Joseph DeLappe

FOTOLUDICA: OVER 500 ATTENDEES AT IULM UNIVERSITY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Over 500 Attendees at Italy’s First Conference on In-Game Photography

Milan, Italy – IULM University hosted the pioneering Fotoludica conference on March 14 and 15, 2024, marking a significant milestone in the recognition of in-game photography as an emerging art form. Curated by Matteo Bittanti and Marco De Mutiis, the event attracted over 500 participants, highlighting its success and the growing interest in this cutting-edge field.

Fotoludica, brought together a diverse group of attendees, not limited to IULM students. The conference saw participation from students across various universities and art schools, including a notable class from the Milan Academy of Art of Brera, led by esteemed curator Domenico Quaranta.

The event unfolded in the Sala dei 146 at IULM 6, Università IULM, offering two days filled with insightful talks, presentations, and discussions. It served as a vibrant platform for creators, researchers, and theorists to explore the intersections of video games, photography, copyright law, activism, and visual culture.

Fotoludica tackled various facets of in-game photography, from the artistry of photo modes and screenshot hacks to the legalities concerning player-created images. The conference featured analyses of works by renowned artists such as Boris Camaca, Leonardo Magrelli, Simone Santilli, Alan Butler, Pascal Greco, Joseph DeLappe and Adonis Archontides, showcasing the depth and creativity possible within virtual gaming worlds.

Key topics included the use of photography for architectural visualization in games like Minecraft, documenting in-game performance art, and contemporary war photography. Discussions delved into the ways gaming environments, when viewed through a photographic lens, can expose themes of violence, labor exploitation, and colonial ideologies.

The lineup of speakers spanned diverse fields, including art history, visual culture, game development, and internet law, with keynotes by Marco De Mutiis on “Playable Imaging” and a special conversation between artist Joseph DeLappe and scholar Laura Leuzzi. Panel discussions led by Bittanti and De Mutiis critically examined the boundaries of creativity, authorship, and ethics in photographic practices using game engines.

Fotoludica has not only established in-game photography as a significant art form but also underscored IULM University's leading role in the scholarly exploration of photography within game studies. The conference’s success in fostering multidisciplinary dialogue sets a new benchmark for artistic interrogation of games, bridging the worlds of photography and machinima.

Fotoludica was the first of a series of events organized by IULM University on the topic of in-game photography as part of an ongoing research. Additional initiatives will take place in May 2024. For more information on the Fotoludica conference and its contributions to the field, please contact Matteo Bittanti at matteo.bittanti@iulm.it

Contact Information:

Matteo Bittanti

Università IULM

Via Carlo Bo, 2

20143 Milano

Event Information: Fotoludica
Date: March 14-15, 2024
Time: 10 AM - 1 PM
Location: Sala dei 146, IULM 6, Università IULM

ARTICLE: DEER HUNTING, URBAN FLANERIE, AND POST-HUMAN GAMING

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

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PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT 〰️

Between May 19 - June 1 2023, VRAL exhibited Brent Watanabe’s groundbreaking VR project MINE. In this short essay – an abridged version of a much longer piece included in an upcoming book – we revisit one of Watanabe’s most iconic works, San Andreas Deer Cam (2015-2016) and its lasting impact on contemporary art.

Eddie Lohmeyer opens his book, Unstable Aesthetics: Game Engines and the Strangeness of Modding, by comparing and contrasting seminal Orhan Kipcak and Reini Urban’s ArsDoom (1995) to the more recent performance by Brent Watanabe’s San Andreas Deer Cam (2016). Although both artworks are modded versions of popular mainstream games – Doom and Grand Theft Auto V respectively – there are several differences between the two interventions.

First, ArsDoom was set in a custom map designed by the artists using AutoCAD reconstructing the Brucknerhaus exhibition hall in Linz, Austria, whereas Watanabe left the landscapes of San Andreas, modeled after the state of California, unchanged. Those spaces are also qualitatively different in game design terms: the former is self-contained and goal-oriented whereas the latter qualifies as an “open world” and no specific objectives are prescribed to the performer. Secondly, although both art performances featured an online component, ArsDoom was highly participatory, as it encouraged players to log on a dedicated server under the guise of contemporary artists (Joseph Beuys, Hermann Nitsch, Jeff Koons, and Nam June Paik among others) in order to destroy the virtual artworks on display using custom weapons. In short, we can argue that ArsDoom was an example of playable art criticism, or perhaps even institutional critique masquerading as a video game. It embraced the Italian Futurists’ call to arms – “We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind” – almost literally.

On the other hand, Watanabe’s San Andreas Deer Cam does not solicit any human input – in fact, it excludes it - and therefore qualifies as an example of what some scholars have called “post-human gaming” (Bittanti 2014, Ruffino 2020), whereas the game is either self-playing (as in many installations by Cory Arcangel, for instance) or the player’s avatar is replaced by artificial intelligence (as in the case of Forza Motorsport’s drivatars). Watanabe’s San Andreas Deer Cam is a modified version of Grand Theft Auto V in which a virtual deer traverses the game’s environments, both urban and rural, interacting with other kinds of NPCs, non-player characters controlled by the game’s artificial intelligence. The mod was created by replacing the standard human animal avatar(s) with a non-human animal avatar, whose movements, however, are still anthropocenic as “the deer’s actions are based on the game’s pedestrian AI” (Lohmeyer 2016, p. 1).


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Matteo Bittanti

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