REASONABLE_3
digital video (1920 x 1080), sound, color, 3’ 33”, 2020 (United States/Italy)
Created by COLL.EO
VRAL
February 12 - February 25 2021
Introduced by Random Parts
Fiery. Flaming. Heated. In flames. Sizzling. Gleaming. Alight. Ignited. Automobile. Car. Wagon. Truck. Van. Law Enforcement. Siren. Horn. Warning. Brawl. Storm. Disturbance. Turbulence. Turmoil. Uproar. Commotion. Emergency. Scene. Shots. Scream. Screech. Howl. Wail.
COLL.EO is a collaboration between Colleen Flaherty and Matteo Bittanti established in 2012. COLL.EO currently operates in San Francisco and Milan. Californian artist Colleen Flaherty is known for her large scale abstract paintings and for her wood sculptures which engage the viewer on a physical - rather than purely visual - level. She received her M.F.A. in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2002 and her B.F.A. Cum Laude, with emphasis in Painting and Drawing, Minor in Music from San Jose State University in 1999. Flaherty' s works have been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Montevideo (Uruguay), and Pienza (Italy). Matteo Bittanti is an interdisciplinary artist based in San Francisco and Milan. His work lies at the intersection of gaming, cinema, and digital culture. Bittanti's conceptual pieces have been exhibited in the United States, Canada, England, Australia, Mexico, Scotland, France, and Italy. In 2012, he started COLL.EO with Colleen Flaherty.
FEATHERFALL
Digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 10’ 21”, 2019 (Austria)
Created by Total Refusal (Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf), 2019
Introduced by Matteo Bittanti
Originally conceived as a video installation, Featherfall is presented on VRAL as a single channel machinima. Adopting the format of the video essay, the project began as an investigation of the relationship between game playing and dreaming, a recurrent topic in video game forums. In their psychoanalytic examination sui generis, Austrian collective Total Refusal (Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf) suggest that games and dreams have much in common. Featherfall focuses on the archetypal nightmare of falling, which in video games is often exacerbated by a recurring programming error otherwise known as a glitch which causes the player’s alter ego to suddenly disappear beneath the surface, plummeting into a void. This weird phenomenon is known to persist in the players’ subconscious and to resurface in their dreams, like a curse.
Total Refusal is Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, and Michael Stumpf. In their practice, they critically analyze and appropriate digital game spaces and recontextualize them. Moving within games but ignoring the intended gameplay, Total Refusal allocates these resources to new activities and narratives, in order to create “public” spaces imbued with critical, even subversive potential. Leonhard Müllner works as an artist in the public and digital space and is currently writing his doctoral thesis at the Linz Art University at the Institute for Art and Cultural Studies. Robin Klengel works in Graz and Vienna as an interdisciplinary artist, illustrator, cultural anthropologist and vice president of the Forum Stadtpark. Michael Stumpf studied philosophy at the University of Vienna and now is an artist, designer and cultural theorist.
MER ROSE CLAIRE
Digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 17’ 39”, 2020 (France)
Created by Isabelle Arvers, 2020
Introduced by Gemma Fantacci
Mer Rose Claire is part of Arvers’ ongoing abstract machinima series La Mer (2016-) which depicts shapes and abstract landscapes created by the Moviestorm game engine. Evocative of peaceful marine scenes, these videos produce an hypnotic effect on the viewer as abstract patterns, their folding and unfolding, become a generative matrix of what Georges Perec called species of spaces. This mesmerizing, rhythmic movement alters the viewer’s perceptions.
