FILE BELO HORIZONTE 2018 – Electronic art in the disruptive age | CCBB

FILE BELO HORIZONTE 2018
D I S R U P T I V A – Electronic art in the disruptive age | CCBB BH
January 19 to March 19

FILE Electronic Language International Festival
Electronic art in the disruptive age

The Ministry of Culture and Banco do Brasil present:
FILE – Electronic Language International Festival – Electronic Art in the Disruptive Age.

Since its first edition in 2000, the Festival has organized collective exhibitions which give the visitor the opportunity to view and experience the full range of electronic art. Since it started in São Paulo, the Festival has shown digital works by artists from 32 countries, reinforcing Brazil’s reputation as an important contributor to international discussions and reflections on electronic and digital art.
The exhibition “DISRUPTIVA – Electronic Art in the Disruptive Age” brings innovative works to Belo Horizonte city, showing how artists are currently producing their works in a disruptive context, and providing to the public access to new technologies immersion, interaction with new media, artistic pieces that dialogue with the contemporary life and shared experiences.
In presenting these works, Banco do Brasil reinforces its commitment to informing the public about aspects of the visual arts and encouraging access to culture by giving the public opportunities to have a direct experience of the works of artists who reflect on aspects of contemporary society.

Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil

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D I S R U P T I V A
Electronic Art in the Disruptive Age

When we speak of disruptive ages, we are talking about disruptive innovation. The term was coined by Clayton Christensen, inspired by Joseph Schumpeter’s concept of “creative destruction”. Creative destruction is a concept from the field of economics which aims to explain the disruption to a market when a new company introduces a new and innovative technology that it is an overwhelming success, to the extent that it makes competing products completely obsolescent. Disruptive innovations destroy the competition, opening up new markets. They lead to new consumer and user behaviors. Such innovations support the emergence of different behaviors that lead to new forms of society and culture.
An example of this is the smartphone, with its innovative simulations and emulations, such as the fusion of the cellphone with a camera. This digital convergence between the cellphone and the camera led to a massive increase the sharing of personal images on the social media. And something new emerged – the selfie. An example of mass behavior made universal through the social media. Now anyone can take their self-portrait with a selfie.
The camera has an historical role in transforming the world of the arts. When the smartphone camera appeared, it stimulated a search for innovation, for the transformation of the obsolete and the old, in the artistic and cultural vanguards that prevailed as the 19th century became the 20th.
Throughout the 20th century, artistic research and manifestos sought innovative means of expression. From the point of view of artistic production, the interdisciplinary relationship between arts and technology led to achievements which have effectively transformed the creative process and the way in which art is exhibited. Whether it be the relationship between the work and the public or that between the public and the exhibition space.
Today electronic art has a fundamental role in the contemporary world, because it is one of the few art forms that not only addresses technological innovation but also the diversity of new behaviors which are part of contemporary society.

For 18 years, FILE – Electronic Language International Festival – has presented contemporary electronic arts research and works from artists all over the world. It has always sought to incorporate the new behaviors that have emerged during this innovative process in its conceptual approach. This has resulted in a diverse selection of works being shown which have given the public the opportunity to experience artistic works which seek to express the aesthetics of contemporary society and which have, at times, supported the possibility of new behaviors in the exhibition space.
For the events that will occur at Banco do Brasil Cultural Centers in Brasília, Belo Horizonte, and Rio de Janeiro, FILE has chosen the theme “Electronic art in the disruptive age”. These exhibitions purpose a rupture at the traditional form of art appreciation, here the visitors can experience: new sensations and perceptions; senses the relationship between real and digital movement; interact with the works and immerse themselves into virtual reality.

Ricardo Barreto e Paula Perissinotto
Conception and Organization of FILE

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INSTALLATIONS
PROGRAM INSTALLATIONS:

Anaisa Franco – Expanded Eye – Brazil
“Expanded Eye” is a sensitive, bright, and interactive sculpture formed by a gigantic transparent eye hanging from the ceiling. This eye looks at the user with an infrared camera, and projects the user’s own eyes inside the sculpture, which recognizes blinking, and generates an animation based on it. Each times the user blinks, the number of eyes in the projection multiplies in a fragmented, hexagonal and dislodged way. The purpose of this work is to expand the view of the human being, inviting them to be observed by their own eyes through a great transparent interface which multiplies the user’s view points. The sculpture seeks to look within in a magical context where perception joins self evaluation and observation.

