We’re happy to announce the release of volume one in the new series GAME VIDEO/ART. STUDIES edited by Matteo Bittanti: Machinima vernacolare by Riccardo Retez.
Available both on Amazon and Blurb in Italian, Machinima vernacolare examines the relationship between cinema, television, and video games, focusing on fandom productions that made machinima into a recognizable expression of popular culture and one of the most popular examples of user generated content.
Retez focuses on Grand Theft Auto V’s Rockstar Editor, a popular video editing tool used to created countless machinima. The author describes the production, consumption and distribution practices within an increasingly complex media environments. The analysis, which is accompanied by six case studies, demonstrates that far from being passive users, video game players can become guerrilla video makers.
Born and raised in Florence, Riccardo Retez received a Master's Degree in Television, Cinema and New Media from the IULM University of Milan in 2019 and a Degree in Graphic Design and Multimedia from the Free Academy of Fine Arts in Florence in 2017, where he studied the relationship between technology-based art practices culture and the humanities. Passionate about cinema, video games and visual culture, in the past five years Riccardo produced, edited, and directed several short films and video clips. Machinima vernacolare is his first book.
GAME VIDEO/ART. STUDIES examines the complex interaction between digital gaming and the visual arts through academic contributions situated at the intersection of different disciplinary areas – game studies, art criticism, visual studies, media studies and cultural studies – and gives voice to a new generation of researchers as well as established scholars. Both a critical and creative laboratory, GAME VIDEO/ART. STUDIES promotes open dialogue, constructive debate, and sometimes idiosyncratic investigations of ideas, practices, and artefacts that – by their very nature – occupy different layers of today’s visual culture. Using a comparative rather than specialized approach, GAME VIDEO/ART. STUDIES probes the most diverse visual experiences inspired by digital gaming.
To learn more about Machinima vernacolare, please visit this page, which includes a video walkthrough (in Italian).
To learn more about GAME VIDEO/ART STUDIES, please click here.
Siamo felici di annunciare la pubblicazione del primo volume della nuova collana GAME VIDEO/ART. STUDIES diretta da Matteo Bittanti: Machinima vernacolare di Riccardo Retez.
Disponibile su Amazon e Blurb in lingua italiana, Machinima vernacolare esamina il rapporto tra cinema, televisione e videogiochi e le dinamiche del fandom videoludico che ha elevato il machinima a una marca di riconoscimento delle produzioni user generated.
Retez esamina il Rockstar Editor, il software di montaggio video integrato a Grand Theft Auto V (2013),. L’autore descrive le dinamiche di produzione, consumo e distribuzione del machinima all’interno di un ecosistema mediale sempre più complesso. L’analisi, impreziosita da sei studi di caso, attesta che gli utenti di videogiochi non sono consumatori passivi di testi audiovisivi, bensì soggetti attivi in grado di comprendere e manipolare i significati variabili codificati in tali testi, proponendo sofisticati remake.
Nato e cresciuto a Firenze, Riccardo Retez ha conseguito una Laurea Magistrale in Televisione, cinema e nuovi media presso l’Università IULM di Milano nel 2019 e una Laurea in Graphic Design e Multimedia presso la Libera Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze nel 2017, dove ha studiato la relazione tra la cultura tecnico-artistica e tradizione umanistica. Appassionato di cinema, videogiochi e culture visive, Riccardo ha realizzato numerosi cortometraggi e videoclip. Machinima vernacolare è il suo primo libro.
Laboratorio critico e creativo, la collana GAME VIDEO/ART. STUDIES promuove un dialogo aperto, un confronto costruttivo e una disamina non necessariamente ortodossa di temi, pratiche e fenomeni che, per loro natura, s’intersecano con differenti livelli della cultura visiva. Privilegiando un approccio comparativo anziché specialistico, GAME VIDEO/ART. STUDIES scandaglia le più diverse esperienze mediali ispirate dal e al videogioco per dare voce a una nuova generazione di ricercatori così come a studiosi consolidati.
Per ulteriori informazioni su GAME VIDEO/ART STUDIES, cliccate qui.
