AU-DELÀ DU DÉSERT FLOU, PLUS AUCUNE SAUVEGARDE N’EST POSSIBLE
Digital video/machinima (1920 x 1080), color, sound 43’, 2021, France
Created by Elisa Sanchez
“I’m tired of playing cowboy” says Elisa Sanchez, referring to her experience with Red Dead Redemption 2. To spice up things, she uses cheat modes and modifies the original game. Such intervention allows her to discover weird architectures, bizarre landscapes, and bottomless rivers, among other things. So she begins a metaphysical journey into the Wilder West to escape her concrete “house arrests” due to the Pandemic lockdown. The result is a slow, contemplative, meditative machinima situated at the intersection of video art, video essay, and video diary. A warning: if you cross the blurred desert, you won’t be able to save your progress.
Born in Toulouse, France in 1997, Elisa Sanchez is likely France’s most well known artiste-astronaute and a recent graduate of the Haute école des arts du Rhin Mulhouse, Strasbourg. In 2021, she completed her thesis project, Le Cowboy et Le Astronaut under the supervision of Anne Foret. Her first machinima, Au-delà du désert flou, plus aucune sauvegarde n’est possible, was screened at the international film festival Cinéma du Réel in March 2022.
My paws are soft, my bones are heavy
digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound (stereo), 4’ 57”, Germany, 2021
Created by Felix Klee, 2021
Can an artificial intelligence dream? Apparently, yes. In this oneiric short, it imagines itself as a virtual mountain lion wandering through digital landscapes. After jumping off a cliff, the animal dives into the ocean, looking for some tranquility. Written by an artificial intelligence, narrated by a text-to-speech converter and shot within a modified video game, My paws are soft, my bones are heavy is blatantly post-human.
Felix Klee is studying documentary filmmaking at the University of Television and Film in Munich, Germany. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts Munich — where he studied time-based media under Julian Rosefeldt and painting under Pia Fries — Klee previously studied painting under Thomas Hartmann at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg and was a guest student at Universidad de las Artes Aguascalientes México. He co-founded the ReKollektiv, a collective of media artists and directors working towards the democratization of footage and a collectivist approach to film editing. From 2020-2022 he served as an advisory board member at Locarno Film Festival. Klee lives and works in Munich, Germany.
VRAL is now available on Patreon!
We are using Patreon to build a community for all appreciators of machinima and game videos situated at the intersection of video art, experimental cinema, contemporary art, and avant-garde gaming: we believe that Jack Conte's platform is ideally suited for bringing together people sharing the same passions and interests.
Our primary goal is to produce a deeper, broader understanding of machinima as an artform and through Patreon we will make VRAL more sustainable in the long term, provide a compensation to all artists involved while maintaining full creative and curatorial independence from external sources, such as institutions and/or sponsors.
Although our monthly program comprising two VRAL exhibitions accompanied by an-depth interview will remain freely accessible on vral.org, we will significantly expand our critical and curatorial efforts by introducing exclusive, platform-specific content, such as articles, essays, video essays, interviews, and a variety of perks, including discounts for books and special events, such as the Milan Machinima Festival. There are three subscription options corresponding to different tiers (official, all-access, VIP) priced at 3, 6 and 9 euro per month respectively. The content will be English-only.
Introduced in April 2020 amidst a global pandemic, VRAL is a uniquely curated game video experience, offering screenings of machinima selected on their cultural relevance, artistic achievement, and innovative style. Often presented only in the context of new media art festivals, film retrospectives, and exhibitions, these works best represent the variety, ingenuity, and creativity of game-based video practices. An online space that provides access to a range of diverse voices supplementing/expanding the Milan Machinima Festival, VRAL celebrates a new generation of digital filmmakers and artists.
THE VIRTUAL FRONTIER
digital video, color, sound, 3’, 2020, The Netherlands
Created by Sjors Rigters
vral.org
The popular video game Minecraft exemplifies the inner contradictions of the digital age. Lauded by many pundits as a highly creative form of entertainment, the so-called “digital LEGO” is a powerful vessel for neoliberal ideologies and hyper-capitalistic imperatives, with its frenzy of accumulation, extraction, circulation, production, and exploitation. An effective indoctrination tool now pervasive in thousands of US elementary schools, Minecraft is a techno-dream of endless growth, a manifesto for the perpetuation of devastating patterns of consumption, competition, and destruction. Informed by colonialist principles, its gameplay elevates numbing grinding routines into a recipe for the good life, casting the player as both a conqueror and an entrepreneur. In his video The Virtual Frontier, Dutch designer Sjors Rigters brings to the foreground the toxic message of one of the most successful video games of all time.
Sjors Rigters (b. 1995) is a graphic designer specializing in visual identity and editorial design. After receiving his BA in Graphic Design at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, he opened his own studio. Sjors lives and works in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
THE CONVENIENCE STORE
digital video, color, sound, 6’ 23”, 2018, Sweden
Created by Jonne Hansson
April 8 - April 21 2022
VRAL.org
The Convenience Store follows three recently former students who graduated from Umeå Academy of Fine Arts in Sweden and later moved to the fictional city Los Santos hoping to succeed as artists. They all have encountered challenges in their respective fields. One day they accidentally meet each other in a convenience store. In a setting, reminiscent of Kevin Smith’s cult film Clerks, they have a strange, meta-referential conversation.
Jonne Hansson (b. 1983) is an artist working with digital media. He received an MFA from Umeå Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå, Sweden and a BA in Fine Arts from Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. In the past decade, Jonne has created several machinima, drawings, prints and installations. His practice is narrative driven, with an emphasis on short films or using dis- or replaced still imagery. Different interests — including video games, sports, animals, and movies — are mixed with literary classics, resulting in narrative works — ranging in tone from philosophical, to poetic, to sit-com slapstick gags — pointing out the oddness, if not absurdity, of contemporary life. His work has been exhibited internationally, including Argentina, Croatia, Italy, and Sweden. His work Heavy Thoughts was presented at Milan Machinima Festival MMXXII. Jonne lives and works in Sweden.