Contributors:
Open Frameworks Programming: Jacqueline Steck and Carles Gutiérrez
Open Frameworks and Processing Programming: Alvaro Cassinelli
Structure building: Oswald Aspilla Pérez
Developed at the Medialab Prado in Madrid.
Awarded with the VI ARCOmadrid/BEEP Electronic art Award.

Anaisa Franco – OnShame – Brazil
“On Shame” is a digital interface shaped as a dome mirror, which distorts the person looking
into it. This work belongs to the Psicossomáticos series.

Developed in cooperation with Scott Simon while on residency in the Creativity and
Cognition Studios in UTS, University of Technology Sydney, Australia.
Awarded by the EMAN EMARE European Media Art Network.

Bego M. Santiago – Little Boxes – Spain
“Little Boxes” is a Kinect driven projection mapping (video mapping) art installation where tiny people projected onto wooden boxes are terrified of your presence. Even though they are all individuals who can move around on their own, they behave with a united mindset, always following the crowd. An added element is the interaction between the artwork and the viewer. When someone approaches the little boxes, the projected people stare up timidly; as the viewer walks past, the people start screaming and running away, deathly afraid of anything outside their comfort zone. The interactive narrative has five different “responses” that the mini crowds could have towards the giant spectator. These include hanging out when no one’s around, moving into a ”fear area” when someone comes close, starting to run, hiding from a new “attack”, and escaping in groups.

Credits:
Programation: Pavel Karafiát , Andrej Boleslavsky
Set up: Caio Fazolin
Cooperate: CIANT (International Centre for Art and New Technologies)
Camera man: Valquire Veljkovic
Actors: Esther Gibanel //Javier Yunta // Diego Piñeiro // Berta Sola Sánchez // Rubén López // Miguel Angel Alvarez // Guille Chipironet // Mathieu Fumey // Mireia Sovi // Miguel // Valquire Veljkovic // Lilith Sanfrancisco // Lola Sanfrancisco // Alexander Weber
Exhibition: Elas Fan Tech at Normal, A Coruña
Curator: Anxela Caramés
Curator Assistant: Francesca Mereu (M-Artech Platform)
Producer: NORMAL, Residence of artist in NORMAL (UDC) // Residencia artística NORMAL (UDC)

Bohyun Yoon – To Reverse Yourself – Korea
“To Reverse Yourself” is a freestanding mirror that creates an interaction between two viewers. It is the embodiment of my quest to understand the relationship between the self and others. The mirrored panel, with its cut out made for a participant’s face to fill, reflects a hybrid image that combines the viewer’s body and the participant’s face. Inspired by “To Reverse One’s Eyes” by Giuseppe Penone’s mirror contact lens, I, too, want to reverse viewer’s perspectives but instead, my work speaks about illusional experience as a whole.

Celina Portella – Vídeo-Boleba – Brazil
The “Vídeo-Boleba” installation is composed by a TV set and a mechanism that shoots marbles. In the video, two boys take turns playing the marbles, which appear at the side of the screen when they leave the frame, scattering in the space close to the public, and giving continuity to the scene in the material world.
While the video seeks a faithful representation of reality, its unfolding outside the screen seeks to replicate the image. The device created by the artist swindles the spectator’s eye, confusing its perception, creating interfaces with “new spaces”, and articulating material
reality and the virtual world.
This project was developed through Edital de Apoio à Pesquisa e Criação Artística 2011 from Secretaria de Estado de Cultura of Rio de Janeiro.

Christin Marczinzik & Thi Binh Minh Nguyen – Swing – Germany
Swings have always held a special fascination for us. As children, we used to play with them. Today we like to reminisce about the enjoyment which we felt while swinging. We felt disconnected from reality, weightless and free.
“Swing” brings these feelings back and makes a dream come true: the dream of flying. Thus, the swing becomes a physical component of an interactive installation. The use of 3D oculus enhances the swinging experience with virtual reality, creating a unique immersive adventure and sending you to a crafted watercolor world.
While swinging you leave the drab monotony of everyday life behind, find a place to ease your mind and regain your strength. You rise smoothly into the virtual world. The flight level depends on how long and how high you actually swing.
The starting point in the digital world is the same as in the physical world: the ground. Here everything is pale and dull. When you have the courage to swing more intensively, you will fly higher and the vibrancy of colors will increase. The climax is in space. Upon reaching it the world reaches its maximum in color intensity. If you want to go down, you have to stop swinging, but the colors around you will stay vivid and bright.

