FACING THE WOLF
machinima/digital video (1600 x 900), color, sound, 19’ 26” (chapter I: 5’ 15”, chapter II: 5’ 21”, chapter III: 8’ 50”), 2021, United Kingdom.
Created by Iain Douglas and Mark Coverdale
Facing the wolf is a machinima trilogy produced over the course of 2021 by appropriating and repurposing Grand Theft Auto V. The artists decontextualized the characters and locations of the original video game to tell a story of redemption and reconciliation, so that an uneasy truce with the past may be reached. In broad terms, these three videos reflect on war, loss, grief, and class struggle, themes which never seem to be as far away as they ought to be. As war has now become a reality for millions of people in Europe, Facing the wolf can be seen as a cautionary tale. Or, perhaps, a premonition.
Iain Douglas is an artist working with machinima, game engines, film, and materials like paint and plaster. Iain’s practice explores the themes of cultural and individual loss. For more information, please visit his website.
Mark Coverdale is a widely published performance poet, writing from the picket line, art gallery, and the terraces. Mark’s poems for these machinima are drawn from his interests in domestic industrial decline and the troubled events of the New European East. He lives and works in London. For more information visit his website.
but I wanna keep my head above water
digital video/machinima (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 10’ 30”, 2022, Italy
everynight i try to find the light but sometimes its too cold
digital video/machinima (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 1’ 01”, 2022, Italy
everynight i try to find the light - prélude
digital video/machinima (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 00’ 51”, 2022, Italy
Created by Federica Di Pietrantonio
viewer discretion is advised
Wet, steamy, and sticky. Federica Di Pietrantonio takes the viewer into her neon lit lavatory. In this humid, slushy environment, gender identities become fluid and seemingly solid architectures suddenly splinter. The camera indulges on a virtual nymph’s expression as water drips slowly and then faster. Moments of intimacy are shared. Crevices are explored. Surfaces are scrubbed. This highly immersive experience will leave you soused.
Federica Di Pietrantonio (b. 1996) studied painting at the University of Fine Arts in Rome. After receiving her B.A. in 2019, she did a residency at KASK (Ghent, Belgium), where she developed the project Vacation Spot with The Sims. In 2017, Di Pietrantonio was selected for Mediterranea 18 Young Artists Biennale and the following year she began a collaboration with Spazio In Situ as an artist and web designer. Her work has been exhibited in Italy, Belgium, and Portugal. She currently lives and works in Rome.
CRYPTOHEAVEN3
digital video/machinima (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 5’ 59”, 2022, Ukraine
Created by Letta Shtohryn
July 8 - July 21 2022
Introduced by Gemma Fantacci
Cryptoheaven3 (2022) is the third iteration of an ongoing project developed with The Sims 4 about the digital afterlife of Gerald Cotten, the CEO of QuadrigaCX, a popular cryptocurrency exchange. When Cotten unexpectedly passed away in 2018, he held the passwords to every customer's digital wallet, thereby rendering $190 million lost or missing. His mysterious disappearance sparked several conspiracy theories and marked the beginning of an online hunt for “the Truth”. Letta Shtohryn began exploring this event shortly after Cotten’s passing with Crypto H(e)aven (2019) and Cryptoheaven 2.0 (2020, in collaboration with curator Kat Zavada). The latest installment, Cryptoheaven3, is a hybrid of machinima and net.art combining The Sims 4, text messages, forum posts, and GIFs. Cotten is on a remote island enjoying the good life — sunbathing, getting daily massages, and imbibing exotic cocktails — while former QuadrigaCX users and conspiracy theorists speculate about his untimely demise.
Letta Shtohryn (Ukraine/EU) is an artist and researcher who works predominantly with media art, sculpture and imagery. She investigates the complex relationship between the physical and digital realm. She explores embodiment through a post-humanist lens, considering non-human life forms, machines, avatars, aliens, monsters, and ghosts. Being fascinated by deception, Letta also explores the relationship between fact and myth-making. Her methodical frameworks include speculative investigations, world building, and storytelling. Her tools feature virtual reality, augmented reality, textile, sculpture, video, machinima, and imagery. Her academic background is in Philosophy/Sociology (University of Vienna), Photography (Kunstschule Wien), and Digital Art (MFA/UM). Letta is the founder of digital platform Whatdowedonow.xyz and holds the position of Research Excellence Award Fellow at The Immersion Lab, University of Malta. Her work has been shown internationally.
Lights will guide you home
digital video/machinima (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 10’ 17”, 2022, Germany
Created by Sebastian Schmieg
On Twitch and YouTube, gamers stream how they fly over a digital copy of our world using flight simulators — some curious, others dutiful, and quite a few in the service of virtual airlines following official flight schedules. During their flights, they are often guided by other gamers who participate as air traffic controllers. Sebastian Schmieg regularly watches both pilots and air traffic controllers and collects and archives their virtual work. In the winter of 2020, Schmieg exhibited a collection of video clips showing gamers configuring their aircrafts in their virtual cockpits. In a new iteration of his work, titled Lights will guide you home, they drive to the runway, accelerate and take off, soaring into the skies of Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Sebastian Schmieg investigates the algorithmic circulation of images, texts, and bodies. He creates playful interventions that penetrate the shiny surfaces of our networked society and explore the realities that lie behind them. Specifically, Schmieg focuses on labor, algorithmic management, and artificial intelligence. He works in a wide range of media including video, website, installation, artist book, custom software, lecture performance, and delivery service. Schmieg’s work has been exhibited internationally at The Photographers’ Gallery London, MdbK Leipzig, HeK Basel, and Chronus Art Center Shanghai. He lives and works in Berlin and Dresden.
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.
