2009 No5
October / November
Games
Down the ages, games have been seen as a tried and tested alternative for the usual (passive) relationship between art and its public. It is in times when art wrestles with prevailing cultures and routines that games commonly appear – consider Dada, Fluxus, Provo and relational aesthetics as examples. Games are activating, binding, educational and socially critical phenomena, but they are also simply games, meaningful because, like art itself, they are not at the behest of specific interests.
In our Games special, we take a concrete look at games from the standpoint of the practice of visual art: the games of artists. We have portraits of the American artist, Michael Portnoy, and the German artist, Harun Farocki, as well as a description by Joost Raessens, a specialist in game theory, of the implications of the game in the development of contemporary culture.
Thanks to a grant from the Prince Bernard Culture Foundation, we are also pleased to be able include actual games with this issue, in a special game book created by artists and designers.
How to Live in a Game
Harun Farocki’s War Games
22/10/09 Pieter Van Bogaert
Immersion, the recent work by the German filmmaker and artist Harun Farocki, shows therapists using game technology in the treatment of traumatized soldiers. Shown last summer at SMART Project Space, the film was previously presented in Leuven, together with two earlier works by Farocki. Here, it was clear that Farocki had previously used war as a game with analogue, electronic and digital media, blurring the distinctions between virtual and actual reality.
I did not have relational asthmatics with that woman, although I did cough in her lemon grass soup
29/10/09 Maxine Kopsa
In the new issue of METROPOLIS M magazine, Michael Portnoy talks about his performances, including his infamous 'Soy Bomb' stunt at the 1998 Grammy Awards. This item contains several video's of Portnoy's work to date.
Welcome on the Internet. Present!
01/10/09 Mercedes Bunz
When the civil protest in Teheran happened in the summer of 2009, we were witnessing an interesting moment: for the first time there was an archive of the present. Tons of pictures, films and messages appeared on the Internet.
Damn I wonder why I broke up with that fuckin’ chick? Uffie
In the song First Love, Uffie (Anna-Catherine Hartley) reflects on the painful learning curve of an early relationship. One of those life lessons that haunt the history of songs and poems, first love is both the spirit that refuses to let go and an opposing force that blocks every step we would retrace.
The Power and Importance of Corporate Collections
01/10/09 Eva Rovers
Whereas corporate art collections were still a unique phenomonon in the 1960s and 70s, collections have increasingly become instruments for adding colour to corporate identity.
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