Fair Game features artists who use video game engines to create work that spans the landscape of cinema, video gaming, hacker art, immersive installation
and software development. Unlike the usual panel discussion format - the night will include demos, show and tell presentations, film screenings, and of course,
game playing. Watch the video games being played on MASSIVE screens, and then see how artists manipulate the software engines to create their own work entirely by using the tools of these virtual worlds.
THE PERFORMANCE
Kurt Hentschläger — will present his new audio-visual instrument and give a short live demonstration, with reference to his
performance FEED, which premiered this September at the Theater Biennial in Venice.
Friedrich Kirschner —
will present ways in which the Unreal Tournament 2004 game engine has been modified to use it
as a tool for animated movie productions, realtime audio-visual performances and other art related projects.
Kirschner will give a brief overview of the tools generated through modifications made within the game's
scripting environment as well as present some of the results of this work.
Paul Marino (Executive Director, Academy of Machinima Arts ) — With the expanding accessibility and proliferation of computer game/virtual world technologies, an increasing amount of users have been using these interactive platforms as the basis for creative expression. Thus a young medium, known as Machinima, is breeding a new generation of digital filmmakers - creators who are crafting narratives that merge legacy cinema with newer production methods. The lecture will look at several examples of Machinima, showing its steady growth and how it is democratizing animated filmmaking.
Workspace Unlimited — The Workspace Unlimited collective will present the Virtual World of Art project, a series of networked virtual worlds connected to physical public spaces. The collective will demonstrate a live walkthrough of its projects, comment the concepts and art works relating to game technology, social networks and hybrid space.
The Fair Game event modules will be preceded by expert gamers from Rensselaer's Games Research Lab playing the games that the presenting artists are using to make their work
(Unreal Tournament and Quake 3) on oversized screens for the audience.
THE ARTISTS
KURT HENTSCHLAGER
Kurt Hentschläger — Kurt Hentschläger was invited by the Ars Electronica Center in Linz to create a new interactive 3D environment for the CAVE
during this year's Ars Electronica Festival from 2 - 7 September 2004. The CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) creates the illusion of immersion into a virtual space. Visitors look through electronic shutter
goggles at projections on the walls and floor of a room-sized cube experiencing the projections as stereoscopic images in space.
Karma starts from a moment of « unreal death » It's never quite clear whether the characters inhabiting the void are dead or alive. Karma is like an amusement park in the dark,
a behavioural training ground for a questionable army. The characters appear frozen in a perpetual moment of loss of control, creating an uncomfortable relationship with viewers. Spectators may walk
around merely studying the scenery, or interact with it by grabbing, pushing and throwing the characters - influencing the overall mood of the environment.
Karma is also the name of the physics simulation module within the Unreal Tournament (UT) real-time game software, used by the artist for simulating the death throes of 3D characters that
have been killed. Physics simulation introduces physical properties, like gravity, to the virtual environment.
(images courtesy Kurt Hentschlager. Detail from Karma)
Friedrich Kirschner — is currently working as a senior researcher for Immersive Narration at the Ars Electronica Futurelab in Linz.
He is actively pushing forward a new form of animated movies using computer game engines (machinima) and has a background of traditional short movies and programming. He's also the editor of an
online magazine called machinimag, focusing on the development of this emerging artform.
Paul Marino (Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences)
Paul Marino — is an award-winning Machinima director and designer, having worked in this medium for the past seven years.
He leads the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences, a non-profit organization to promote Machinima, as its executive director and oversees the Academy's annual Machinima Film Festival.
He's the author of the world's first book about Machinima: 3D Game-based Filmmaking: The Art of Machinima (Paraglyph Press, August 2004) and has recently collaborated with Rooster Teeth Productions (Red Vs. Blue)
on a series of Machinima shorts for the Independent Film Channel. Paul is the co-founder of the pioneering Machinima team, the ILL Clan, who combine Machinima production with live improvisation.
Paul has been interviewed for numerous Machinima articles by the New York Times, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Wall Street Journal, PBS, ARTE, G4TechTV, the Economist and CNN.
