CLINT ENNS: "I AM OBSESSED WITH RE-MAKING ANDY WARHOL'S EMPIRE"

In this interview, Canadian artist Clint Enns reveals his passion, perhaps even obsession, for Andy Warhol's Empire, obsolete media, and video art.

Clint Enns is a video artist and filmmaker living in Toronto, Ontario. His work primarily deals with moving images created with broken and/or outdated technologies. His work has shown both nationally and internationally at festivals, alternative spaces and microcinemas. He has a Master’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Manitoba, and has recently received a Master’s degree in Cinema and Media from York University where he is currently pursuing a PhD. His contributions have appeared in Leonardo, Millennium Film Journal, Incite! Journal of Experimental Media and Spectacular Optical.

Enns's PREPARE TO QUALIFY is featured in TRAVELOGUE.

Matteo Bittanti: What can you share about your artistic background? I find very interesting that you have received Master’s Degree in Mathematics. Is your practice as an electronic artist and experimental filmmaker a way of articulating an overlooked side of science, perhaps its unconscious? How does the study of numbers, equations, and formulas influence or even guide your work?

Clint Enns: I began making art when I began my Master's Degree.  It was really an attempt to do something other than mathematics.  I had no idea that it was possible to make art before that.  My best friend and girlfriend at the time, animator Leslie Supnet, pushed me into making my first film. It was SUPER FUN and not very good, but I was hooked.  Before that I was a cinephile, but it never occurred to me that I could make something...that is, that it was as easy as putting film in a super 8 camera and pushing the trigger.     

While doing my Master's, I began to teach a course called Math in Art. Teaching the course forced me to engage with contemporary art practices and with art history.  Currently, I am pursuing a PhD at York University and I am studying the connection between mathematics and cinema. With that, I try to keep my studies separate from my art practice, although I am sure they inform each other. I still view art making as a form of escape.  If art making stopped being fun or cathartic, I would probably do something else.  In fact, when I first moved to Toronto, I kept being told that I do not take my moving image practice seriously enough or that I wasn't rigorous enough. At the time, it really killed my desire to make moving images, so I started taking photographs and working with found photography. It was really freeing, I didn't have to answer to anybody.  Now, I do both.  

Clint Enns, 747, 2010

"Chris Burden's 747 re-performed in Grand Theft Auto IV." (Clint Enns)

Matteo Bittanti: Within the field of Game Studies, machinima is usually associated to online fandom, hacking, and modding practices. In other words, machinima is firmly located within the context of game culture. For other critics, machinima constitutes a kind of experimental filmmaking, and, as such, it’s something that should be projected onto a screen, in a dark room, and experienced collectively, offline, possibly in a festival setting. Finally, others consider machinima a genre of video art which is often displayed as a video installation in a White Cube space. You are a prolific writer, an accomplished artist, and an indefatigable curator: What is your personal take on machinima? Can these different notions of machinima coexist and/or inform each other or are they mutually exclusive? Do you use the term “machinima” or do you find it too limiting, as in too video game-centric?

Clint Enns: I don't have much investment in the term machinima, but why shouldn't it exist in multiple contexts? I am personally interested in works that experiment with video games as a medium and in works that treat video games as a form of found footage. It could be argued that Craig Baldwin's 16mm film Wild Gunman from 1978 is one of the earliest examples of machinima (he uses footage from the 1974 game Wild Gunman which made use of a light gun and a 16mm projection). I think you could also argue that Stephanie Barber's 2005 total power: dead dead dead, a 16mm film in which an arcade game, a snack machine and a television engage in a dialogue, is a form of machinima. However, I doubt either of these works are included in the Machinima Archive.

Clint Enns, Gameboy Empire, 2011

"A re-make of Andy Warhol's Empire for Gameboy. This video was captured on a Super Gameboy, although this game is intended to be viewed on an original Gameboy. If you are interested in the source code or the Gameboy rom, both are available upon request." (Clint Enns)

Matteo Bittanti: What do you find so intriguing about obsolete, archaic, and “broken” media? Is your practice a form of media archeology? Are you documenting forgotten technologies, like the Nintendo Gameboy Camera, Super 8, kids' toy cameras etc., through art? After all, you do not simply use found footage, but also problematize issues like media formats, devices, and techniques.

Clint Enns: An academic might read my practice through a media archaeological lens, but I am simply fascinated by old technologies and by cameras that were designed to be easy to use. Ironically, as the equipment gets older it becomes more unstable and more difficult to use, but I like the challenge as well.  I also like that these devices come with their own unique aesthetics and as they breakdown produce errors that are difficult to simulate. Although, I am sure I would use a PXL 2000 simulator if a good one existed.    

I really feel that art making should be accessible to everyone with a desire to create. Of course, I am not saying all art that is made is good, but that is not necessary the point. To me, art making is form of play, hence my interest in toy cameras.

Clint Enns, Rotterdam Tower, 2010

"Liberty City's Rotterdam Tower is based on New York City's Empire State Building. This video is a continuous fourteen minute and twenty-seven second slow motion shot of The Rotterdam Tower in Liberty City. This video was filmed at night between the hours of 8:06 pm and 2:42 am Liberty City time. It is the artists' intent that this video is watched in its entirety." (Clint Enns)

Matteo Bittanti: Can you name  some influences in your film and video making? I can see several homages and citations, for example Chris Burden for 747 and Andy Warhol (or Philip Solomon? this one is very meta) for Rotterdam Tower... Is your practice a way to engage in a conversation with the visualscape as a whole?

Clint Enns: I am obsessed with re-making Andy Warhol's Empire and I find it exciting that others are too.  I would love it if someone curated an Empire show (Empire Redux) filled with Empire re-makes.  An unwatchable film, re-made ad absurdum. My favorite re-make is Gameboy Empire, a Gameboy game for the true Warhol enthusiast.  You hit start and see the Empire State Building. Nothing else happens (minus the odd light turning on or off).

Phil and I made our Grand Theft Auto IV remakes around the same time.  His was made slightly before mine and is more beautiful; however, mine is more conceptually rigorous.  I was totally unaware of Phil's version, but I wish mine had been a re-make of Phil's video!!!  In fact, the next time I discuss the work, I am going to claim it is... better mythology.  Mine was intended as a shot-for-shot re-make of Warhol's Empire, and was shot during the same hours that Warhol shot his film except time is super condensed in GTA IV.  I also slowed down the film, the same way Warhol did.  The final work was only 14 minutes, but it was my intent that people watch it in its entirety on the internet, making it totally unwatchable.  

I remade Chris Burden's 747 in GTA IV as well.  The gesture of shooting at an airplane changes in gamespace.  I also remade Burden's Through the Night Softly, as Softly Through the Night.  Instead of crawling through glass, I crawled through marshmallows. Ironically, it turns out I was allergic to one of the dyes in the marshmallows (we bought the cheap kind) and I got a near fatal rash and had to spend a few days in the hospital.

The re-make is one way to engage with a historical work through a contemporary lens.  I am basically just sweding the avant-garde.   

Matteo Bittanti: Prepare to Qualify seems to question the legitimization practices of the art world. To be recognized as ART, the driver (the artist) has to START and win a symbolic competition (the race). But the competition soon implodes, the car (artwork) breaks apart, and we are left with broken pixels and jarring sounds. Who is the driver? Howard Becker? Pierre Bourdieu? Clint Enns? Or someone else entirely... 

Clint Enns: I'm not sure at this point.  At one point I would claim that the work was self-reflective posing the question: Does breaking video games at the age of 28 constitute being an artist? Now I am even more confused about my own art making practice and its status.  If Howard Becker, Pierre Bourdieu or Guy Debord were at the wheel, the world around us would radically change and not simply the screen.    

Clint Enns, ♥++, 2012

"A video game that lies somewhere in the realm of text based rpg, digital exploration and guide to sexual enlightenment." (Clint Enns)

Matteo Bittanti: Game iconography and game technology recur in your work. What is your personal relationship to the medium of video games? Is it a vast archive of imagery that can be appropriated and reconfigured or more like a popular culture artifact that demands some kind of detournement? 

Clint Enns: You've got me, I am not a gamer. I see video games as both a vast archive of imagery that can be appropriated and reconfigured AND a popular culture artifact that demands to be detourned.  Given that video games are such an important part of popular culture, they demand to be read symptomatically.  I see them as a mirror to contemporary culture and as providing insight into the cultural subconscious.      

COLL.EO: "VIDEO GAMES ARE WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTION"

In this brief interview, COLL.EO, discuss their latest project, INTERVALLO, an update to a 1960s Italian TV show meant as a "warning sign" of things to come.

COLL.EO is a collaboration between Colleen Flaherty and Matteo Bittanti established in 2012. Active in both San Francisco and Milan, COLL.EO creates boldly unoriginal media artworks, uncreative mobile sculptures, and uniquely derivative conceptual pieces. COLL.EO's work has been exhibited in the United States, Canada, France, Cuba, Mexico, and Italy. 

Their project INTERVALLO is currently featured in TRAVELOGUE.

The interview was produced by RANDOM PARTS, an artist run collective located in Oakland, California. 

COLL.EO, Postcards from Italy, mixed media, 2016, colleo.org

Random Parts: INTERVALLO is the third in a series of projects developed with Forza Horizon II after The Fregoli Delusions and Postcards from Italy. Is INTERVALLO the last episode of a trilogy? Is your détournement of Microsoft's racing game now complete? 

COLL.EO: No.

COLL.EO The Fregoli Delusions - Chapter V machinima, color, sound, 2016, 37' 16" colleo.org

RANDOM PARTS: According to your statement, INTERVALLO pays homage a TV program - or rather, interlude - titled Intervallo which is basically unknown outside of Italy. What was this televised interlude about, and why did you decide to appropriate its format and subvert its message with video game imagery?

COLL.EO: The original Intervallo was an interstitial show produced by Italy's national public broadcasting company, Radio Televisione Italiana (RAI), between the 1960s and 1970s. Its "official" function was to fill the gaps between scheduled programming or during unexpected interruptions of live broadcasting and missing satellite feeds. Intervallo was basically a photo slideshow accompanied by soothing classical music. So, what's so special about it? Well, the original Intervallo, shot in black and white, depicted flocks of sheep. You read that right: flocks of sheep. You don't need to read between the lines to figure out that the National Broadcaster was telling its audience that they were a bunch of sheep, that is, "Someone who mindlessly follows and emulates anything and everything in the name of fame/recognition. A waste of flesh and brain cells." (Urban Dictionary) A televised lullaby, Intervallo's real message was: "Viewers, you are a bunch of morons. Look at you, glued to the screen, happy to be brainwashed by demented advertising, idiotic talk shows, celebrity crap, and political propaganda." A decade later, Berlusconi used his media empire - and especially his television networks - to take full control of Italy, as Erik Gandini has cogently illustrated in his 2009 documentary Videocracy. In a sense, Intervallo was a warning sign of things to come that nobody read. We updated Intervallo using imagery from a contemporary racing game set in an idealized, "postcard Italy", promising pristine vistas, economic empowerment, and fame through motorized bliss. And players of Forza Horizon II dutifully oblige: they collect supercars, dream of endless material wealth in a world where air pollution, accidents, and peak oil do not seem to exist, and drive around without really going anywhere. Like TV, video games are weapons of mass distraction: they promise agency and autonomy, but all they produce, in reality, is acquiescent, passive users. And that's what makes them terribly interesting. Video games are meant to be exploited and subverted. 

RANDOM PARTS: How did you find the screenshots of each slideshow?

COLL.EO: We collected the images by downloading them one by one from the online community hub of Forza Horizon II. We picked each image instead of downloading them in a batch, automatically. That was part of the process. As you can imagine, that took some time. We collected hundreds, if not thousands of screenshots, and then identified recurrent themes - e.g., glitches, bugs, ghosts, and so on. We edited them, adding the original soundtrack from RAI's Intervallo. There's a visual narrative unfolding in each of the four episodes we've released so far. It's up to the viewers to decode the meaning of each video. They can watch INTERVALLO while the game console loads the new game.

DAVE BALL: "THE MOST BORING GAME IN THE WORLD"

In this interview, British artist Dave Ball discusses the uses and abuses of absurdity in art and how he fell in love with the most boring video game ever.

Dave Ball (b. 1978, UK) is an artist based in Berlin and Wales; educated at Goldsmiths College, London (MA), and University of Derby (BA), and currently researching the use of absurd strategies in art practice at Winchester School of Art (PhD). He is represented by Galerie Art Claims Impulse, Berlin. Exhibitions include Searching for the Welsh Landscape (solo), Aberystwyth Arts Centre, 2016; Travelling/Reisen, Projektraum Group Global 3000, Berlin, 2016; Polyphonies, Optica, Montreal, 2015; Picaresque, Ha Gamle Prestegard, Stavanger, Norway, 2014; A to Z: From Aardvark to Axle (solo), Galerie Art Claims Impulse, Berlin, 2013; To Make the Improbable, Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, Canada, 2013; Be Our Guest, Oriel Davies, Wales, 2013; Stranded Travelers, Atelier 35, Bucharest, Romania, 2013; Making Mirrors, NGBK, Berlin, 2011; The Dump: Recycling of Thoughts, Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdansk, Poland, 2010; Field Broadcast, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire, 2010; Artsway Open 09, Artsway, Sway, Hampshire, UK; How to Live (solo), Galerie Art Claims Impulse, Berlin, 2008.

Ball's I'Ve Always Wanted to Drive Across America is featured in TRAVELOGUE.

Dave Ball, Artist Masterclass: How to Sharpen a Pencil, 2014; 3min HD video.

"Part of an ongoing series of instructional videos in which experienced British artist Dave Ball shares his expertise on a range of topics, including, in this case, how to sharpen a pencil." (Dave Ball)

Matteo Bittanti: In your practice, you use absurdity as a rhetorical tool. Interestingly, absurdity is a leitmotiv of several avant-garde movements - like Dada, Surrealism and Fluxus just to name a few - which challenged the so-called "common sense" of the bourgeoisie. Incidentally, Dada/Surrealism/Fluxus used games and play as a tactic, to borrow a term from Michel De Certeau. Are you operating within the same trajectory/tradition? Or are you more aligned to contemporary "pranksters" like Maurizio Cattelan who use humour and absurdity to expose the inner workings of the artworld and, perhaps, to sabotage it?

Dave Ball: This is actually the subject of my PhD research. The way I'm thinking about it at the moment is that there are certain structures of meaning in existence, and when absurdity is used strategically, it is a refusal of those structures. So in a sense absurdity is “meaningless” according to conventional ways of thinking, or rather, it operates in the space between meaningfulness and meaninglessness. For me, artworks are only interesting when they have some relationship to the real world, so what I try to do in my work is approach a topic (often quite a “serious” topic) and use absurdity as a tool to sidestep already-existing ways of thinking about that topic. Absurdity is both accessible and challenging at the same time: accessible in the sense that its novelty and humour is very easy to enjoy, but challenging in the sense that there are no straightforward ways of accounting for exactly what the work is doing. Any kind of interpretation of the “meaning” of the work is speculative, precisely because it operates outside of conventional structures of meaning. Dada certainly did something similar, but it arose in a very specific historical moment (when faith in human rationality was collapsing, triggered by the onset of war). I think a lot of neo-Dada work is boring because it lacks any real relationship with its own historical moment. Nevertheless, the subversive “tools” of Dada are very useful in tackling contemporary issues, and artists like Francis Alÿs or Pilvi Takala use them as a fascinating way of exploring social and political structures of meaning.

Dave Ball, I Think That's Best for Both of Us (Lance and Oprah), 2016; 8 min video with found footage from television interview between former Tour de France-winning cyclist Lance Armstrong and presenter Oprah Winfrey, first broadcast in Jan 2013 by OWN.

"The video is comprised solely of the moments of silence, contentless language and non-verbal gestures broadcast during the original interview." (Dave Ball)

Matteo Bittanti: Marshall McLuhan used jokes as “probes”, that is, as devices to heighten awareness about the underlying or implicit meanings of an apparently simple situation. For the Canadian thinker, probes operate as epistemological instruments. He wrote: "The new kind of joke is a gestalt or configuration in the style of set theory." (Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Me: Lectures and Interviews, 2003, p. 45). He added that "A  joke really requires a hidden ground of grievance, for which the joke is only a figure sitting out front.” (p. 278). Like McLuhan, many thinkers are mainly remembered for their jokes rather than their theories (Slavoj Zizek comes to mind...). Your practice is imbued with a peculiar sense of humour. Why did you specifically decide to use laughter as a tactic? To mask "a hidden ground of grievance", maybe?

Dave Ball: There's often a moment when you encounter an artwork that really impresses you, when your response is quite similar to hearing a funny joke: you sort of laugh in wonder at it. There's a kind of “jolt” to your thinking that takes place. It's that moment when you realise that something (the logic of the artwork) that seems on the surface to be absurd, actually makes just as much “sense” as a more conventional idea. I used to talk a lot about wanting my work to cause “minor ruptures” - I don't make shockingly transgressive work, but I do nevertheless try to destabilise something in the world by configuring it differently. This, perhaps, is what accounts for the peculiar humour in my work. To put it in McLuhan's terms, my hidden ground of grievance might be the predictability and conservatism of the world: that so much of our everyday lives is ordered and motivated by structures of meaning that strike me as arbitrary, without value, boring, even destructive. Plus, of course, humour is fun, and there's really not enough fun in the world.

Dave Ball, I'Ve Always Wanted to Drive Across America, 2016; (video documentation of) installation with playable Desert Bus video game, accompanied by spoken-word soundtrack in which the artist describes from memory every overseas trip he has ever made. Known as the most boring video game ever developed, Desert Bus (1994) is a cult driving simulator in which the aim is to drive along an entirely straight road from Las Vegas to Tucson in real time. Nothing ever happens, and there is nothing to see during the 8-hour journey – just an endless pixellated desert. The reward for completing the journey is 1 point. The audio begins with the artist talking about his first childhood holidays abroad, focussing in particular on endless journeys by ferry, plane, and car. Moments of disappointment, boredom or confusion experienced during the trips are described in great detail, while the conventional attractiveness of the destinations is barely mentioned. As they move into adulthood the trips become more and more repetitive, and, aside from a series of unfortunate mishaps, increasingly difficult to remember. Desert Bus was originally developed by Imagineering for the Sega CD console, but was never released. A scratch written Java applet version was recreated for the Desert Bus for Hope charity event in 2007. Thanks to Lance Burns for modifying the applet for this installation." (Dave Ball)

Matteo Bittanti: What is your personal relationship to video games? Did you play games growing up at all? Did you specifically decide to incorporate Desert Bus in your piece because generally games are dismissed as "trivial" in the Art World, save for a few exceptions - Cory Arcangel, Miltos Manetas, Jon Rafman come to mind - or did you pick this particular game because of its status as "most boring game ever made?" If so, how did you encounter it?

Dave Ball: I played video games a lot as a child, and then, aged about 15 or 16, I took a sudden and quite conscious decision to stop, and haven't really played them since. I think I was worried that I was wasting away too much time, when I should have been studying or socialising or whatever. Computer games at that time seemed to me to represent something quite unsociable, which I wanted to avoid. I do, however, have some very vivid memories of crowding around an arcade machine at lunch time with a group of school friends, each of us taking turns to play Cloud Master, which was sociable and fun. But in general, no, I don't really have any specific interest in video games; I was simply struck by the absurdity of the Desert Bus game, which seemed to subvert everything you expect about a video game.

Matteo Bittanti: Can you discuss the creative process behind I've Always Wanted to Drive Across America? What came first, the idea (boredom) or the medium (e.g. Desert Bus, the voice over narration etc.)?

Dave Ball: The work was actually developed in response to an exhibition about travel. The premise of that show was about questioning our motivation to travel, given its environmental and social impact. And I'd just been reading about Desert Bus, and thinking about how I could use it (I'd made work before about boredom, and wanted to explore that further). So I started drawing parallels between the subversiveness of the game, and how our lived experience of travel is itself subversive. A lot of my work explores the discrepancies between “proper” experiences (of travel – the enjoyment of new places, the relaxation, the pleasure of companionship), and actual lived experiences (boredom, arguments, tiredness, getting lost). So I suppose I saw the game as a metaphor for an “improper” experience. The narration too, attempts to describe the improper experience of travel. As a child you perhaps haven't yet learnt what proper holiday experience ought to be, so you just fall back on your own experience, which is naturally a mixture of negativity and positivity. The overall effect of the work, therefore, is intended to be one of ambivalence: playing the game and listening to the soundtrack, you recognise that there's something interesting going on, but it has nothing to do with the conventional idea of what's interesting about playing video games, or about travelling. You are, so to speak, playing the game of real-life travel – but it's not exactly clear what the goal of that game is, or even if there is a goal.

LEONARDO SANG: THE ART OF THE VIRTUAL ROAD TRIP

In this interview, excerpted from a longer conversation that will be featured in the TRAVELOGUE catalogue, Brazilian artist and photographer Leonardo Sang describes his fascination for video game photography.

Leonardo Sang is a graphic designer and photographer based in São Paulo, Brazil. For the past five years, he has been working on Virtual Reality Photography (VRP), an ongoing photographic investigation on what separates digital worlds from the so-called "reality". By photographing videogame environments, Sang raises important questions about the legitimacy of this binary. His work has been presented in several international exhibitions, including FLAG.CX Agency in São Paulo and Porto Alegre (2013) and Squares Events #1 exhibition in Montpellier and Toulouse (2013).

Sang's Backseats in Video Games is featured in TRAVELOGUE.

Matteo Bittanti: What is VRP and how does it relate to "conventional" digital photography?

Leonardo Sang: VRP stands for "Virtual Reality Photography". In this project, I use video games as a platform for everyday photography. My goal is to show how photographic concepts and techniques can be applied to video games. The result is called game photography. All the pictures that I take are developed just like in "real world" photography: basic compositing, alignment, lines, geometry and the likes still apply. Sometimes the outcome is just a curious snapshot. I'm not interested in creating necessarily a "visually realistic" picture. I am simply trying to rethink photography through a different medium. I prefer a minimal composition scene to highly complex shots. I also try to create "moody" scenarios. Open world and sandbox games usually allow me to achieve that goal. Sometimes interesting images might appear at complete random moments, caused by situations that I do not control. I try to catch them, before they disappear. VRP was inspired by Robert Overweg, a Belgian artist who does terrific work with video games. His Shot by Robert project was especially inspiring.

Matteo Bittanti: The road trip is a staple of American photography. Several important practitioners - from Robert Frank to Stephen Shore, from Jacob Holdt to Alec Soth - have worked in this genre. When it comes to game photography, however, very few artists have used racing games. What prompted you to take screenshots from the back seat of virtual automobiles? What kind of games did you use? Can you describe your process?

Leonardo Sang:  It all started with a cutscene in Battlefield 3, where the protagonist is in the back seat and the other characters are seated up front, talking and driving, getting ready to reach their objective. In that moment, I've found myself looking outside the car windows and completely ignoring the discussion. I was clueless when we arrived at the destination and frankly, I did not care much about the mission. The landscape is what interested me. Shooting and killing, not so much. Around that time I was obsessed by Project C.A.R.S., a very realistic looking racing game. I followed its development process and played the early demo builds. One of my favourite things to do in the game was to drive very slow, like I would do in a regular automobile, cruising the city. By doing that, I was able to translate the feeling of "real" driving on a road, alone, not caring about speeding, performance, or goals. I was just enjoying the experience of being there, in the game, looking around. To me, the journey inside the car is much more emotional than reaching the destination. To take a photo, I record my performance through the replay option. Basically, I document my previous driving session and I can use the file to experiment. The recording is a copy of my driving: I do not have to control the car any longer, I can become a full photographer and pick the best angle. I place the camera behind the driver, in the backseat, even if the car in the picture does not have backseats, emulating the experience of a road trip, sitting the middle, and observing the passing landscape in complete silence. I turn off the soundtrack. I just look. I have experimented with games like Project C.A.R.S. WRC 3, Dirt Rally, and Battlefield 3. Most of my photographs are in black & white because I think road trips should be shot in this palette.

Leonardo Sang, Route 66, 2014 (from Across the USA series).

Matteo Bittanti: You have developed several projects as a game-photographer. What are the main affinities and differences between digital photography (from DSLR cameras to smartphone) and your practice with video games? Do you regard virtual photography as a genre of photography or as a something else altogether, for instance, screengrabbing?

Leonardo Sang: The differences between video game photography and digital photography has more to do with form than content. At a conceptual level, these two practices are very similar. The main difference can be found at hardware level. A digital camera allows the photographer to control important details and variables like speed, focus, depth of focus, lenses, etc, which are essential to create a specific image, but in the end, the outcome is a digital files: a raw file, a jpeg, a tiff... Some video games today include features of modern DSLR cameras, not to mention sophisticated in-game photo editors, although they are not comparable to the power and flexibility of either a Canon Mark III or Photoshop. However, in video games, you get the freedom of movement, you can experiment, shoot from different angles and capture details that would be very hard, if not impossible, in the real world. Game photography allows you to do and see things that do not exist, surreal situations that only belong to the ludic world. My role as a photographer is to document these instances. In my opinion, video game photography is a new genre of photography and should be treated as such. 

Leonardo Sang, Backseats in Video Games, 2015

Matteo Bittanti: What is your relationship with video games, and specifically racing games?

Leonardo Sang: Video games have been a constant presence in my life. I have been playing digital games since I was a kid. I have always been amazed that such amazing worlds could exist on the screen, worlds made of pixels and bright colors. These spaces are "real" and alive to me. I also love cars and I found myself naturally driven to racing games, no pun intended. Initially, the vast majority of racing games that I played featured "arcade" controls and physics, which was very cool at first, but it felt very odd to make a turn at 250 km/h in the rain and be perfectly fine. Eventually, I started playing more realistic games, simulation-like titles. They really show you that racing is not that simple and requires a lot of skill and effort. I found simulation games much more compelling and challenging than arcade games. 

Leonardo Sang, GTA V, 2015

Matteo Bittanti: Today, companies like nVidia are actively promoting the practice of game photography with their latest graphic cards, all in the name of "digital realism". In a sense, a fringe practice is becoming institutionalized and few genres are becoming dominant. Something similar happened to machinima in the early Zeroes. Do you think that hyper-realism will become the de facto standard of game photography or do you think that artists will push for more experimental, abstract styles?

Leonardo Sang: I have already seen people focusing on hyper-realism. They go for ultra-detailed graphics in their game photography practice. In fact, there is a huge, dedicated community of "hyper-realist game photographers" on the net. Their approach is very specific and their criterion for quality could not be clearer. But there are all sorts of game photographic styles nowadays. I think that the new tools and technologies that manufactures are providing will benefit all the communities, not just the photographers obsessed with realism. The more resources are available, the more experimental projects can - and will - become. 

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ISABELLE ARVERS: "MACHINIMA IS IDEAL FOR DÉTOURNEMENT"

la traduzione italiana è sotto

In this interview, excerpted from a longer conversation that will be featured in the TRAVELOGUE catalogue, art critic, curator, and machinimaker Isabelle Arvers explains why machinima is the ultimate form of détournement.

Isabelle Arvers will participate in a panel titled CRASH: GAME AESTHETICS AND CONTEMPORARY ART on Sunday September 11, 2016 at 11:30 with Valentina Tanni. Click here for more information. Click here to read an interview with Tanni.

Matteo Bittanti: How would you describe the difference between video games and game videos, that is, machinima and video works created with digital games to somebody who is unfamiliar with these cultural artifacts? And what do you find so fascinating about machinima, both aesthetically and conceptually?

Isabelle Arvers: The main difference is interactivity, which is not a feature of machinima, unless you create an interactive machinima experience through an installation or performance. In order to produce a machinima one must use video game technology and play a video game, but the outcome is a linear movie, film, or video. That final product - i.e. the video - can be used as raw material to create something else that could become interactive or not. Most of the times, machinima is non-interactive. So interactivity is a key factor. But there is more...

Once, during a machinima workshop, a student of mine told me something interesting. He said that the main difference between machinima and video games is that with a machinima you can always decide what would happen next, unlike video games where it is “always the same”. I asked what he meant and he said: "After you play the game several times, you know exactly what is going to happen, over and over, and you have almost no control. You just go through the motions, pressing the buttons at the right time". It sounded counterintuitive at first, but I think he was onto something profound. Basically, what he meant is: games are repetitive, machinima is creative. 

Another difference lies in the artist's intentions. A gamer and an artist have very different agendas. Playing requires specific skills like coordination and responsiveness. But a gamer basically reacts to predefined inputs. An artist is a true creator, a producer, a so-called prosumer, that is, a producer-consumer. When you make a machinima, you play the role of the content producer: you can express an original idea and use different tools to communicate your message. In other words, you are very active when you produce a non-interactive film. You become a creator rather than a user. A user is a consumer of an “interactive” experience designed by someone else.

Douglas Gayeton, Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator: A Second Life Odyssey, 2007. 

I think that this is the ultimate message of Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator: A Second Life Odyssey, Douglas Gayeton’s machinima documentary filmed in Second Life. In the film, the protagonist is searching for the creator of the virtual world. On his way to enlightenment, he meets several characters. Finally, he discovers that the creators is all of us. The sad part is that we do not get any Intellectual Property benefits from the work we produce: all the rights are owned by the game publishing companies.

In addition to the fact that machinima is a form of reverse-engineering of a video game - to make a machinima is to deconstruct a game and to reconstruct it in a different form - what fascinates me most is the idea of détournement. This situationist technique is about appropriating, reconfiguring, and subverting an existing artifact. To create a machinima is to do something unexpected, something that was not supposed to happen. It’s about transforming an object into something else. To make a machinima is to actively and creatively use a virtual space belonging to popular culture to express different ideas and to deliver an alternative message, because the creator is actively adding a new layer of content onto familiar images. The Situationists used to détourn movies because back in the Sixties cinema was a popular artform, and so, it was able to reach the masses. Today, video games have mass appeal and thus are an ideal medium for détournement. 

Matteo Bittanti: Do you consider machinima a genre of video art? Or is it closer to fandom? As a practice, is it confined to game culture? It is separated and/or segregated from the artworld as a whole?

Isabelle Arvers: Machinima can stimulate our minds and deliver different kinds of messages. It enhances our perception and forces us to critically distance ourselves from commercial video and computer games. There is a long tradition of incorporating and using toys and games to make art. Machinima is simply the latest iteration of a process that was pioneered by avant-garde movements like DaDa and Surrealism. Both saw entertainment and play as the most subversive form of art. For them, play was a critical tool.

Video games and Surrealism share many affinities. Consider, for instance, the phenomenon of game dreaming, that is, the tendency of visualizing video game sequences or puzzles while asleep. It is obvious that games influence our mind, perhaps on a subconscious level. To make a machinima is to rearrange the world of a video game, the characters’ behavior, the scenery or the objects. The machinimaker changes the color of the sky, modifies the speed of the animation, or alters the game’s variables. Just like any other artform, machinima influences the way we look at reality. Consider Oscar Wilde’s famous essay, “The Decay Of Lying – An Observation”. All the ideas he discussed in that piece are still valid today. In short, I don’t think that machinima is just an expression of game culture. It is not separated from the artworld and certainly not segregated.

When machinima is not exhibited online or in film festivals but in the context of an art exhibition, it is presented most of the time as video art. But machinima is more like a technique than a genre in itself. Often, when visitors see machinima in an art space and they are unfamiliar with games, they cannot recognize the “source”, that is, games. All they see is three dimensional images. They see computer graphics. But that does not undermine the value of the piece and it certainly does not compromise the viewers' understanding. Additionally, because machinima is still considered a new genre after twenty years of existence, it keeps experimenting and borrowing from the language of film and from non-narrative video art. Today, very few artworks are so influenced by game aesthetics that they cannot be appreciated by an audience unfamiliar with the intricacies of the gaming vernacular. But I also believe that machinima needs to diversity itself and interact with different disciplines in order to become something else, something more, for example, a space that can be inhabited, rather than images on a screen.

Cross By. An immersive exhibition for piano and machinima, June 2016, Aix-en-Provence, France. Isabelle Arvers is responsible for the machinima component of the performance. 

Matteo Bittanti: What role does machinima occupy in the current visual landscape? And how did it change overtime? 

Isabelle Arvers: I find the evolution of machinima very interesting. Machinima emerged exactly two decades ago within the so-called "hard core" game scene. For several years, it only circulated online. Subsequently, it started to be featured in dedicated festivals and in special programs of major film retrospectives. After 2006, machinima transcended the game culture scene and became a recurrent presence both within the film sphere and the Artworld.

In 2011, I curated a survey show within a larger digital art exhibition and approximately 60% of the artists involved were not gamers at all, but called themselves "film directors". For them, machinima was simply an accessible, inexpensive way to make 3D movies and to express themselves in cinematic terms. In other words, they were making "digital movies". Meanwhile, machinima was mostly ignored by the artworld until 2010, but it became a thing with the rise of the post-internet movement that considered games as contemporary artifacts worthy of critical examination.

In the post-internet scenario, machinima began to inhabit the artworld: it was not an unwelcome guest any longer. It became a staple in biennales and exhibitions. A handful of art galleries now regularly represent artists who make machinima and artworks influenced by 3D graphics, computer animation, and the web. It all began with Miltos Manetas, but artists like Cory Arcangel, Jon Rafman, Larry Achiampong and David Blandy have really blurred the lines between games, machinima, and contemporary art. Interestingly, when machinima entered the artworld, it lost its political edge and became pure aesthetics. Nowadays, young artists use games images, websites or animation as a raw material to produce installations, paintings or video works.

I am happy to say that thanks to the machinima workshops I gave in both Fine Arts and Game Design schools in France, several students who never thought about using machinima to make art have incorporated this techniques in their work. This is particularly exciting because several different contexts - technology, art, cinema, gaming - are now talking to each other in novel ways. I think machinima has now become part of a broader visual landscape than the avant-garde or the so-called underground of the Nineties. Machinima is also related to mash-up culture because of its hybrid nature. It is a mix of collage and reappropriation—indeed the concept itself is a mashup, as it conflates cinema and video games. So, besides the post-internet movement, machinima now belongs to a wider visualscape that includes the DJ and the VJ scene, video clips, remix, and more. Machinima is part of a mix of disciplines, cultures, and practices that, hopefully, will give rise to interesting, not-yet-identified cultural objects.

ISABELLE ARVERS (b. 1972) is a French media art curator, critic and author, specializing in video and computer games, web animation, digital cinema, retrogaming, chiptune music, and machinima. She curated several exhibitions in France and internationally on the relationship between art, video games, and politics including the seminal Gizmoland the Video Cuts (Centre Pompidou, 2001), the Gaming Room at PLAYTIME(Villette Numérique, Paris, 2002), Tour of the Web (Centre Pompidou, 2003), featuring Vuk Cosic and Miltos Manetas among others, Digital Salon. Games and Cinema (Maison Populaire, Montreuil, 2011), GAME HEROES(Alcazar, Marseille, 2011) and several editions of GAMERZ (Aix-en-Provence, France). She also promotes free and open source culture as well as indie games and art games. A graduate of the Institute of Political Studies in Aix-en-Provence and a Postgraduate Diploma in Cultural Project Management of the Paris 8 University, Isabelle Arvers has been researching and working with new media since 1993. A prolific writer, her critical essays have been included in several catalogs, anthologies, and books. Arvers lives and works in Marseille.

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Isabelle Arvers parteciperà all'incontro CRASH: ESTETICHE VIDEOLUDICHE E ARTE CONTEMPORANEA che si terrà domenica 11 settembre alle ore 11:30 insieme a Valentina Tanni. Cliccate qui per ulteriori informazioni. Clicca qui per leggere un'intervista con Tanni.
 

Matteo Bittanti: Come spiegheresti la differenza tra video giochi e giochi video, ossia machinima e altre produzioni audiovisive create con i video game, a chi non possiede grande dimestichezza con questi artefatti culturali? Inoltre, cosa ti affascina in particolare del machinima, sia a livello estetico che concettuale?

Isabelle Arvers: La differenza essenziale è l'interattività, che non è una caratteristica del machinima, a meno che un autore decida di produrre un machinima interattivo attraverso un'installazione o una performance. Anche se un creatore che vuole produrre un machinima deve usare la tecnologia del videogioco nonché "giocare" per effettuare delle riprese, il risultato è un'opera lineare, che si tratti di un filmato, di un corto o lungometraggio. Certo, il video risultante può essere usato come materiale grezzo per creare qualcos'altro, ma nella stragrande maggioranza dei casi, il machinima non è interattivo. Quindi l'interattività rappresenta un importante fattore discriminante. Ma c'è di più...

Una volta, durante un workshop machinima che avevo organizzato in una scuola parigina, un mio studente ha detto una cosa che mi ha colpito molto. Ha dichiarato che la differenza tra il machinima e il videogioco è che in un machinima è possibile "decidere quello che succederà dopo", mentre in un videogioco "è sempre la stessa cosa". Ho chiesto delucidazioni e mi ha risposto: "Dopo aver giocato a un videogioco diverse volte, sai esattamente cosa succederà, le cose si ripetono in modo sempre identico, il giocatore ha un controllo limitato. Si tratta semplicemente di ripetere una sequenza, di premere i pulsanti al momento giusto e poco altro." Anche se all'inizio può suonare bizzarro, le sue affermazioni rivelano una profonda comprensione del potenziale - ma anche dei limiti - del videogioco. In breve: mentre i videogiochi sono ripetitivi, il machinima è creativo. 

Un altro importante fattore discriminante riguarda le intenzioni dell'artista. Un giocatore e un artista hanno obiettivi differenti. Il videogiocare richiede abilità particolari come la coordinazione occhio-mano e la capacità di rispondere rapidamente agli stimoli audiovisivi. Ma un giocatore riflette a sollecitazioni predefinite. Per converso, l'artista è un vero creatore, un produttore, un cosiddetto prosumer, contrazione di producer-consumer. Creando un machinima, interpretiamo il ruolo del produttore di contenuti: possiamo esprimere un'idea originale, usando differenti strumenti. In altre parole, siamo davvero "attivi" quando produciamo un film non-interattivo. Siamo "creatori" anzichè "utenti". Un utente è un consumatore di un'esperienza "interattiva" progettata da qualcun altro. 

Douglas Gayeton, Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator: A Second Life Odyssey, 2007

Questo è il messaggio profondo di Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator: A Second Life Odyssey, il machinima doc del regista americano Douglas Gayeton girato in Second Life. Nel suo film, il protagonista è alla ricerca del creatore del mondo virtuale. Lungo il cammino, incontra numerosi personaggi. Alla fine, scopre che il creatore, in realtà, siamo noi. Sfortunatamente, non beneficiamo di alcun vantaggio economico: l'azienda che ha "prodotto" il gioco detiene tutti i diritti. Una beffa.