Frederik Duerinck – Be Boy Be Girl – Netherlands
“Be Boy Be Girl” is a multi-sensory experiment that engages sight, hearing, touch, and smell. In the experience, our bodies become more than just our eyes and ears. They are the vehicles to experience and challenge reality.
In the installation, we create an illusion by activating all senses by a combination of smell, touch (through infrared light and a fan), image (with 360 degree 3D film glasses) and omni sound.
The shooting of the 360 degree 3D film material took place on Hawaii and was filmed with 16 cameras on a self build rig. This camera-rig was placed on top of the head of several man and woman to recreate the same perspective as our audience will have in the installation. The omni audio which changes perspective while the viewer turns his head was specially created for the installation.

Håkan Lidbo & Max Björverud – The Flooor – Sweden
The patterns printed on the carpet invite people to explore different combinations. 6 groups with different instruments, 6 zones in each group. By standing or dancing on different combinations of the 6 zones, 64 different loops can be triggered. Total 384 loops, all synchronized so that they all sound good in every possible combination. If no-one stands on any zone for more than 2 seconds, the loops in each group is randomly re-arranged. The whole floor can produce 68.000.000.000 possible combinations.
Music is a part of the very human construction. Music is an expression on gravity on earth and of our bodily proportions. Listening to and creating music together is also a very important social glue. In times where individual and passive consumption of music is taking over, a collaborative, physical music instrument like “The Flooor” can be of importance.

Karina Smigla-Bobinski – Simulacra – Germany
“SIMULACRA” is an optophysical experimental arrangement. At its heart are four LCD monitor panels, which are assembled in the form of a hollow square, and installed at eye level in the middle of the room. The ensemble appears internally gutted, overgrown and embraced. A tangle of cables and control devices pours out of the middle of the square. All around it several magnifying lenses dangle from chains. The imageless glaring ray of the monitors looks as if the images had fallen out of them. What remains is the essence of the medium: Light.
But the images are still in the screens. It requires only a small visual aid to recognize them. LCD-Monitors require several polarizing films in front and behind the pixel layers to produce visible images.
These polarizing films filter the certain vibration directions of the emitting light. One of them is located on the surface of the monitor and can easily be scraped off using solvent and a glass scraper. The stripped monitor doesn’t display any more pictures, but shines with an intense white light.
If you hold a polarizing film, as in “SIMULACRA” in a magnifying glass version, before the monitor, then the function is restored. It is an impressive, wondrous experience when images suddenly appear from the pure white by the mere glance through a seemingly transparent film. But if you turn the lens in front of your eyes, the polarizing structure of the film creates wild color shifts or even complementary negative images.
In the design of video images that run across the screens, Karina Smigla-Bobinski worked skillfully with the effect of an opaque glistening body of light: – hands, feet, long black hair pressed against the inside surface of the screens, making them only visible within through the lenses, before disappearing into the white nothingness.

Lawrence Malstaf – Shrink 01995 – Belgium
Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave a body vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance, the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

Mac Cauley – The Night Cafe – United States
“The Night Cafe” is an immersive VR environment that allows you to explore the world of Vincent van Gogh first hand. Take a moment to enjoy his iconic sunflowers in 3 dimensions or walk around the chair he painted in his bedroom to see it from another angle. Step into the vivid colors straight from his palette.

Monica Rikic – BuildaSound – Spain
“Buildasound” is a sound building blocks game. It consists in creating shapes at the same time that you generate new sounds: there is no single objective (winning or losing), but instead the entertainment involved in playing for playing’s sake, the opportunity to discover new melodies and constructions, and constant creation based on the different positions of the cubes.

Oculus Story Studio – Dear Angelica – United States
A journey through the magical and dreamlike ways we remember our loved ones. Entirely painted by hand inside of VR, “Dear Angelica” plays out in a series of memories that unfold around you.

