Looks like the situation is now completely under control.
colleo.org/reasonable
ARTWORK: REASONABLE_3 (EVEN MORE LEAKS)
SHOW: NEXTNEWGAMES (June 23 – September 16, 2018, San José, California)
NEXTNEWGAMES
June 23 - September 16, 2018
Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA)
San José
560 South First Street
San Jose, CA 95113 > MAP
OPENING RECEPTION — JUNE 24, 2018
MEMBERS PREVIEW 1-2PM
PUBLIC RECEPTION 2-4PM
"ICA’S NEXTNEW SERIES IS A BIANNUAL EXHIBITION PROGRAM THAT PRESENTS THE WORK OF EMERGING ARTISTS AND/OR EMERGING ART PRACTICES.
When playing a board game or video game, one might experience a range of emotions, from elation when advancing towards a finish line, to a sense of gratification from beating a competitor, to a feeling of anger when your strategy goes awry. Immersing wholeheartedly into the rules and experiences of play is what Dutch historian and play theorist Johan Huizinga refers to as the “magic circle,” a zone where players temporarily suspend disbelief and adopt the qualities of the game space, disconnecting from the realities of the everyday world. Games often provide a moment of respite from the “real world” and allow the player to escape into a fantasy.
The eight artists in NextNewGames create work within this alternative space. The set of board games, video pieces, and new media works consider our current social, political, and cultural climate, creating a porous relationship between the imaginary land of the game space and that of the real world.
Characterizing the art world with an air of parody are works by Sioux City-based artist Charles Bass who developed a series of free, participatory games, which comment on the quirks of the opaque art world. COLL.EO (San Francisco- and Milan-based collaborative Colleen Flaherty and Matteo Bittanti) re-enact seminal 1960-70s contemporary art performances and interventions in “Liberty City,“ through the action and adventure game Grand Theft Auto.
NextNewGames artists also invite players to embody different perspectives through single- and multi-player games. Lark VCR and Porpentine Charity Heartscape’s elaborate online game invites players to treat their trauma as if it were a virtual pet. Colorado-based artist Rafael Fajardo presents two contrasting games that simulate the realities of crossing the US-Mexico border at El Paso-Ciudad Juarez. Sam Vernon engages local community members in a game of hangman and creates a visually cacophonous installation with the resulting documentation from this age-old game. Considering the relationship of communities today and in the future, Berkeley-based artist Asma Kazmi constructs a hypnotic, sensorial experience of the religious site of Makkah and documents the rapid changes to the sacred site. San Francisco-based artist Scott Kildall questions what it might mean for the moon to colonize the earth in his site-specific scavenger hunt at the ICA.
These artists move away from the dichotomy of winning or losing. They collectively subvert and interrupt the modes of operating within a game while reflecting on how these game spheres serve as mirrors to our current society: how do we think about cooperation and negotiation? What does it mean to lose or win? Where are points of resolution and conflict? What is your next move?"
BOOK: THE MYTHIC BEING IN LIBERTY CITY
We are excited to announce the release of The Mythic Being in Liberty City, the fourth in a series by CONCRETE PRESS dedicated to our ongoing Grand Theft Auto IV interventions.
The book is now available in a limited edition of 99 copies and features 144 pages of text, illustrations in B&W and color, many of which have not been shared before.
It also includes a critical essay by critic and curator Dorothy R. Santos.
Below is the full synopsis:
The Mythic Being in Liberty City is a replay of Adrian Piper’s 1973 performance The Mythic Being entirely produced and (re)enacted within the virtual spaces of Grand Theft Auto IV’s digital replica of New York City. In 2016, COLL.EO replayed Piper’s performance within Liberty City. The original game, Grand Theft Auto IV, was modded and the main character, Niko Bellic, was replaced by a customized avatar of Adrian Piper/The Mythic Being. This limited edition book is a documentation of the performance, featuring a critical essay by Dorothy R. Santos and never seen before images.
Click here to read more about The Mythic Being in Liberty City.
EVENT: COLL.EO AT THE 2017 UCLA GAME FESTIVAL
We're delighted to announce that COLL.EO is one of the featured artists in the upcoming show RE/PLAY: REENACTMENT PRACTICES IN VIDEO GAMES, as part of the 2017 UCLA GAME FESTIVAL curated by Eddo Stern, Tyler Stefanich, and David O'Grady. The event takes place at the Hammer Museum on November 14, 2017.
We will be showing our 2017 GTA interventions Liberty City Crawl, starring an avatar of William Pope.L. RE/PLAY also features Pippin Barr (Ziv Schneider), Alan Butler (Ed Ruscha), Roc Herms (Ai Weiwei), Clint Enns (Chris Burden) and Angela Washko (Chantal Akerman).
COLL.EO, Liberty City Crawl, 2017
ARTWORK: LIBERTY CITY CRAWL
We are delighted to announce Liberty City Crawl, the latest installment of the Grand Theft Auto IV interventions by COLL.EO, a multimedia project comprising mods, machinima, and in-game photography starring the likes of Vito Acconci, Adrian Piper, and David Wojnarowicz.
In Liberty City Crawl, the avatar of William Pope.L replays seminal performances of his physical counterpart, e.g. Tompkins Square Crawl (1991) and The Great White Way (2002), in GTA IV's virtual replica of New York.
ART: THE MYTHIC BEING IN LIBERTY CITY
We are delighted to share our new project, The Mythic Being in Liberty City.
The Mythic Being in Liberty City is a replay of Adrian Piper’s 1973 performance The Mythic Being entirely produced and (re)enacted within the virtual space of Grand Theft Auto IV’s digital metropolis, a replica of New York City. The work exists as a) machinima and as b) a set of framed digital prints on archival paper measuring 12x18 inches.
The Mythic Being is one of Piper’s most celebrated works. In the early 1970s, the artist created a fictional character, in many ways autonomous and antithetical of Piper, wearing an Afro wig, reflective sunglasses, and a black t-shirt, roaming the street of New York. Piper produced a series of performances, cartoons, classified ads, and drawings on black and white photographs to document the evolution of her alter ego. The character named “The Mythic Being” first appeared in 1972, as an experiment in a domestic setting. At that time, Piper performed the role of a black man, appropriating the manners, gesture, and swagger of masculinity. She took photographs and disseminated them as paid advertisements in The Village Voice. Subsequently, The Mythic Being went from private to public sphere, appearing in the streets of New York. In two staged performances titled The Mythic Being Cruising White Women; The Mythic Being Getting Back, Piper/The Mythic Being gazes at women walking in the streets, pretending to mug a man in the park. Both performances were documented with black and white photographs.
In 2016, we replayed Piper’s performance within the urban spaces of Liberty City. The original game was modded and the main character, Niko Bellic, was replaced by an avatar of Piper/The Mythic Being. The Mythic Being, like GTA’s Niko Bellic, is a dangerous character, one who “embodies everything you hate and fear”, a chauvinistic, and ruthless alpha-male. The phallocentric view of the world that Piper criticized in her performance is the normative mode of play of the Grand Theft Auto games. Thus, this work challenges both the idea of masculinity in video games and the meaning of performance in simulated environments. The Mythic Being in Liberty City is both an appropriation and a subversion of Grand Theft Auto, which stands metonymically for the medium of video games. Above all, it questions the idea that games are instruments of fun, tools of escapism, and/or means to achieve "entertaiment". It simultaneously embraces and rejects the normative, "preferred" use of gaming, by turning the practice of modding - popular with fans and acolytes - into a personal/political gesture. In the hostile, adversarial, and confrontational spaces of Liberty City, The Mythic Being faces his/her most formidable antagonist.