Arts Center in Limassol, Cyprus, Game Changers at MassArt Art Museum in Boston, and Playmode at the MATT Museum in Lisbon, Portugal. With recent solo exhibitions at prestigious venues such as SOIL Art Gallery, McLeod Residency, Jack Straw New Media Gallery, Gallery 4Culture, Anchor Art Space, and the Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival, Watanabe continues to push the boundaries of what is possible in the realm of digital art. 

EVENT: ANTOINE CHAPON (DECEMBER 11 - DECEMBER 24 2020)

MY OWN LANDSCAPES

Digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 18', 2020 (France)

Created by Antoine Chapon, 2020

VRAL

December 11 - December 24 2020

Introduced by Luca Miranda

Warfare is being gamified. The American army has been recruiting soldiers through video games since the early zeroes: America’s Army is, after all, the title of a popular video game. Recruits are trained with digital simulations and use game-like controllers to launch countless attack strikes via drones in remote lands: systemic murder by proxy. Even soldiers fighting on actual battlefields cannot escape the video game curse: those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder are subsequently treated with digital simulations. But in My Own Landscapes, Chapon tells a different story: Cyrille creates and inhabits a virtual island, an utopian landscape where the soldier and his peers can escape reality, find illusory solace, and create a different identity: in fact, his experience is narrated by a female voice over. However, several paradoxes remain.

Antoine Chapon is a French artist and filmmaker based in Paris. He studied fine art, philosophy and social studies. In 2019, he learned literary Arabic at the Saint-Joseph University in Beirut. His work questions the relationship between fact and fiction, the role of the archive, and new technologies in documentary, and the possibility of making new forms in the age of digital reproduction. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including Open Codes: The World as a Field of Data at the ZKM, Karlsruhe Museum. His first film My Own Landscapes (2020) won the award for best short film at the Visions du Réel Festival in Nyon, and the award for best short documentary film at the Norwegian Short Film Festival. It was also presented at the 2020 Torino Film Festival.

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EVENT: FANTASTIC LITTLE SPLASH (OCTOBER 16 - OCTOBER 29 2020)

FORWARD, UPWARD, IN ALL DIRECTIONS

digital video, color, sound, 19’ 16”, 2018 (Ukraine)

Created by fantastic little splash

VRAL

Introduced by Matteo Bittanti

Both poetic and prosaic, Forward, upward, in all directions is a psychedelic trip inside VRChat, a free-to-play massively multiplayer online virtual reality environment created by Graham Gaylor and Jesse Joudrey. Introduced in early 2017, VRChat has gained popularity in the last few years thanks to the incessant activities of live streamers. Evocative of virtual worlds of the early Zeroes like Second Life but enhanced by virtual reality immersion, VRChat has now spawned several paratexts, including a weekly online newspaper, talk shows, and podcasts. Players create their own avatars based on popular characters from video games, television, anime and movies and hang out online. Forward, upward, in all directions depicts a neo-tribal community interacting through technology, focusing on rituals of a growing subculture.

fantastic little splash is a collective comprising  journalist, filmmaker and visual artist Lera Malchenko and artist and director Oleksandr Hants, whose artistic practice examines the nature and flow of information: its generation, distribution and transmutations. Fantastic little splash is especially interested in alternative realities, the collective imaginary, the notion of utopia and dystopia. Their work is situated at the crossroads of media studies, architecture, and anthropology. Established in 2016, are based in Dnipro city, Ukraine.

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