One Life Remains: André Berlemont, Kevin Lesur, Brice Roy & Franck Weber – Les Disciplines Du Rectangle – France
“Les disciplines du rectangle” is an interactive art installation made of 7 steles set up in a 200 m² space. Each stele is made of one webcam, one screen and one speaker. When a player stands in front of a stele, his body is detected and a virtual rectangle is drawn around him. The rectangle starts to move and to change of shape. The goal is to stay inside the rectangle without touching its borders. The game stops when there is a contact between the rectangle and the player’s body.
For the audience, nothing is visible except the player’s performance. It is the player’s body who creates the show based on the contrast between what is displayed on the screen and the emptiness of the “real” space. Each stele provides a specific choreography, based on the behavior of its rectangle.

Petros Vrellis – Starry Night – Greece
This is an interactive installation based on Van Gogh’s masterpiece “Starry Night”. The iconic flows of original painting come to life, as an animation. Furthermore, the visitor can interact with the painting, altering the flows by touching. Any influence is temporary and the animation gradually returns to its original state. The background music also responds to the flow. The installation provides an immersive interpretation of the original masterpiece that can be used for “re-discovering” classical art and serve educational purposes.

plaplax (CHIKAMORI Motoshi, KUNOH Kyoko, KAKEHI Yasuaki, OHARA Ai) – KAGE-table – Japan
Since old times, the shadow proved the existence (for a ghost has no shadow). However, like the image projected on the TV monitor (which is “virtual” in this sense) the shadow itself doesn’t have substance. And at the same time, as we can see in the shadow picture, the shadow or silhouette stands as the basis of the image. In “KAGE-table”, we took the notice of this shadow-substance characteristic and by using cone-shaped object I created its shadow with computer graphics.
The computerized shadows projected down toward the table stay still, like all shadows do, but as the time passes, some of them begin to tremble. By touching directly some objects which are placed on the table, various kinds of patterns appear on computerized shadow images. While these things are happening, the viewer is illuminated by the projector coming from the ceiling. So, the shadow of the viewer himself is also projected on the table as well as computerized shadows. When the false shadow created by computer graphics and the true shadow of his own are both projected on the same plane picture, one would recognize his shadow and his existence once again.

Plastic Studios – Bound – Poland
Control an unnamed princess and ballet dancer as she makes her way through surreal, dreamlike environments. The game takes place inside the mind of a woman who is revisiting her childhood memories, confronting her relationship with her mother and her own motherhood.

Polymorf: Marcel Van Brakel & Frederik Duerinck – Hardwired – Netherlands
“Hardwired” consists of around 18,000 LED-lights that symbolize the transfer of knowledge. Individual luminous pixels connect and then disappear. In a process of constant transformation, new patterns, interrelations and complexities emerge.
The installation was developed by POLYMORF with alumni from the Department of Communication Media Design at the Avans University of Applied Science in Breda.

Credits:
Lead designer: Marcel van Brakel (POLYMORF), Frederik Duerinck (POLYMORF)
Coding: Dominggus Salampessy, Peter Schmidt

Rejane Cantoni & Leonardo Crescenti – Tunnel – Brazil
“Tunnel” is a kinetic, immersive and interactive sculpture, composed of 92 porticos that become disordered in function of the position and body mass of the interactor. Numerous users can simultaneously enter and interact with the machine. Interactors agency the machine via their position and weight. An example of interaction is: you go into the “Tunnel” and stand by one of the side walls. In this case, the relative position and the gravitational force of your body provoke variations of floor height. The floor inclines up to 5º, the associated porticos progressively rotate in the corresponding direction and angle, and this propagates undulatory movements throughout the entire installation. For the outside observer, the internal movement or your displacement in relation to the installation produces kinetic optic effects.

Rejane Cantoni & Leonardo Crescenti – Floor – Brazil
“Floor” is an interactive interface designed to transfer strength and movement data in the human-human relation and the human-space- time relation. The action of stepping on one of the two ends of the machine produces a wave that is displaced in the direction equivalent to the action. For the other users (not interactors), it is worth noting that the wave in movement lifts the steel plate and the assemblage lifts who or what is on it.

