One hour long GAME OVER program consists a selection of 6 audiovisual works presented during the Patchlab Digital Art Festival in 2020-2021. The compilation includes the animation by Spanish artist Sevi Iko Domochevsky, visualising this year’s festival main theme; special audiovisual generative project created by the Iranian artist Ali Phi inspired by the Polish sci-fi author – Stanislaw Lem and the writings of 13th century Persian poet, Rumi; film essay on the fourth dimension by Austrian collective considering the Flatland novel by Edwin A. Abbott; a generative animation of micro- and macroscopic systems, a video clip and an audiovisual poem for analog dreamers.
The screening program details:
1/ GAME OVER | Sevi Iko Domochevsky _ES
Duration: 00’41
Animation by Spanish artists Sevi Iko Dømochevsky created for the 10th edition of Patchlab Digital Art Festival in Krakow, Poland. It refers to the main theme GAME OVER referring to the artistic games that were in scope of this year’s festival. But the title is also related to the question of our dominant position on the planet and reflection on the clear signals that nature gives us that it is high time to change the rules on which we operate. As Sevi said: “In the animation I wanted to visualize an idea close to me: let’s use our creativity, using the technology consciously and responsibly, to solve global problems”.
Sevi Iko Domochevsky _ES
Spanish digital artist, 3D motion designer and music producer based in Barcelona, mainly portraying surrealistic and sci-fi oriented 3D art and experimental club oriented music. Member of Mitrilo, a decentralized collective of digital scenic arts grouping some of the most cutting edge spanish producers, performers and visual artists. Started his career as a videogame artist working for brands like Disney, Dreamworks, Mattel, CBS to then shift his focus on the music industry. He has collaborated with artists like Grimes, Skrillex, Arca, Holly Herndon and many others, producing and directing videoclips and liveshow visuals.
2/ Ether | MONOCOLOR AT
Duration: 3’06
Built on simple feedback systems that create complex textures in both sound and image, the audiovisual composition reflects on the impact of emergence on micro- and macroscopic systems.
MONOCOLOR _AT
Marian Essl is a Vienna based audiovisual artist. He explores the interrelations between sound and image in both performance-based and installation-based works. His fully generative, algorithmically created imagery oscillates between fluid, organic textures and rigid structures. He focuses on the relation between sound, image, light and space, aiming to create highly immersive audiovisual universes. He holds a degree in media technology and experimental media and is currently studying Media Arts / Digital Arts at the University of Applied Arts (Die Angewandte) in Vienna. Winner of the Japan Media Arts Festival in the category of New Face Award in 2020 and Golden Wire Award in 2019.
3/ Indefinite Couplet | Ali Phi IR
Duration: 23’40
Indefinite Couplet is a real-time generative audiovisual world, composed of abstract elements, that evolve into an aimless yet functional machine. Ali Phi’s real-time generative performance is inspired by the imaginative elements found in the texts of Polish science fiction author, Stanislaw Lem and the recurring themes present in the writings of 13th century Persian poet, Rumi. With additional references to quantum science, spirituality, and cosmology, “Indefinite Couplet” is a code-driven machine that depicts the fantasy world of the artist, achieved through his engagement with custom-designed and pre- programmed audiovisual software. The work evolves, live, through the artist’s interactions throughout the performance.
A poetic approach controls the output of this audiovisual artwork. The artist collaborates with materials drawn from images of nature documented by drones, open-source libraries containing images of other planets collected through decades of space exploration, visual programming created using artificial intelligence and generative adversarial networks, and big data conversion techniques. The performance’s design is further based on particles, scientific motifs, data processing, and the dynamic within ambient and electronic sound design. Most dominantly, the artwork’s aesthetic emerges from scientific visualizations of the 1980’s, the period when Lem’s work was most actively reimagined and adapted for motion pictures. Together, all these sources of inspiration combined with Lem’s unique worldview and Rumi’s transcendental intuition shapes the artist’s vision, with a distance of 800 years at the intersection of art, science, technology, and mysticism.
The project was commissioned by Patchlab Digital Art Festival and created as part of the cultural program Krakow Culture. The performance was recorded at the ARSENAL Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto.
Ali Phi _IR
A computer artist and creative technologist with a background in environmental engineering sciences and experimental cinematic arts. The flow of his works is based on programming, generative audio-visual design, interactive media and immersive environment installations which depict the relation between geometry, science, light, poetry, and their transformations in computers and interaction with humans.
Exploring rituals and roots in art, culture and architecture have affected his creations by taking motifs from the old era of Persia, the forgotten essence of Iran and middle-eastern lifestyle to build his futuristic utopia. He is the founder of ‘NULLSIGHT’, a media arts collective and freelance festival curator of ‘TADAEX’ since 2014. He has performed and exhibited in Ars Electronica, Mutek, Ontario Science Center, Tasmeem Doha, Tadaex & Tehran Architecture Biennial between Iran, Canada, USA, Germany, Austria, Poland, Qatar & UAE. Born in Tehran, Iran, now lives and works in Toronto, Canada.
4/ Land Of The Flats by Andother Stage | TE-R _AT
Duration: 18’29
Film form created by the collective TE-R from Vienna. It is inspired by Edwin A. Abbott’s novel Flatlandia or Land of the Clippers, about a two-dimensional land, which is an introduction to considerations on spatial dimensions, treated by some as a mathematical essay on the fourth dimension. In the same universe, playfully augmented into multiple dimensions, lies the ›Land of the Flats‹, by the ensemble Andother Stage. Dance and music become inseparable parts of a whole, musical instruments are extensions of the body. Geometric shapes, virtual figures from 3D games and human bodies come together in a dialectic form of choreography and composition
Video: TE-R
Audio: Jorge Sánchez-Chiong
Cast: Brigitte Wilfing, Clara Frühstück, David Christopher Panzl, Jorge Sánchez-Chiong, Louise Linsenbolz, Samuel Toro Pérez, Sophia Hörman, Thomas Wagensommerer
5/ Voiceless | Maciej Stępniewski PL
Duration: 2’58
An animated video clip, an attempt on seeking fresh esthetical paths in 3D computer graphics, based on atmosphere and gaining subjective meanings through visual associations. The objects shown in the movie represent different concepts that hold meaning in our lives and to which we commit our attention. Those meanings and the concepts fade away and dissolve while the time passes.
Maciek Stępniewski PL
Maciek Stępniewski is an audiovisual artist working in the fields of animation, design and music. A graduate of new media, he works professionally in the CGI industry. Lives in Warsaw.
6/ Comfort Zones | Bartłomiej Szlachcic & Paweł Galecki _PL
Duration: 5’04
An audiovisual poem for analog dreamers.The spatial symbiosis of photons floating on the waves in a neurochemical synaptic dance. Familiar shapes morph into statues of biological time where warm drones spread in the canyons’ veins. Artists liberate ideas through streams of organic afterimages and moody vibrations. Visual artist Bartłomiej Szlachcic and musician Paweł Galecki together explore mysterious landscapes of internal sensations to create marriage between honest expression and care for the recipient.
Bartłomiej Szlachcic PL
Visual designer and multimedia artist with a background in analogue drawing and experimental music. Graduated from The Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław, he received an MFA degree in 2011 in multimedia space creation studio. In 2015 he received honorable mention in UPC Digital Art Contest and special prize from Platige Image and Sundance Channel for animation “Morfogeneza“. Since 2016 he has worked as a freelance art director and motion designer. His immersive installations and video projections were commissioned by 3M Company, Museum of Contemporary Art, National Forum of Music in Wrocław and OASIS Immersion in Montreal as well as festivals like Splice London, Lowry Manchester, Scopitone Nantes, Lunchmeat Prague, Vision’R Paris, Live Cinema Festival Rome, Shiny Toys Mullheim, Avant Art Festival & World Music Days, WRO Biennale among many others.
Paweł Galecki PL
Music producer and composer, he releases music as Pablo Frizzi. His albums appeared on several underground labels including K-HOLE TRAX and Pionierska Records. Composed music for the audiovisual spectacle „Comfort Zones”. Owner of the Children Of The Vortex records label.