TRAVELOGUE is a survey of audiovisual artworks made with or inspired by video games. Using machinima and interactive installations, fifteen artists examine the virtual automobile as medium, message, technological commodity, status symbol, interface, and prosthetics. Created through a process of appropriation and remix, these works lie at the intersection of fiction and documentation, performance and simulation, video art and experimental cinema.
This book is an extended catalogue of the exhibition TRAVELOGUE that I curated between September 7- 11 2016, in Mantua, Italy as part of Festivaletteratura 2016, featuring artworks by Max Almy and Teri Yarbrow, Hugo Arcier, Dave Ball, William Beaudine, Bob-Bicknell Knight, COLL.EO, Clint Enns, Matthew Hillock, JODI, Kristin Lucas, Victor Morales, Leonardo Sang, Palle Torsson. Available in bilingual edition (English and Italian) TRAVELOGUE shares the same format as MACHINIMA. 32 conversazioni sull'arte del videogioco, which was released in 2017.
You can purchase a copy of TRAVELOGUE on Blurb or Amazon US. It will soon be available on Amazon Italy.
We're happy to announce the release of Machinima, dal videogioco alla videoarte [Machinima. From video game to video art].
Published by Mimesis Edizioni in the Heterotopie series, the book investigates the relationship between art and video games from a variety of perspectives. Featuring eight contributions from international scholars, Machinima. From video game to video art introduces new ways of looking at game-based video art. Cover design by Marco Goran Romano (Goran Factory).
The book is available on Amazon.
We are thrilled to announce the release of MACHINIMA. 32 conversazioni sull'arte del videogioco, a new book featuring interviews with international artists using video games to make art.
MACHINIMA. 32 conversazioni sull'arte del videogioco expands, in print form, both the exhibition GAME VIDEO/ART. A SURVEY, curated by Matteo Bittanti and Vincenzo Trione in 2016 at IULM University, in Milan, Italy, and the official catalog, released by Silvana Editoriale in June 2016. The vast majority of the conversations with the artists featured in the show were produced by the students enrolled in the M.A. in Arts, Cultural Heritage and Markets Program at IULM. Topics discussed range from the practice of appropriating games for making art to the artists' approaches to the medium, providing scholars, critics, and artists a set of invaluable resources to better grasp the meaning and practice of machinima.
MACHINIMA. 32 Conversazioni sull’arte del videogioco
Edited by Matteo Bittanti
Release date: March 08, 2017
Features: Softcover, 158 pages, black and white
Format: 15×23 cm, 6×9 inches
ISBN: 9781366258540
Language: Italian
Price: $15.99
Featured artists:
GAME VIDEO/ART. A SURVEY RECOMMENDS
UNDERSTANDING MACHINIMA. ESSAYS IN FILMMAKING IN VIRTUAL WORLDS, A COMPELLING COLLECTION OF ESSAYS PUBLISHED IN 2013 BY BLOOMSBURY FEATURING CONTRIBUTIONS BY MICHAEL NITSCHE, CHRIS BURKE (FOCI + LOCI), JOSEPH DELAPPE, SHELDON BROWN, SARAH HIGLEY, AND MANY MORE.
Here's the book description:
In this groundbreaking collection, Dr. Jenna Ng brings together academics and award-winning artists and machinima makers to explore the fascinating combination of cinema, animation and games in machinima (the use of computer game engines to produce animated films in cost- and time-efficient ways). Book-ended by a preface by Henry Lowood (curator for history of science and technology collections at Stanford University) and an interview with Isabelle Arvers (machinima artist, trainer, critic, and curator), the collection features wide-ranging discussions addressing machinima not only from diverse theoretical perspectives, but also in its many dimensions as game art, First Nations media art, documentary, and pedagogical tool. Making use of interactive multimedia to enhance the text, each chapter features a QR code which leads to a mobile website cross-referencing with its print text, integrating digital and print content while also taking into account the portability of digital devices in resonance with machinima's mobile digital forms. Exploring the many dimensions of machinima production and reception,Understanding Machinima extends machinima's critical scholarship and debate, underscoring the exciting potential of this emerging media form.
UNDERSTANDING MACHINIMA is edited by JENNA NG, an Anniversary Research Lecturer in Film and Interactive Media at York University, in England.
UNDERSTANDING MACHINIMA features by an excellent companion website with excerpts, interviews, and extra, not to mention a great video essay: