when you are close to me I shiver
video recording of live simulation
digital video/machinima (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 7’ 47”, 2020, Italy
Created by Martina Menegon
Sound design by Alexander Martinz
Introduced by Luca Miranda
when you are close to me I shiver is an algorithmically controlled live simulation, hereby presented as a video recording, that is, a real-time generated virtual experience that takes place in a version of the future in which humans, out of desperation, gather in masses on the last remaining piece of land. Inspired by the walrus scene in the documentary Our Planet narrated by David Attenborough and produced by Silverback Films, the project proposes a scenario encompassing ongoing environmental and personal crises. The video depicts a desolated island populated by 3D-scanned clones of the artist herself. Through these perceivable avatars, the artist creates a new identity that arises out of plurality, proprioceptively renegotiating the fragility of both the physical and the virtual self and its realities.
Martina Menegon (Italy, 1988) is an artist working predominantly with Interactive and Extended Reality Art. In her works, Martina creates intimate and complex assemblages of physical and virtual elements that explore the contemporary self and its phygital corporeality. She experiments with the uncanny and the grotesque, the self and the body and the dialogue between physical and virtual realities, to create disorienting experiences that become perceivable despite their virtual nature.
CROWDSOURCING
edited recording of live a simulation
digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 6’ 08”, 2021, United Kingdom
Created by Benjamin Hall
A live simulation created with Unity, Crowdsourcing examines the fatalistic relationship between predictability and chaos, and their conflation and obfuscation through systems of digital control. A large crowd congregates at the border of what Hall calls an “algorithmic predestination and aesthetic incoherence”. The crowd moves spasmodically: here the simulation does not reproduce the features of an ultra-detailed world, but rather its contours and contradictions.
Benjamin Hall is an artist, animator, filmmaker, game designer and writer. He received a BA Fine Art from the Glasgow School of Art, where he led DS2020 Simulator, a student project that virtually recreated his peers’ cancelled degree show as a free and accessible game-based space. Featuring the works of 136 graduates, DS2020 Simulator was discussed, among others, by BBC One, BBC Radio Scotland, the List UK and more. Benjamin’s work was featured in The Wrong Biennale (2019), Visual Arts Scotland’s Graduate Showcase (2020), HomeBrew Digital Commissions (2020), and Digital Artist Residency (2020). In September 2020, he moved to Jonava, Lithuania to transform the local public library into a virtual archival simulation. In 2021 he led the development of and participated in spur.world, an in-browser virtual multiverse featuring 14 fully explorable sub-worlds. Hall lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland.
KINGDOM OF SHADOWS
Recording of live performance, sound, color, 11’ 20”, 2021 (Israel)
Created by Amir Yatziv
Actors: Neta Shpigelman, Eliya Tsuchida
Computer graphics: Yuliya Bogonos
vral.org
Three avatars are auditioning for the role of a video game character under the vigilant eyes of a Japanese game designer. A human actor, wearing a motion-capture suit, performs a set of actions in real life that are translated in real time onto the on-screen image. Spectators see both. Conceived and produced by Amir Yatziv, this live performance blurring the lines that traditionally separate theater from digital gaming invites the viewer to consider the porosity between reality and simulation. Inspired by a scene in an episode of Final Fantasy, Kingdom of Shadows investigates the changing notions of identity, performance, and communication in a screen-based world.
Born in Israel, Amir Yatziv lives and works in Tel Aviv. After receiving a B.A. in Computer Science at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel, he studied Arts at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. He has directed several short films which were often exhibited as art installations as well. Among his solo exhibitions are This is Jerusalem Mr. Pasolini, Petah Tikva Museum of Art, Israel (2013), This is Jerusalem Mr. Pasolini, Galleria Laveronica, Modica, Italy (2012), Antipodes, Ramat-Gan Museum of Art, Tel-Aviv (2010). Group exhibitions include Too early, too late. Middle east and modernity, curated by Marco Scotini, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna (2015), Space Oddity, A capsule exhibition, Kunstverein Nürnberg, Germany (2014), La guerra che verrà non è la prima, 1914–2014, MaRT, Rovereto (2014), Recalculating Route, 4 Mediations Biennale, Poznan (2014), CounterIntelligence, Hart House, curated by Charles Stankievech, University of Toronto, Canada (2014), Time Pieces, Nordstern Videokunstzentrum, curated by Marius Babias and Kathrin Becker, Gelsenkirchen, Germany (2014), Measure for Measure, curated by Drorit gur-arie and Hila Cohen-Schneiderman, Petah Tikva Museum of Art, Israel (2014), Give Us The Future, curated by Frank Wagner, n.b.k Berlin, Germany (2014), Artists’ Film International, Whitechapel Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2014), Multiplicity, NURTUREart, curated by Marco Antonini and Hila Cohen-Schneiderman, New York (2014).
RADICALIZATION PIPELINE
Digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 15’ 01”, 2021 (Greece)
Created by Theo Triantafyllidis
July 23 - August 5 2021
Introduced by Matteo Bittanti
You may disagree about the root causes, but the diagnosis is crystal clear: reality has imploded. The symptoms are everywhere. Video game fantasies, themes, characters, and narratives – which used to be confined to the imaginary – now shape our everyday life. In a world where meme presidents plan insurrections, global corporations are actively destroying the planet, social media are a toxic cesspool, a new kind of superstition – conspiracy theories, lore, false narratives – has become the dominant epistemological currency. In this uncertain, hyper violent, and chaotic scenario – complicated by metacrises, climate catastrophe, and ongoing pandemics – artists have been among the few to clearly identify the culprits and to imagine possible alternatives. In his latest work, Radicalization Pipeline, Greek artist Theo Triantafyllidis simulates the perpetual clash of two endless hordes fighting to death with large melee weapons. A wide range of characters – from citizen militias to fantastical creatures, from street protesters to hooligans – kill each other tirelessly. There’s no resolution. There’s no closure. Just mutual destruction. This is the Game over age. We now live in the world that video games made.
Theo Triantafyllidis (b. 1988, Athens, Greece) is an artist who builds virtual spaces and interfaces for the human body to inhabit them. He creates expansive worlds and complex systems where the virtual and the physical merge in uncanny, absurd and poetic ways. These are often manifested as performances, virtual and augmented reality experiences, games and interactive installations. He uses awkward interactions and precarious physics, to invite the audience to embody, engage with and challenge these other realities. Through the lens of monster theory, he investigates themes of isolation, sexuality and violence in their visceral extremities. He offers computational humor and AI improvisation as a response to the tech industry’s agenda. He tries to give back to the online and gaming communities that he considers both the inspiration and context for his work by remaining an active participant and contributor. He holds an MFA from UCLA, Design Media Arts and a Diploma of Architecture from the National Technical University of Athens. He has shown work in museums, including the Hammer Museum in LA and NRW Forum in Dusseldorf, DE and various galleries such as Meredith Rosen Gallery, the Breeder, Eduardo Secci and Transfer. He was part of Sundance New Frontier 2020, Hyper Pavilion in the 2017 Venice Biennale and the 2018 Athens Biennale: ANTI-. Theo Triantafyllidis is based in Los Angeles.