Teun Vonk – The Physical Mind – Netherlands
During a residency in Shanghai, Teun Vonk discovered that applying pressure to his stressed body eased his body and mind. In contrast to what one may expect, one does not register sensory input better in a heightened state of sensitivity, such as stress. As such states serve the evolutionary purpose to either fight or flight, they filter out any information that is irrelevant to preparing ourselves for either one of these responses. When experiencing such states, applying deep pressure to the body eases the body and allows the system that filters our perceptual stimuli to recuperate. This physical stimulation relieves the body from stress, after which it starts to perceive all information again.
“The Physical Mind” is Vonk’s attempt to let participants experience the relation between their physical and mental states by applying physical pressure to the body. The installation consists of two inflatable objects in-between which a participant lays down to subsequently get lifted up and be gently squeezed between the curves of the two objects. While the lifting creates an unstable feeling, this stressful sensation is soon thereafter contrasted with the secure feeling of being gently squeezed between two soft objects. Besides this experience for participants, the installation also evokes feelings of empathy amongst bystanders who witness participants undergo the experience.
This project is realized as part of the Summer Sessions network in a co-production of Chronus Art Center and V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media, with support of the Creative Industries Fund NL.

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FILE ANIMA+ BELO HORIZONTE 2018:
The power of animated image

As the famous saying of Confucius tells: “A picture is worth a thousand words”. In this sense, perhaps we could say that an animation, with hundreds of images, is worth more than thousands of texts.
Whoever lived in the distant decades of animation was certainly exposed to cartoons without dialogue or written narratives, which were filled with stories and adventures, such as The Road Runner, Tom & Jerry and The Pink Panther.
Speaking of more current cartoons, “Geri’s Game” tells the story of an old man who plays chess with himself, taking the position of the two competitors. A work without any dialogue that won the 1998 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
Within this wordless universe, FILE Anima+ presents a special curation for children with cartoons that do not relate to simple lines, but to the richness of details, such as shapes and colors, movements and musicality. One of them is the French award-winning short film “Blue Honey,” which tells the story of a small bee allergic to pollen that discovers an extraordinary product that will drastically affect the life of the hive. Another example is “My Strange Grandfather”, short film by Russian artist Dina Velikovskaya, which tells the story of a child whose grandfather, with some strange habits, makes creative objects.
There is also the fun “Parrot Away”: on a lonely island, there is a pet shop of parrots with the most beautiful birds of the seven seas. The parrot Pierre lives there and his biggest dream is to sit on the shoulder of a great pirate and live great adventures, but he is ugly and a bit clumsy. One day, a late pirate, very worn and desperate, is forced to carry the only parrot left in the store – Pierre! But the adventure is not like Pierre expected.

