VALLEY
digital video/machinima (1280 x 720), color, sound, 7’ 06”, Hungary/Canada
Created by Gina Hara
Inspired by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) software in mental health contexts, Gina Hara uses the world of Minecraft as a backdrop for a series of exchanges with an AI-powered chatbot, called Robin, developed specifically for the project. Both the process and the resulting narrative are documented in this short machinima.
Gina Hara is a Hungarian-Canadian filmmaker and artist. She holds an MA in Intermedia, an MFA in Film Production and worked with film, video, new media, gaming, and design. Waning (2011), her first fiction film, was nominated for a Best Canadian Short award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Your Place or Minecraft (2016), a machinima web series focusing on game studies, is currently available on YouTube. Hara’s full length documentary Geek Girls (2017) explores the notion of subculture from women’s perspective and was screened internationally, including IULM University in 2018 during the Gender Play conference. Her artworks have been exhibited by several institutions including the New Museum in New York, the Budapest Kunsthalle and the City of Montreal. Hara lives in Montreal, where she works as Creative Director of the Technoculture, Art and Games Research Centre.
ROAD OF FEELINGS
digital video (1920x1080), color, sound, 8’18”, 2022, Poland
Created by Zuza Banasińska
A teenage girl’s room. When she ingests a handful of pills, it start to grow. Normally, as she works out, 1,2,3... 1,2,3... 1,2,3... her muscles can carry stones. Now, they are literally carried. The room walks with her as she touches the ground. In the rhythm of the workout, the walls open up and start chewing the world. Road of Feelings is a video animation created with the Unity 3D engine as part of the artistic collective Ellen Muscle’s LARP (Live Action Role Playing). The scenario was based on a queer-feminist narrative, set in a world where extreme muscle growth is encouraged, especially for teenage girls. Every girl has to take pills that enhance body musculature. Some teens begin to overdose, shortly discovering that the phenomenon enables them to produce hybridized connections. Those hybridizations happen through the muscles themselves. Teens start building and experiencing global networks between things and beings.
Zuza Banasińska (b. 1994) is an audio-visual artist making video-based environments. In her works, virtual and real elements are hybridized beyond distinction in an effort to move from representation towards affective mapping. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, Universität der Künste in Berlin, and Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam. In 2020, she won first prize in the Polish Experimental section at Short Waves in Poznań and On. Art in Wrocław. Her works have been shown at the U-Jazdowski CCA in Warsaw, Dům Umění Mesta Brna in Czech Republic and Blindside in Melbourne. She lives and works in Poland.
FACING THE WOLF
machinima/digital video (1600 x 900), color, sound, 19’ 26” (chapter I: 5’ 15”, chapter II: 5’ 21”, chapter III: 8’ 50”), 2021, United Kingdom.
Created by Iain Douglas and Mark Coverdale
Facing the wolf is a machinima trilogy produced over the course of 2021 by appropriating and repurposing Grand Theft Auto V. The artists decontextualized the characters and locations of the original video game to tell a story of redemption and reconciliation, so that an uneasy truce with the past may be reached. In broad terms, these three videos reflect on war, loss, grief, and class struggle, themes which never seem to be as far away as they ought to be. As war has now become a reality for millions of people in Europe, Facing the wolf can be seen as a cautionary tale. Or, perhaps, a premonition.
Iain Douglas is an artist working with machinima, game engines, film, and materials like paint and plaster. Iain’s practice explores the themes of cultural and individual loss. For more information, please visit his website.
Mark Coverdale is a widely published performance poet, writing from the picket line, art gallery, and the terraces. Mark’s poems for these machinima are drawn from his interests in domestic industrial decline and the troubled events of the New European East. He lives and works in London. For more information visit his website.
but I wanna keep my head above water
digital video/machinima (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 10’ 30”, 2022, Italy
everynight i try to find the light but sometimes its too cold
digital video/machinima (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 1’ 01”, 2022, Italy
everynight i try to find the light - prélude
digital video/machinima (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 00’ 51”, 2022, Italy
Created by Federica Di Pietrantonio
viewer discretion is advised
Wet, steamy, and sticky. Federica Di Pietrantonio takes the viewer into her neon lit lavatory. In this humid, slushy environment, gender identities become fluid and seemingly solid architectures suddenly splinter. The camera indulges on a virtual nymph’s expression as water drips slowly and then faster. Moments of intimacy are shared. Crevices are explored. Surfaces are scrubbed. This highly immersive experience will leave you soused.
Federica Di Pietrantonio (b. 1996) studied painting at the University of Fine Arts in Rome. After receiving her B.A. in 2019, she did a residency at KASK (Ghent, Belgium), where she developed the project Vacation Spot with The Sims. In 2017, Di Pietrantonio was selected for Mediterranea 18 Young Artists Biennale and the following year she began a collaboration with Spazio In Situ as an artist and web designer. Her work has been exhibited in Italy, Belgium, and Portugal. She currently lives and works in Rome.
CRYPTOHEAVEN3
digital video/machinima (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 5’ 59”, 2022, Ukraine
Created by Letta Shtohryn
July 8 - July 21 2022
Introduced by Gemma Fantacci
Cryptoheaven3 (2022) is the third iteration of an ongoing project developed with The Sims 4 about the digital afterlife of Gerald Cotten, the CEO of QuadrigaCX, a popular cryptocurrency exchange. When Cotten unexpectedly passed away in 2018, he held the passwords to every customer's digital wallet, thereby rendering $190 million lost or missing. His mysterious disappearance sparked several conspiracy theories and marked the beginning of an online hunt for “the Truth”. Letta Shtohryn began exploring this event shortly after Cotten’s passing with Crypto H(e)aven (2019) and Cryptoheaven 2.0 (2020, in collaboration with curator Kat Zavada). The latest installment, Cryptoheaven3, is a hybrid of machinima and net.art combining The Sims 4, text messages, forum posts, and GIFs. Cotten is on a remote island enjoying the good life — sunbathing, getting daily massages, and imbibing exotic cocktails — while former QuadrigaCX users and conspiracy theorists speculate about his untimely demise.
Letta Shtohryn (Ukraine/EU) is an artist and researcher who works predominantly with media art, sculpture and imagery. She investigates the complex relationship between the physical and digital realm. She explores embodiment through a post-humanist lens, considering non-human life forms, machines, avatars, aliens, monsters, and ghosts. Being fascinated by deception, Letta also explores the relationship between fact and myth-making. Her methodical frameworks include speculative investigations, world building, and storytelling. Her tools feature virtual reality, augmented reality, textile, sculpture, video, machinima, and imagery. Her academic background is in Philosophy/Sociology (University of Vienna), Photography (Kunstschule Wien), and Digital Art (MFA/UM). Letta is the founder of digital platform Whatdowedonow.xyz and holds the position of Research Excellence Award Fellow at The Immersion Lab, University of Malta. Her work has been shown internationally.