Oltre ad essere una forma di reverse-engineering di un videogioco - produrre un machinima significa decostruire un videogioco e ricostruirlo in forma differente - ciò che mi affascina di più del machinima è la nozione di détournement. Questa tecnica situazionista consiste nell'appropriarsi, riconfigurare e sovvertire un artefatto esistente. Creare un machinima significa fare qualcosa che non si dovrebbe fare: si tratta di trasformare un oggetto in qualcosa di differente. Produrre un machinima significa usare in modo attivo e creativo uno spazio virtuale che appartiene alla pop culture per esprimere idee alternative, differenti, dato che il creatore aggiunge dei significati assenti nell'opera originale. I Situazionisti utilizzavano la tecnica del détournement per il cinema perché si trattava di una forma popolare di intrattenimento e, come tale, era in grado di raggiungere le masse. Oggi sono i videogiochi ad avere un appeal popolare e per tanto sono il medium ideale per il détournement. 

Matteo Bittanti: Consideri il machinima un genere di videoarte? Oppure è un'espressione del fandom videoludico? Si tratta di una pratica limitata alla cultura del videogioco, separata/segregata dal Mondo dell'Arte, ivi inteso in senso beckeriano?

Isabelle Arvers: Il machinima può stimolare le nostre menti e veicolare differenti messaggi. Ridefinisce le nostre capacità percettive e ci costringe a prendere le distanze dai videogiochi commerciali. C'è una lunga tradizione nella storia dell'arte che prevede l'incorporazione di giocattoli e pratiche ludiche all'interno dei processi artistici. Il machinima è semplicemente l'ultima iterazione di un processo che ha tra i suoi pionieri movimenti d'avanguardia come il DaDa e il Surrealismo. Per entrambi questi movimenti, l'intrattenimento e il gioco erano le forme d'arte più sovversive. Per loro, il gesto ludico poteva diventare un potente strumento critico.  

I videogiochi e il Surrealismo presentano più affinità di quanto si possa credere. Si pensi, per esempio, al fenomeno dei sogni videoludici, ovvero la tendenza a visualizzare sequenze di un videogioco o la risoluzione di un rompicapo particolarmente difficile durante il sonno... Non ci sono dubbi che i videogiochi influenzano la nostre psiche, forse a livello inconscio. Produrre un machinima significa riconfigurare il mondo di un videogioco, il comportamento dei personaggi che lo abitano, le caratteristiche di uno scenario o degli oggetti ivi contenuti. Il creatore di machinima cambia il colore del cielo, modifica la velocità di animazione o altera le variabili di gioco. Come qualsiasi altra forma d'arte, il machinima influenza il modo in cui percepiamo la realtà. Si consideri il celebre saggio di Oscar Wilde, "Decadenza della menzogna”: tutte le idee che lo scritto ha espresso allora sono ancora valide. Non credo che il machinima sia una mera espressione della cultura videoludica. Non è separato dal Mondo dell'Arte e certamente non segregato.

Quando il machinima non è esibito online o in un festival cinematografico ma nel contesto di un'esibizione d'arte, il machinima è presentato nella maggior parte dei casi come videoarte. Ma il machinima si presenta più come una tecnica che un genere in se stesso. Spesso, quando gli spettatori vedono il machinima in uno spazio artistico e non hanno grande dimestichezza con i videogiochi, non sono in grado di riconoscere il testo sorgente, ovvero i videogiochi. Tutto quello che vedono sono immagini tridimensionali sullo schermo. Computer grafica. Tuttavia, questo non riduce il valore dell'opera né compromette le capacità degli spettatori di comprendere ed apprezzare ciò che vedono. Inoltre, dato che il machinima è tutt'ora considerato un "nuovo genere" dopo vent'anni di esistenza, gli artisti che lo utilizzano sperimentano e prendono in prestito aspetti del linguaggio cinematografico o della videoarte. Oggi, poche opere machinima sono così influenzate dal videogioco da risultare incomprensibili per un'utenza completamente a digiuno di cultura videoludica. Ritengo tuttavia che il machinima debba diversificare la propria estetica e interagire con differenti discipline al fine di diventare qualcos'altro, qualcosa di più, per esempio, diventando uno spazio abitabile anziché mere immagini su uno schermo.

Isabelle Arvers, machinima, #labRes2015. Cfr. http:// ruralscapes.net/isabelle-arvers/

Matteo Bittanti: Che posizione occupa il machinima all'interno del paesaggio audiovisivo contemporaneo? Puoi sintetizzarne l'evoluzione?

Isabelle Arvers: La storia del machinima è molto interessante. Il machinima è emerso esattamente due decadi fa all'interno della cosiddetta comunità "hard core" del videogioco. Per molti anni ha circolato esclusivamente in rete. In seguito, è stato presentato all'interno di festival specializzati e in programmi speciali di retrospettive di corto e lungometraggi. Dopo il 2006, il machinima ha definitivamente trasceso la cultura ludica ed è diventata una presenza ricorrente sia nella sfera filmica che in quella del Mondo dell'Arte.

Nel 2011, ho curato una rassegna di opere machinima all'interno di un festival di arte digitale e circa il 60% degli autori coinvolti non si sono definitivi "giocatori" bensì "registi" a tutti gli effetti. Per loro, il machinima era un modo accessibile ed economico per esprimersi attraverso il linguaggio del cinema. In altre parole, stavano creando "film digitali". Nel frattempo, il machinima era per lo più ignorato dal Mondo dell'Arte istituzionale fino al 2010, ma poi è diventato di moda grazie all'avvento del movimento post-internet. In questo nuovo scenario, il videogioco è diventato un artefatto contemporaneo da esaminare criticamente.

Nell'era post-internet, il machinima ha cominciato ad abitare il Mondo dell'Arte. Non era più un immigrante illegale, bensì una presenza costante alle Biennali e alle Mostre di tutto il mondo. Un numero ridotto di gallerie d'arte oggi rappresentano artisti che producono machinima o opere d'arte influenzate dall'estetica 3D, dall'animazione digitale e dalla rete. Tutto è cominciato con Miltos Manetas, ma artisti come Cory Arcangel, Jon Rafman, Larry Achiampong e David Blandy hanno demolito i tradizionali confini tra videogiochi, machinima e arte contemporanea. Non a caso, quando il machinima è entrato a far parte del Mondo dell'Arte, ha perso la sua forza critica e sovversiva, diventando pura estetica. Oggi, i giovani artisti usano giochi, immagini, siti e animazioni come materiale grezzo per creare installazioni, quadri o videoarte. 

Sono molto contenta che grazie ai workshop machinima che ho curato in scuole d'arte e di game design in Francia, molti studenti che non avrebbero mai immaginato di usare il videogioco per fare arte hanno cominciato a incorporare la tecnica del machinima all'interno della loro pratica. Si tratta di un fenomeno particolarmente significativo perché oggi differenti contesti - la tecnologia, l'arte, il cinema e il gioco - si parlano tra di loro. Oggi il machinima è parte integrante di un paesaggio audiovisivo più ampio e complesso rispetto a quello della mera avanguardia e del cosiddetto underground.  

Il machinima è inoltre legato alla nozione di mash-up per via della sua natura ibrida. Si tratta di un mix di collage e appropriazione - non a caso, il concetto stesso di machinima è un mash-up, dato che si tratta di una contrazione di cinema e videogioco, macchina e film, machine cinema. Per concludere, oltre al movimento post-internet, il machinima oggi appartiene a un visualscape che include la scena DJ e VJ, i videoclip, il remix e altro ancora. Il machinima informa un crogiuolo di discipline, culture e pratiche che, mi auguro, daranno i natali a qualcosa di terribilmente interessante, a una nuova generazione di oggetti culturali non ancora identificati. 

Nata nel 1972, ISABELLE ARVERS è una curatrice, critica e artista francese specializzata in videogiochi, animazione web, cinema digitale, retrogaming, chiptune e machinima. Ha curato numerose mostre in Francia e a livello internazionale sulla relazione tra arte, videogiochi e ideologia, tra cui la seminale Gizmoland. The Video Cuts (Centre Pompidou, Parigi 2001), Gaming Room presso PLAYTIME (Villette Numérique, Parigi, 2002), Tour of the Web (Centre Pompidou, parigi, 2003), con Vuk Cosic e Miltos Manetas tra gli altri, Digital Salon. Games and Cinema (Maison Populaire, Montreuil, 2011), GAME HEROES (Alcazar, Marsiglia 2011) e numerose edizione del festival GAMERZ (Aix-en-Provence, France). Promuove inoltre l'open source, gli art games e l'indie gaming. Ha ottenuto una Laurea presso l'Institute of Political Studies in Aix-en-Provence e un Master in Cultural Project Management presso la 8 University di Parigi, Isabelle Arvers studia i new media dal 1993. Autrice prolifica, ha scritto numerosi saggi raccolti in cataloghi, antologie e libri. Arvers vive e lavora a Marsiglia.

VALENTINA TANNI: "THE ITALIAN ARTWORLD IS TECHNOLOGICALLY CHALLENGED"

La traduzione italiana è sotto

In this excerpt from a longer interview that will be published in the upcoming TRAVELOGUE catalog, art critic and curator Valentina Tanni discusses the idiosyncrasies of the Italian art world and her passion for racing games.

Valentina Tanni will join a conversation titled CRASH: GAME AESTHETICS AND CONTEMPORARY ART on Sunday September 11 at 11:30 with Isabelle Arvers. Click here for more information. Click here to read an interview with Arvers. 

Valentina Tanni, Photo courtesy of ArtTribune

Matteo Bittanti: What does an art critic and a curator like yourself consider machinima? A genre of video art? An expression of game fandom far removed from the Artworld? Or something else altogether? I am specifically thinking of artists like Jon Rafman, Cory Arcangel, Body Condon or Ian Cheng who use game aesthetics, technologies, and themes in their work but essentially navigate a contemporary art context.

Valentina Tanni: It’s always hard - and perhaps too limiting - to come up with a rigid, all-inclusive definition for artworks. Besides, I am reluctant to classify things, although I am am fully aware that, in some cases, taxonomies and classifications can be useful, especially when it comes to historicize movements or trends. The task becomes even harder in relation to such a complex practice as machinima. Machinima is imbued with so many influences. It also brings together different competencies: programming, design, screenplay, and filmmaking. The relationship between machinima and video art is strong, but perhaps its connection to cinema is even stronger. As for the role of machinima in the artworld: as far I can see, this artform is still largely misunderstood if not plainly rejected. The artists that you mentioned - especially Rafman and Arcangel - have been able to introduce their peculiar vision because they have wrapped gaming in an “artsy” conceptual architecture that makes their works understandable and even palatable to certain kind of audience. The medium of the video game is still considered a “minor art”, if not mere entertainment. Even today, entertainment is seen as something that negates art, its polar opposite. Shocking, but true. Video games are accepted in the artworld only when they are appropriated, like other bits of popular culture or advertising. But for gaming to be taken seriously, it must be “legitimized” by the intervention of the artist.

Hito Steyerl, Factory of the Sun, 2015 (Photo by Matteo Bittanti)

Matteo Bittanti: You were among the first, in Italy, to emphasize the role and function of video games within contemporary art practices thanks to your substantial critical and curatorial practice. Sadly, it seems to me that Italy has never really responded to - or even understood - this phenomenon, both on a critical and pragmatic level. I look at France and I see a country that readily embraces new ideas, tools, and aesthetics to make art. Not incidentally, France is at the forefront of machinima. The same can be said of Germany: in her writings, Hito Steyerl provides a sophisticated critical reading of game theory and also makes outstanding work that uses game aesthetics to speak about the contemporary moment. Consider Factory of the Sun, the centerpiece of the German Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennial - and by far, the most interesting work on display, alongside Harun Farocki’s retrospective. Italy on the other hand, often seems stuck in the 1970s… I experience a sense of cognitive dissonance when I visit most Italian art galleries or museums. It is not surprising that the vast majority of Italian artists who work/worked with video games live abroad: Eva & Franco Mattes, Paolo Pedercini, Marco Mendeni just to name a few… How do you explain this paradox?

Valentina Tanni: Unfortunately, it is not a paradox. My critical and curatorial practice - alongside the activity of few other critics and curators - has been unable to take root and find a receptive audience here in Italy, even though the effort has been outstanding, both in terms of exhibitions and publications. The Italian artworld is technologically challenged: its digital literacy is tragically low. Italy is still tied to a Romantic idea of art, where the humanities are considered disjointed from any other discipline. Here, technology is considered a threat not simply to personal expression, but to mankind as a whole. We are quickly improving on several levels, but when it comes to the relationship between art and technology, Italy lags behind the rest of Europe. Often, I find myself in the position of reminding my interlocutors that I am an art historian so that they would take my research seriously. They think that my interest for technology diminishes the intellectual rigor of my studies, because they automatically tend to equate technology with entertainment. And don’t even get me started on internet memes and amateur production...

Ian Cheng, Emissary in the Squat of Gods, 2015. Courtesy of the artist, Pilar Corrias, Standard (Oslo)

Matteo Bittanti: TRAVELOGUE investigates, among other things, the notion of virtual driving and, above all, the epistemological short-circuit caused by simulations. How do you relate to cars and games? What do you see from the windshield and on the screen?

Valentina Tanni: My relationship to video games has always been problematic. They fascinate me, but I also feel the need to distance myself from gaming. For a long time, I have a been a compulsive player. Granted, this experience enriched me on several levels. I have learned so much both about myself and video games. At the same time, however, I had to stop playing because I tend to get completely sucked in. Incidentally, one of the games I love the most is a racing game: MotorStorm Apocalypse. It is set in a post-apocalyptic metropolis. You drive your car as fast as possible in a devastated landscape populated by post-industrial ruins, crumbling skyscrapers, buildings on fire, and sinking piers. For the record, I have always sucked at these kind of games. I tend to quickly lose control of my vehicle because I get distracted by the scenery. I cannot stay focused on the road, I just want to look around and marvel at all the details. This game is an integral part of my memories. I feel as if I did take a journey somewhere, as I visited "real" places. Those environments are now part of my visualscape like the meadows of Ireland, the skyscrapers of New York, and the Nevada desert. My brain is incapable of distinguishing between the windshield of my car and the television screen… Besides, living in Rome poses additional challenges. Driving in the City is like navigating the spaces of a videogame. You must avoid the pedestrian who crosses the street when and where she feels like it, the driver that refuses to give way, ignoring the most elementary rules, the traffic cop who stops you at the last second, and the jungle of double parking...

MotorSport: Apocalypse, Evolution Studios, Sony Interactive Entertainment, 2011

VALENTINA TANNI (b. 1976) is a contemporary art critic and curator. Her research focuses on the relationship between art and new media, with special attention to Internet culture. In 2002, she graduated in Art History from La Sapienza University in Rome with a Master’s thesis on net.art and in the following years she published a great number of articles, reviews and essays about new media art, web culture and contemporary art in general. She is the founder of Random Magazine, one of the first web columns entirely dedicated to net.art and she is the co-founder of Exibart and Artribune. She also directed the online version of the magazine FMR (FMR Online). She curated the net.art section of Media Connection (Rome and Milan, 2001), the exhibitions Netizens (Rome, 2002), L’oading. Genetically Modified Videogames (Syracuse, 2003), Maps and Legends. When Photography Met the Web (Rome, 2010), Datascapes (Rome, 2011), Hit the Crowd. Photography in the Age of Crowdsourcing (Rome, 2012), Nothing to See Here (Milan, 2013), Eternal September (Ljubljana, 2014) and numerous solo shows. She collaborates with many digital arts festivals and she’s been one of the guest curators of FotoGrafia. International Photography Festival in Rome from 2010 to 2012. She has written articles for Italian and international magazines and she teaches at universities and private institutions. Tanni lives and works in Rome. 

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Valentina Tanni parteciperà all'incontro CRASH: ESTETICHE VIDEOLUDICHE E ARTE CONTEMPORANEA che si terrà domenica 11 settembre alle ore 11:30 insieme a Isabelle Arvers. Cliccate qui per ulteriori informazioni. Cliccate qui per leggere un'intervista con Arvers.

