Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Volume 17 Issue 1: MISH MASH, August 2011.

Transmediation as Betrayal: The Case of the Leonardo Electronic Almanac Editorial by Lanfranco Aceti: When inheriting the history of a publication like the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA) it is difficult to stay faithful to historical traditions and at the same time catch up with the evolution of contemporary online media and social networks.

Academic Vanitas: Michael Aurbach and Critical Theory by Dorothy Joiner: In a satiric series of sculptures, Michael Aurbach uses laughter to lampoon the excesses of the contemporary scholarship known as critical theory. Spun from psychology, linguistic hermeneutics, and philosophy, critical theory, in Aurbach’s view, tends to deemphasize art objects, substituting fatuous speculations for straightforward analysis. Continue reading

DRHA 2010 Conference - Sensual Technologies: Collaborative Practices of Interdisciplinarity :: September 5-8, 2010 :: Brunel University, West London, UK :: Call for Papers and Performances — Deadline Extended: May 14, 2010.

The conference’s overall theme will be the exploration of the collaborative relationship between the body and sensual/ sensing technologies across various disciplines. In this respect it will offer an interrogation of practices that are indebted to the innovative exchange between the sensual, visceral and new technologies.

At the same time, the aim is to look to new approaches offered by various emerging fields and practices that incorporate new and existing technologies. Specific examples of areas for discussion could include: Continue reading

NOTE: DIFFERENT VENUE AND TIME Upgrade! Boston: Lily & Honglei (杨熙瑛, 李宏磊) :: March 22, 2010; 3:00-5:00 pm :: Auditorium Room 222, O’Leary Library, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 71 Wilder Street, Lowell, MA 01854 [map]

Lily Xiying Yang and Honglei Li are new media artists from Beijing, currently based in New York City. Since 2005, they have been working under the collective name Lily & Honglei. They create new artistic expressions by integrating traditional and digital art forms. Utilizing online virtual world applications and digital animation, Lily & Honglei reinterpret Chinese folkloric traditions that metaphorically reflect current global cultures and societies. Continue reading

[Image: Merry-go-Round by Lily & Honglei] Understanding Machinima: Essays on Filmmaking in Virtual Worlds :: Call for Papers — Deadline: August 30, 2010.

Submissions are invited for an edited book with the working title Understanding Machinima: Essays on Filmmaking in Virtual Worlds. Machinima - referring to “filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment, often using 3D video-game technologies” as well as works which use this animation technique, including videos recorded in computer games or virtual worlds - is challenging the notion of the moving image in numerous media contexts, such as video games, animation, digital cinema and virtual worlds. Continue reading

Claiming Its Space: Machinima by Michael Nitsche, Dichtung-Digital #37, 2007:

ABSTRACT: Although machinima has grown exponentially, it remains a largely undefined digital artistic practice in-between existing traditions. Machinima makers freely sample/ combine/ and break elements of traditional media. They “play” their references. This essay does not attempt to fix machinima to any single definition but will identify the intermedia relations to better position machinima into the digital media landscape. The argument will target three main influences: film, television, and theatrical performance. To exemplify these points the essay will discuss exemplary and relevant machinima pieces. It puts emphasis on the real-time aspects in production and play back to highlight the key specifics of this relatively new format.

For better quality, visit Trace by Lily & Honglei (machinima based on Land of Illusion, 5 minutes 30 seconds, with sound. 2009) Continue reading

Encoding liveness: Performance and real-time rendering in machinima by Cameron David, Carroll John [September 2009 Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory]:

Machinima is the appropriation of software-generated 3D virtual environments, typically video games, for filmmaking and dramatic productions. The creation and distribution technology of machinima tends to hide the nature of the performer, provoking consideration of a definition of ‘liveness’ that can accommodate the real-time rendering of screen content by game software in response to human input, or – at the extreme – as if there is human input in accordance with performance parameters coded by humans. This paper considers the continuum of creative modes that machinima makers work on, and the differing aesthetic/technical decisions affecting the level of liveness in the finished production. Continue reading

WoW: Emergent Media Phenomenon :: June 14 - October 4, 2009 :: Laguna Art Museum, 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach, CA.

WoW: Emergent Media Phenomenon explores various forms of cultural production based on World of Warcraft in particular and on gaming in general. While surveying Warcraft’s Fifteen-year history, the exhibition looks at artistic practices that have been influenced by game culture. Fourteen international artists were selected to consider this movement with the following themes in mind: elements of desire, the collapse of fantasy, medievalism, creative critiques, and public intervention. Continue reading

“Abstract: This article examines the racialization of informational labor in machinima about Chinese player workers in the massively multiplayer online role playing game World of Warcraft. Such fan-produced video content extends the representational space of the game and produces overtly racist narrative space to attach to a narrative that, while carefully avoiding explicit references to racism or racial conflict in our world, is premised upon a racial war in an imaginary world — the World of Azeroth. Continue reading