Awaiting Oblivion
digital video, colour, sound, 20’ 23”, 2024, Russia
created by Natalie Maximova
World premiere
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: ANDY HUGHES (JANUARY 3—16 2025, ONLINE)
Shimmer
digital video, color, sound, 11’, 2024, United Kingdom
created by Andy Hughes
Shimmer creatively combines photographic assemblage, archival footage, and video game imagery, to interrogate the vitality and agency of materials, positioning pollution and climate change as pivotal concerns while destabilizing the dichotomy between animate and ostensibly inert matter such as “plastics”.
Andy Hughes is a British artist whose practice centers on the littoral zone and the politics of plastic waste, with a significant focus on machinima as a medium to explore the ecological and philosophical implications of pollution, materiality, and human-environment relationships. Hughes studied fine art at Cardiff University and received a scholarship to study photography at the Royal College of Art, London. He was the first artist in residence at Tate Gallery St. Ives. For more than thirty years, he has collaborated with scientists, curators, publishers, NGOs, academics, other artists, and many communities sympathetic to those aiming to examine and consider our relationships with plastic and pollution-related matters. Recent work aims to transcend the conventional trope of “raising awareness” about plastic pollution, instead utilizing machinima as a tool to explore the intersections of weirdness, magic, and Timothy Morton’s philosophical concepts. Through this medium, Hughes reconfigures ecological narratives, positioning them within a broader ontological and speculative framework.
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.
