BAM (Flemish Institute for visual, audiovisual, and media art) is an organisation based in Ghent that “provides information, and encourages development and networking” and “encourages collaboration and exchange between Flemish organisations and institutions abroad and tries to increase the interest in and knowledge of the Flemish art scene”. Their International Visitor’s Programme is a key component of their overall activities, with several invitations extended each year to foreign art professionals. I was fortunate enough to be invited and had a bespoke programme created for me that extended over four days and four cities in Flanders this February.

For the four days, Brussels was my base and I travelled throughout the region either by car with my gracious host, Nele Samyn from BAM, or I used the extensive Belgian train system. Nele was a great guide who designed a perfect programme for me, and answered all my general questions about the cultural situation in Flanders in between the scheduled meetings.

It’s going to sound like a bit of a cop out, but there were so many things that I saw and people that I spoke with that making a big list of it would be a bit meaningless. So I’ll just single out some highlights that are easy to summarise:

In terms of commiserating with colleagues, it was a great pleasure to meet Eva De Groote at Timelab, and see what’s cooking there with their lab and their artist in residence programme. It was inspiring to visit Netwerk, a terrific and fairly large centre for contemporary art in the fairly small town of Aalst (home to fewer than 80,000 people). I greatly enjoyed dining with artist Frederik de Wilde, hearing all about his fascinating work (and getting some free Dutch lessons on the side). Going to Argos resulted in a lovely chat with Paul Willemsen, then spending a solid hour in their galleries being blown away by “Sea of Tranquillity”, a piece by Hans Op de Beeck. I had a fabulous time at the Artefact festival in Leuven, especially the opening night and a group meal with several of the artists and festival curators. I had previously seen the work of Koen Vanmechelen in Den Haag, and I was very keen to meet him. Despite busy schedules all round we managed to meet for a great discussion over coffee in Leuven. BAM makes all your wishes come true!

I walked away from my brief visit to Flanders with a head full of artworks and a pocket full of business cards, but I also departed with a new conviction: that every country should have a programme such as this. This quick and intense introduction to the art scene in Flanders was invaluable to me as a curator. I saw dozens of artworks, attended a festival, viewed many individual shows, had studio visits with several artists, and met a number of fellow curators. It was a packed four days that I could never have organised on my own. I also now feel like I have a good grip on the aspects of the Flemish art scene that are relevant to me as a curator, something that can only be accomplished due to the bespoke nature of the programme. A generic version of this programme with a one-size-fits-all approach just wouldn’t work as well. I hope that BAM continues this programme long into the future, and that other places adopt their exemplary model.

Cross-posted to Curating.info.
* