The possibilities offered by computer games and various types of digital spaces allow representatives of various environments and disciplines to discover, deepen and broaden their artistic practice.

During the ‘Game over? Interdisciplinary approaches to interactive art and games ”artists working in the fields of creative coding, games, performance and interactive art will present their works. Games of some of them are presented at the GAME OVER exhibition. It will be a chance to talk about all relevant aspects – from staging and interventions in games, to creative coding and equally creative game features: experimental, commenting, critical, personal or poetic.

 

Host: Zuraida Buter | NL

Kofi Oduro (aka IllestPreacha) | CA
Total Refusal | AT
Łukasz Szalankiewicz | PL
Joseph De Lappe | US

 

WATCH HERE

Kofi Oduro aka IllestPreacha | CA

Illestpreacha’s (he/him) practice is an observation of the world around us that he puts into artworks for others to relate to or disagree with. Through AV, Poetry/Narrative & Creative Coding, he highlights the realms of human performance & human mind in different scenarios. He believes that with a dose of technology, there is an endless range of progress in human creative endeavours. He adheres to the principle that poetry is code, code is poetry.

 

Total Refusal | AT

Total Refusal is an open artists’ collective which criticizes and artistically appropriates contemporary video games. However, as most mainstream game narratives employ the same infinite loops of reactionary tropes, the genre largely fails to challenge the values of their players and instead affirms hegemonial moral concepts. Acknowledging that this media is currently not realizing its cultural potential, artists aim to appropriate digital game spaces and put them to new use. Moving within games but casting aside the intended gameplay, they rededicate these resources to new activities and narratives, looking to create “public” spaces with a critical potential.

Total Refusal are Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf, and others.

Robin Klengel is an artist, illustrator and cultural anthropologist. Since 2017 he is vice chairman of the interdisciplinary art and culture space Forum Stadtpark.

Leonhard Müllner is a visual artist and media researcher. He studied Visual Art and Media Art and is currently writing his PHD in Practice in the field of Cultural Studies.

Michael Stumpf studied Philosophy at the University of Vienna and is currently studying Media, Art and Cultural Theory at the University of Art and Industrial Design in Linz. Now works as a philosopher, designer and artist.

 

Łukasz Szalankiewicz | PL

Łukasz Szalankiewicz is an artist who in his work focuses equally on the musical and visual spheres. Its activity also revolves around interactive installations. He also deals with the history of computer games, media archeology and demoscene. He is a member of the Polish Electroacoustic Music Association and the Polish Society for Contemporary Music.

For eight years, Szalankiewicz was the curator of In Progress, an audiovisual series at the Łaźnia Center for Contemporary Art in Gdańsk. He also worked as a curator of special projects, with particular emphasis on the promotion of computer games and interactive media at the Polish Cultural Institute in New York. He is the creator of the digital culture module at the Graphics Faculty of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, co-creator of the Audiotong publishing house and platform, and a participant in many international projects. The artist also deals with audio issues in interactive media at Collegium Da Vinci in Poznań at the Faculty of Computer Science and Visual Communication.

 

Joseph De Lappe | US

A Professor of Games and Tactical Media since 2017 at Abertay University in Dundee, Scotland, before he was directing the Digital Media program at the University of Nevada, Reno for 23 years. A native San Franciscan, he has been working with electronic and new media since 1983, his work in online gaming performance, sculpture and electromechanical installation have been shown throughout the United States and abroad ‐ including exhibitions and performances in Western Europe Australia, China, Mexico, Peru and Canada. In 2006 he began the project dead‐in‐iraq , to type consecutively, all names of America’s military casualties from the war in Iraq into the America’s Army first person shooter online recruiting game. His interactive computer game about drone warfare Killbox created with the Biome Collective in Scotland was recently nominated for a BAFTA Scotland (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) as “Best Computer Game”.

He has lectured throughout the world regarding his work, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. His works have been featured in the New York Times, The Australian Morning Herald, Artweek, Art in America and in the 2010 book from Routledge entitled “Joystick Soldiers The Politics of Play in Military Video Games” among many others. He has authored two book chapters, including “The Gandhi Complex: The Mahatma in Second Life”. In 2017 DeLappe was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.