Isabelle Arvers is a French artist and curator whose research focuses on the interaction between art and video games. For the past twenty years, she has been investigating the artistic, ethical, and critical implications of digital gaming. Her work explores the creative potential of hacking video games through the practice of machinima. As a curator, she focuses on video games as a new language and as an expressive medium for artists. She curated several shows and festivals around the world, including Machinima in Mash Up (Vancouver Art Gallery, 2016), UCLA Gamelab Festival (Hammer Museum, Los Angeles 2015, 2017), Evolution of Gaming (Vancouver, 2014), Game Heroes (Alcazar, Marseille, 2011), Playing Real (Gamerz, 2007), Mind Control (Banana RAM Ancona, Italy, 2004), and Node Runner (Paris, 2004). In 2019, she embarked on an art and games world tour in non western countries to promote the notion of diversity of gender, sexuality and geographic origin, focusing on queer, feminist, and decolonial practices.
ZO
Digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 7’ 21”, 2017 (United Kingdom)
Created by Bob Bicknell-Knight, 2017
December 31 2020 - January 14 2020
Introduced by Matteo Bittanti
An artist and an internet bot called Zo converse on the fictional social media app Kik. Their exchange is punctuated by short sequences of high-tech environments mostly devoid of human life taken from the Mass Effect video game series. The conversation, which focuses on artificial intelligence and the difference between being a robot and a human being, is reminiscent of a famous scene from the original Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner.
Bob Bicknell-Knight is is a London based artist, curator and writer, working in several mediums including installation, sculpture, video, and digital media. His work is influenced by surveillance capitalism and responds to the hyper consumerism of the internet. Utopia, dystopia, automation, surveillance and digitization of the self are some of the themes that arise through his critical examination of contemporary technologies. Recently, he’s been undergoing a number of projects, from researching how drone technology is slowly re-shaping humanity to depicting tech billionaires as trophy hunters, alongside creating a body of work concerning the multinational technology company, Amazon, and its treatment of its employees within Amazon Fulfillment Centers around the world. Bicknell-Knight is also the founder and director of isthisit?, a platform for contemporary art, exhibiting over 800 artists since its creation in May 2016. Selected solo and duo exhibitions include Eat The Rich at Galerie Polaris, FR (2021), Pickers at INDUSTRA, Brno, CZ (2021), Bit Rot at Broadway Gallery, Letchworth, United Kingdom (2020), The Big Four at Harlesden High Street, London (2019), Wellness, Ltd. at Galerie Manque, New York (2019), State of Affairs at Salon 75, Copenhagen (2019), CACOTOPIA 02 at Annka Kultys Gallery, London (2018), Sunrise Prelude at Dollspace, London (2017) and Are we there yet? at Chelsea College of Art, London (2017). Bicknell-Knight has spoken on panel discussions and given artist talks at Contemporary Calgary, Canada, Tate Modern, London, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Camberwell College of Arts, London and Goldsmiths, University of London among others.
MY OWN LANDSCAPES
Digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 18', 2020 (France)
Created by Antoine Chapon, 2020
December 11 - December 24 2020
Introduced by Luca Miranda
Warfare is being gamified. The American army has been recruiting soldiers through video games since the early zeroes: America’s Army is, after all, the title of a popular video game. Recruits are trained with digital simulations and use game-like controllers to launch countless attack strikes via drones in remote lands: systemic murder by proxy. Even soldiers fighting on actual battlefields cannot escape the video game curse: those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder are subsequently treated with digital simulations. But in My Own Landscapes, Chapon tells a different story: Cyrille creates and inhabits a virtual island, an utopian landscape where the soldier and his peers can escape reality, find illusory solace, and create a different identity: in fact, his experience is narrated by a female voice over. However, several paradoxes remain.
Antoine Chapon is a French artist and filmmaker based in Paris. He studied fine art, philosophy and social studies. In 2019, he learned literary Arabic at the Saint-Joseph University in Beirut. His work questions the relationship between fact and fiction, the role of the archive, and new technologies in documentary, and the possibility of making new forms in the age of digital reproduction. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including Open Codes: The World as a Field of Data at the ZKM, Karlsruhe Museum. His first film My Own Landscapes (2020) won the award for best short film at the Visions du Réel Festival in Nyon, and the award for best short documentary film at the Norwegian Short Film Festival. It was also presented at the 2020 Torino Film Festival.