Matteo Bittanti: In quanto critica e curatrice, come consideri il machinima, oggi? Un genere di video arte? Una forma espressiva inestricabilmente legata alla game culture/fandom e quindi lontanissima dall'Artworld? Oppure altro ancora? Penso ad artisti come Jon Rafman che pur pescando da quell'immaginario, si muove essenzialmente in un contesto di arte contemporanea. Lo stesso vale per personaggi come Cory Arcangel, Brody Condon oppure Ian Cheng...

Valentina Tanni: È sempre difficile, oltre che riduttivo, scegliere una definizione univoca per le opere d'arte. Io poi sono sempre stata allergica alle categorizzazioni, anche se mi rendo conto che in alcuni casi possono tornare utili per la comprensione e la sistematizzazione, soprattutto storica, di alcune tendenze. Il compito si fa anche più arduo nel caso del machinima perché si tratta di una pratica davvero complessa, che si nutre di tante influenze e unisce competenze molto diverse: programmazione, grafica, sceneggiatura, regia. I legami con la videoarte sono innegabili, ma forse sono ancora più forti quelli con il cinema. Per quanto riguarda l'artworld: la ricezione di prodotti come il machinima è ancora molto difficile. Gli artisti che citi, soprattutto Rafman e Arcangel, sono riusciti a far passare certe estetiche solo perché filtrate attraverso un'architettura concettuale molto artsy, che rende le loro opere appetibili e comprensibili per un certo tipo di pubblico. Il videogioco è ancora considerato un'arte “minore” quando non addirittura puro e semplice intrattenimento. E oggi come oggi l'intrattenimento viene considerato un concetto antitetico a quello di arte. Incredibile, ma vero. Il videogame viene accettato solo in quanto fonte per operazioni di appropriazione, alla stregua della pubblicità e di altri prodotti della cultura popolare. Ma è qualcosa che deve essere poi “elevato” dalla mano dell'artista.

Matteo Bittanti: Tu sei stata la prima, in Italia, a sottolineare l'importanza del medium videoludico all'interno delle prassi artistiche contemporanee attraverso una attività di critica e di curatela di grandissimo spessore. Eppure, l'Italia ha dimostrato scarsa attenzione al fenomeno - sia sul piano critico che pragmatico - rispetto a nazioni come la Francia, che ha una lunga tradizione di innovazione artistica con i new media oppure la Germania dove artisti del calibro di Hito Steyerl usano il videogioco per spiegare la contemporaneità - non a caso, l'opera più interessante vista all'ultima Biennale dell'Arte di Venezia era Factory of the Sun insieme alla retrospettiva su Harun Farocki. Spesso, quando visito una galleria d'arte o un museo italiano sperimento effetti di dissonanza cognitiva... Come se l'Italia fosse rimasta congelata su una concezione dell'arte da fine anni Settanta. Non a caso, gli artisti italiani che ci cimentano/si sono cimentati con il videogioco - dai Mattes a Marco Mendeni, passando per Pedercini - vivono tutti all'estero. Come spieghi questo paradosso?

Valentina Tanni: Purtroppo non è un paradosso. Il mio lavoro di critica e curatela in questo ambito, insieme a quello di pochi altri in Italia, non ha certo messo radici, nonostante gli sforzi siano stati notevoli, sia in termini di mostre che di pubblicazioni. L'Italia è un Paese scarsamente alfabetizzato tecnologicamente e tristemente legato a una concezione estetica di stampo romantico, dove la sfera umanistica viene ancora considerata separata dalle altre discipline. E dove la tecnologia viene considerata una minaccia per l'espressione, quando non per l'umanità in genere. Stiamo facendo grandi passi avanti in questi ultimi anni, ma siamo indietro anni luce rispetto ad altri Paesi europei. Io mi trovo spesso a dover ricordare ai miei interlocutori che sono uno storico dell'arte affinché la mia ricerca venga presa sul serio. Tendono a pensare che il mio interesse per la tecnologia mi tolga dello spessore intellettuale, avvicinandomi pericolosamente alla superficialità dell'enterteinment. Per non parlare di quando mi occupo di memes e culture amatoriali!

Matteo Bittanti: Il tema della mostra,TRAVELOGUE, è quello della guida virtuale - e dei corto-circuiti epistemologici che si generano attraverso la simulazione elettronica. Qual è il tuo rapporto con l'automobile e con il videogioco? Cosa vedi dal parabrezza e cosa sugli schermi?

Valentina Tanni: Con i videogiochi ho sempre avuto un rapporto un po' malato. Mi piacciono moltissimo, ma proprio per questo sono costretta periodicamente ad allontanarli. Sono stata una giocatrice compulsiva per tanto tempo: si tratta di un'esperienza che mi ha arricchito enormemente e mi ha insegnato tanto, sia sui videogiochi che sul nostro rapporto con essi. Allo stesso tempo però, ho dovuto prendere un po' le distanze, perché tendo a farmi risucchiare. Uno dei giochi che ricordo con maggiore affetto è proprio un racing game che ho comprato per caso diversi anni fa. S'intitola MotorStorm: Apocalypse ed è ambientato in una città post-apocalittica: si corre in mezzo alle rovine, tra palazzi che crollano o vanno a fuoco, su tetti che si sbriciolano e moli che si inabissano. Non sono mai stata brava in questo genere di gioco, tendo a perdere il controllo del mezzo piuttosto di frequente, perché mi distraggo a guardare il “panorama”, non riesco a restare concentrata troppo a lungo sulla strada, tuttavia quel gioco fa parte dei miei ricordi come se fosse un viaggio in una località geografica. Quei luoghi fanno parte del mio bagaglio visivo come i panorami irlandesi, i grattacieli di New York o il deserto del Nevada. Insomma per il mio cervello c'è poca differenza tra il parabrezza della mia macchina e quello della supercar del gioco. Poi, abitando a Roma, a volte guidare per la città è esattamente come guidare nei videogiochi: devi evitare il passante che attraversa dove gli pare, la macchina che non dà la precedenza, il vigile che ti ferma all'ultimo secondo, la giungla delle auto in doppia fila...

Nata nel 1976, VALENTINA TANNI è una critica d'arte contemporanea e una curatrice. S'interessa principalmente del rapporto tra arte-e nuove tecnologie, in particolare della cultura della rete. Ha ottenuto un Master in Storia dell'Arte presso l'Università la Sapienza di Roma con una tesi sulla net-art e negl ianni successivi ha scritto numerosi saggi, articoli e recensioni sulla cultra del web e sull'arte contemporanea. È tra i fondatori di Exbibart e lavora per EMMI (Edizioni Multi ModaliItaliane) in area Coordinamento e Direzione Editoriale. Nel 2000 ha fondato ExiWebArt, prima rubrica italiana dedicata alla Net Art, e Random Magazine (2001), un notiziario quotidiano sulla new media art. Ha lavorato come consulente per Monti & Taft, società di progettazione e marketing culturale e come Direttore Editoriale Web per il Gruppo FMR. Ha curato mostre come Media Connection (Roma e Milano, 2001), Netizens (Roma, 2002), L’oading. Genetically Modified Videogames (Siracusa, 2003), Maps and Legends. When Photography Met the Web (Roma, 2010), Datascapes (Rome, 2011), Hit the Crowd. Photography in the Age of Crowdsourcing (Roma, 2012), Nothing to See Here (Milano, 2013), Eternal September (Ljubljana, 2014) e collabora con i festival di arti digitali Interferenze e Peam. Ha scritto articoli e approfondimenti per varie testate specializzate (Exibart, Flash Art, Gulliver, Campus, Time Out Roma, etc) e ha lavorato come docente per istituzioni pubbliche e private (Università La Sapienza di Roma; Università degli studi di Udine, IED, Accademia del Lusso, Accademia delle Arti e delle Nuove Tecnologie). Vive e lavora a Roma.