ARCHITECTURE WITH GAMES IN THE TITLE
Digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 18' (6’ X 3), 2020 (Croatia)
Created by Mario Mu, 2020
November 26 - December 10 2020
Introduced by Matteo Bittanti
Architecture with Games in the Title focuses on the convergence between spatial memory and the architecture of games through the narrative framework of a dialogue. Mu compares the casualties of financial crises to video game players, forced to navigate a rigidly controlled “gamified” setting where trial-and-error is glorified as the only way to reach symbolic “achievements”. Created with Unity 3D, the scene depicts an office space replete with desks, computers, chairs, and other amenities of the modern working environment. Walls appear and disappear depending on the location of unseen characters, the “flexible workers” of the neoliberal world. This is a space without shadows, at once bright, warm, and phantasmatic. As the unseen characters engage in a conversation about architecture and memory, bots and ghosts, the environment slowly burns.
The artistic practice of Croatian artist Mario Mu revolves around projects which are often constructed as extended gaming platforms. In addition to sound and drawing, his preferred media often include elements of game design, 3D animation, and performance. A student of Hito Steyerl, Mu received an MFA in Berlin from the University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin in 2017, a BFA with a major in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, in 2015, and an MA from the Faculty of Graphic Arts in 2012 from the same institution. Between 2016 and 2017, Mu was an active member of the Research Center for the Proxy Politics in Berlin. He has been working on several LARP events as an author, collaborator and/or performer at Play Co London and Zagreb, Pakhuis de Zwijger in Amsterdam, Galerie gr_und, Acud, and UdK in Berlin. Mu is currently working on a new game project initiated by the Portuguese artist Odete and supported by Maat Museum and Boca Bienal.
CHEATIMERISM
Digital video, color, sound, 14’ 55’’, 2020 (Italy)
Created by Luca Miranda
Introduced by Matteo Bittanti
By reconfiguring the spaces of Grand Theft Auto V, Cheatimerism investigates the political and economic implications of consumption and its side effects, including concrete waste, virtual surrogacy, and planned obsolescence. This machinima shows various sculptural forms made of identical vehicles, the Rapid GT, a sports car, and a waste collection truck, the Trashmaster. Capitalism, the artist seems to suggest, is the ultimate cheat mode.
Luca Miranda’s practice focuses on the relationship between reality and simulation. He is especially interested in the aesthetic potential of the avatar. In his work, Miranda critically investigates game mechanics and concepts such as immersion, identification, and interpassivity. Miranda received a B.A. in Media and Art from the University of Bologna and in 2019 received a M.A. in TV, Cinema and New Media at IULM University. In 2018, he co-founded Eremo, an artistic collective based in Milan. He is currently working on book about walking simulators.
INFINITE GRAVEYARD
digital video, color, sound, 666’, 2020 (Russia)
Created by Mikhail Maksimov
Introduced by Matteo Bittanti
Mikhail Maksimov first encountered videogames at the age of twelve. His first time was with Clive Townsend’s Saboteur! (1985) on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Subsequently, he fell in love with first-person shooters – Doom II in particular – which he played on a personal computer installed in a dentist’s office. Later in life, Maksimov turned his fascination for gaming into an area of artistic experimentation because he felt that unlike cinema and contemporary art, video games are less reliant on curatorial arbitrariness and can reach a broader public via alternative channels, e.g. the internet, rather than a traditional museum or gallery. Infinite Graveyard is part of Maksimov’s ongoing exploration of gaming mechanics and aesthetics. Presented on VRAL as a 666 minutes gameplay video recorded by the artist, Infinite Graveyard is a commentary of the endless cycle of death in an age marked by toxic positive thinking, stultifying gamification, and neoliberal imperatives.
Mikhail Maksimov is an artist and filmmaker whose practice revolves around game engines, 3D graphics, algorithms, and neural networks. Among his most recent (and radical) projects is SAR, Sanatorium Anthropocene Retreat! (formerly known as MOMAM, Museum of Modern Art Massacre), a dystopian first-person shooter set in the artworld and inspired by the writing of Bruno Latour and Donna Haraway. After graduating in Architecture from the Moscow State Construction University and receiving an MFA from the Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia, Maksimov took part in several exhibitions and festivals, including the Moscow Modern Art Biennale, Venice Biennale of Architecture, New Horizons International Film Festival, the Moscow International Film Festival, Manifesta, Kansk Video Festival, the International Festival of Cinematographic Debuts “Spirit of Fire”, Locarno Festival, Hamburg KurzFilmFestival, Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, and many more. Maksimov lives and works in Moscow.
FORWARD, UPWARD, IN ALL DIRECTIONS
digital video, color, sound, 19’ 16”, 2018 (Ukraine)
Created by fantastic little splash
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.
CRUCIFIXION AND EPIPHANY
digital video, color, sound, 22’ 59”, 2020 (Hong Kong)
Created by Edwin Lo
Introduced by Luca Miranda
A follow up to Those Who Do Not Remember The Past Are Condemned To Repeat It (2020) and The Rupture of Promised Land (Or We Can Never Get There) (2020), Crucifixion and Epiphany is a commentary on religious iconography through the lenses of video games and archival materials. Using the format of desktop documentary, Lo disrupts the conventional dichotomies – real vs. simulacral, fiction vs. fantasy – to visually articulate the “downfall of mankind” narrative. Following Kevin B. Lee’s dictum that desktop cinema has cinematic aspirations but operates as a blank canvas, Lo’s screen performance is a captivating and multi-layered visual experience. Crucifixion and Epiphany is a creative (re)mix of multiple sources, a hybrid of machinima, desktop cinema, and archival footage. A study in media res, this work is the outcome of an experimental practice that resembles the vernacular obsession for narrativizing the so-called lore of popular fantasy video games on YouTube and Twitch.
Edwin Lo is an artist and researcher working with sound in various contexts and media such as performance, text, recording, video, installation and video games. Lo received a Master of Arts from the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. His work was exhibited in several countries, including Hong Kong, United States, Berlin, Tokyo, Shenzhen, Paris, Brazil, Switzerland, Sweden, and Shanghai. His work was presented by the Goethe-Institut and Para/site in Hong Kong, the Tokyo Arts and Space, the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago, Loop in Barcelona and Meinblau Projektraum in Berlin. His artist residencies include China, Germany, Japan. Lo lives and works in Hong Kong.