Additionally, Paul has led Machinima presentations at the Stuttgart FilmWinter, SF-MoMA, the Florida Film Festival, the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival and the Austin Game Conference.
This past January, Paul moderated the first Machinima panel ever at the Sundance Film Festival.
Prior to his involvement with Machinima, Mr. Marino was a broadcast graphics and animation professional for 14 years, winning a number of industry awards, including an Emmy for his animation work with TBS.
The ILL Clan — is an independent animation studio based in New York that uses 3D computer game technology to create
animated shorts. This process is known as Machinima (pronounced Ma-sheen-eh-ma).
Machinima is the process by which 3D animation is created within a real-time computer game environment.
Rather than render animation frame by frame, machinima is animated and rendered simultaneously within the computer hardware.
Machinima is traditionally found within computer games for use as cinematic cut-away scenes.
This emerging medium has grown beyond its original use within games, and has been added as a category to a number of film festivals and even has its own annual festival.
Currently the ILL Clan uses a modified version of the Torque engine by Garage Games, to create their animation.
Because the Torque engine license is made affordable by Garage Games to independent game producers, the ILL Clan programmers can access and change the underlying programming as needed.
All existing 2D and 3D art within the off-the-shelf Torque game is replaced with original art and animation created
by the ILL Clan, or by other designers who contribute to our projects.
Workspace Unlimited — The international artist collective Workspace Unlimited explores the creative potential of multiplayer game technology in
relation to digital art and architecture. In their artistic practice they focus mainly on immersive environments, experience design, hybrid space, information architecture and networks. The collective's main project,
Virtual World of Art (VWA), is a series of networked virtual environments connected to different new media centers in Europe and North America. The goal of this project is to create an open-ended artist driven
network for game engine based art.
Along the permanent visibility of VWA, Workspace Unlimited is frequently invited to lectures and exhibitions in Europe and Canada. In 2004 Workspace Unlimited was the first Belgian collective to
be commissioned by the V2_, Institute for the Unstable Media, in Rotterdam, to create a unique work for the Dutch Electronic Art Festival (DEAF04).
Workspace Unlimited was founded in 2002 by Thomas Soetens (BE) and Kora Van den Bulcke (CA). Thomas Soetens graduated with a master in visual arts from the St-Lucas School of Art In Belgium.
Kora Van den Bulcke was born in Belgium and studied architecture at the University of Montreal in Canada. Both are leading artists of the Virtual World of Art project.
Admission to Fair Game is free and open to the public.
Parking will be available around the Alumni House and in the North Lot
(see map on right). There will be signs to direct you to the event.
Download the Rensselaer campus map and make your way to the Heffner Alumni House. Parking is available in the North Lot with access directly adjacent to the Alumni House on Peoples Avenue.
There will be signs to direct you to the event.
Karma is like an amusement park in the dark,
a behavioural training ground for a questionable army. The characters appear frozen in a perpetual moment of loss of control, creating an uncomfortable relationship with viewers. Spectators may walk
around merely studying the scenery, or interact with it by grabbing, pushing and throwing the characters - influencing the overall mood of the environment.
Paul has been interviewed for numerous Machinima articles by the New York Times, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Wall Street Journal, PBS, ARTE, G4TechTV, the Economist and CNN.
Additionally, Paul has led Machinima presentations at the Stuttgart FilmWinter, SF-MoMA, the Florida Film Festival, the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival and the Austin Game Conference.
This past January, Paul moderated the first Machinima panel ever at the Sundance Film Festival.
This emerging medium has grown beyond its original use within games, and has been added as a category to a number of film festivals and even has its own annual festival.
Workspace Unlimited is frequently invited to lectures and exhibitions in Europe and Canada. In 2004 Workspace Unlimited was the first Belgian collective to
be commissioned by the V2_, Institute for the Unstable Media, in Rotterdam, to create a unique work for the Dutch Electronic Art Festival (DEAF04).