Raquel Olivia Fukuda
Curator of FILE Anima+

ANIMA + GAMES PROGRAM:
1. Adrián Regnier – Y. – Mexico
2. Adrian Dexter, Birk Von Brockdorff, Arnold Bagasha, Mikkel Vedel, Jody Ghani & Drude Mangaard – Vaesen – Denmark
3. Amber Xu – Luscious – China
4. Ana Mouyis – Pussy! – United States
5. Anabela Costa – In Motion – Portugal
6. Andrea Cristini – Obsolescence – Canada
7. Anna Leterq – Corbillard – France
8. Anna Leterq – Metronome – France
9. Anne Beal – Balance and Swing – United States
10. Ben Ozeri & Corentin Monnier – Grandmas Hero – Denmark
11. Ash Thorp – None – United States
12. Ava I-Wen Huang – Betsy Blue – United States
13. Burcu & Geoffrey – Nurapaten – France
14. claRa apaRicio yoldi – Efficient Story – United Kingdom
15. Clemens Wirth – Kinsetsu – Austria
16. Cornelius Joksch – Adultland – Germany
17. Damien Deschamps, Vincent Gallut & Lucie Prigent – 70’s Venice Beach – France
18. Daniel Sousa – The Windmill – Portugal
19. Dianne Bellino – The Itching – United States
20. Eran Hilleli – Inside Out – Israel
21. Faiyaz Jafri – Cyclone forever – Netherlands
22. Faiyaz Jafri – Hello Bambi – Netherlands
23. Faiyaz Jafri – Natural Plastic – Netherlands
24. Faiyaz Jafri – POPone – Netherlands
25. Gerhard Human – Last Train Home – South Africa
26. Gervais Merryweather – Mall 84 – Great Britain
27. Giant Animation – Geist – Ireland
28. Grace Mi – TPJ – United States
29. Helmut Breineder – Porter des Choses – Germany
30. Helmut Breineder – Pheromone – Germany
31. Henning M. Lederer – Sisyphus Machines – Germany
32. Hyunmin Lee – Diversion – South Korea.
33. Ibrido Studio – Water Hunters – Italy
34. Ivan Dixon – Adult Swim. Player Hater – Australia
35. Jake Fried – Mind Frame – United States
36. Julien Regnard – Somewhere Down the Line – Ireland
37. Juliette Viger – Untamed – France
38. Julius Horsthuis – Fractalicious (serie) – Netherlands
39. Lucas Durkheim – Grounded – France
40. Lori Malépart-Traversy – Nocturia – Canada
41. Liu Sha – It Is My Fault – China
42. LUNOHOD – Wings and Oars – Latvia
43. LUNOHOD – Issa – Latvia
44. ManvsMachine Studio – Versus – United Kingdom
45. Marcin Gizycki – STO[NE]S – Poland
46. Markus Magnusson – KickFlip Grampa – Sweden
47. Markus Magnusson – Floppy Disk – Sweden
48. Martina Scarpelli – Cosmoetico – Italy
49. Masahiko Sato & EUPHRATES – Ballet Rotoscope – Japan
50. Mehdi Aouichaoui, Claire Dejoie, François Heysen, Pauline Lebris & Quentin Pointillart – Rose Bleue – France
51. Michael Marczewski – Bad Vibes – United Kingdom
52. Michael Marczewski – Vicious Cycle – United Kingdom
53. Pedro Ivo Carvalho – Vagabond – Brazil
54. Pierre-Jean Le Moël & Eva Jiahui Gao – OURO: How my eyes became Red – France
55. Ramiro AMK Fernandez – Cubic Circles – Argentina
56. Raquel Piantino – Duplo – Brazil
57. Rune Spaans – Red Rainbow – Norway
58. Sandrine Deumier – ExterPark – France
59. Shirin Abedinirad – Babel Tower – Iran
60. Silvia de Gennaro – Travel Notebooks: Beijing, China – Italy
61. Sofie Kampmark – Tsunami – Denmark
62. Studio Smack – Paradise – Netherlands
63. Susanne Wiegner – Future in the Past – Germany
64. The Line Animation – Ciclope – United Kingdom
65. Vincenzo Lodigiani – Split – United States
66. Yali Herbet & Lee Drot – Mirrors – Israel
67. Zombie Studio – Dream – Brazil
68. Kazuhiro Goshima – Phenakistoscope 2016 – Japan
69. Karsten Hoof & Frederik Salling Troels-Smith – The Great Harlot and the Beast –Germany

Musical Videos
1. Bo Mathorne – Of the Wand & the Moon: We Are Dust – Denmark
2. Christian Larrave – Gap Yr Boiz – United States
3. Dropbear (aka Jonathan Chong) – Magnetic – Australia
4. Hugo Ramirez – The Chase in the Ghost Train – France
5. Karni & Saul – Perfect World – United Kingdom
6. Moritz Reichartz – Space Diaspora – Germany
7. Nicolas Fong – Those Visions Have No End – Belgium
8. Owl House Studios – Routine – United Kingdom
9. Robert Wallace – Michael Nau. Love Survive – United Kingdom
10. Miao Jing – Hills Beyond a River – China

Special for Children
1. Andrew Wilson & Michael Trikosko – Invisible – United States
2. Burcu & Geoffrey – Casse-Croûte – France
3. Daniel Sousa – Feral – Portugal
4. Dina Velikovskaya – My Strange Grandfather – Russia
5. Guilherme Marcondes – The Unlikely Hero – Brazil
6. Gunner – Mesh – United States
7. Hornet Studio, Emmanuelle & Julien – Cadillac Fairview – United States
8. Mads Weidner – Parrot Away – Denmark
9. Monica Manalo – For the Lost – United States
10. Simon Scheiber – The Lighthouse – Austria
11. Daphné Durocher, Constance Joliff & Fanny Lhotellier – Blue Honey – France

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FILE GAMES BELO HORIZONTE 2018:
Voluntary Discontrol

The curatorial concept behind FILE Games considers the experiences which motivate players, reflecting on their interaction with the games and exploring their aesthetic impact, seeking to discover meaning in the tension between voluntarily handing over control and the primitive urge for response.
Digital games have the potential to not only express representations as a collection of images, text, and sounds, but as a dynamic behavioral system which evolves and transforms organically.
These transformations, which are both caused and experienced by the player as they communicate mechanically, on account of the digital nature of the communication – with a virtual system, in fact, establish a second and deeper layer of dialog between the expressions of the author, who is the conductor who unifies and directs systems and rules that emerge as latent experiences for the player; and the user interacting with their avatar in the system which becomes both a reflection of the expression of the player and part of the channel which maintains a dialog with the immaterial voice of the implicit author of the game.
The feeling of control given to the player, which is sometimes sophisticatedly false, is carefully maintained by the voluntary suspension of disbelief which sustains this fantasy world, where this ephemeral and mutating dialog is rebuilt and slips away at every decision the player makes as part of their game-playing. This pulse between domination and uncertainly is, perhaps, the artistic culmination of a gaming system as an aesthetic element.
This interaction is fueled by the intentional imbalance between the satisfaction derived from power of choice and the conflict caused by abstaining from control. This inconstancy facilitates the dialog that is at the heart of the gaming experience. The communication goes beyond the immediate representation of the impulses emanating from the interface, as introspective meanings are unfolded with the discovery of meanings which are assumed to be uniquely belonging to the author. The player becomes empowered not by controlling the exchange, but by their ability to perceive the creative intentions of the author. The expressive intent behind the game now belongs to the player.
This inversion of responsibilities is an epiphany in “Inside”, which discusses the relationship involved in control, drawing parallels with the young protagonist chased by a sinister dystopian state. This same boy exercises telepathic control over other human beings; and, perhaps, acts as a meta-player, challenging the assumption of user interaction.
In “Old man’s Journey”, the player moves mountains to help the protagonist on his journey of reconciliation, while revealing the loving and painful narrative of his past. The journey through the landscapes is a meditative process shared between the protagonist and the player, and exposes the weakness of both, by opposing the power to remake the world to the inevitable passage through life.
“Everything” is a contemplative game which explores the sense of “being” in a multiplicity of forms and scales. The player takes control of creatures, objects, quantum particles, heavenly bodies or of the cosmos, in a casually philosophical exercise of reflection and curiosity. Participation in the game demands the recognition of a certain interconnectivity between all the beings that make up the universe while, at the same time, dissolving the notion of the individual as the player “jumps” between entities.

Daniel Moori
FILE GAMES Curator

GAMES PROGRAM:
1. Bed Time Digital Games – Back to Bed – Denmark
2. Broken Rules – Old Man’s Journey – Austria
3. David O’Reilly – Everything – United States
4. Dinosaur Polo Club – Mini Metro – New Zealand
5. Geert Nellen – Metrico+ – Netherlands
6. Playdead – Inside – Denmark
7. Plastic Studios – Bound – Poland
8. Tomorrow.gy: Agustin Abreu, Pablo Bounous & Ignacio Platas – Kid Nano – Uruguay
9. XXIIVV – Oquonie – Canada
10. Oculus Story Studio – Dear Angelica – United States

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FILE Belo Horizonte 2018
January 19 to March 19

Wednesday to Monday 9 am to 9 pm

Free entrance
No age restrictions

Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil | Belo Horizonte
Praça da Liberdade, 450 – Funcionários
CEP 30140 010 | Belo Horizonte (MG)
(31) 3431 9400
ccbbbh@bb.com.br

CCBB Belo Horizonte Press:
Bárbara Campos Guimarães
Telefone: (31) 3431 9412
E-mail: barbaracg@bb.com.br

Press information about the exhibition:
Agência Galo:
BH: (31) 4063-6331| DF: (61) 4063-8770 | SP: (11) 3253-3227 | RJ: (21) 4063-7021
www.agenciagalo.com/filenoccbb
Tales Rocha – tales.rocha@agenciagalo.com
Thiago Rebouças – thiago.reboucas@agenciagalo.com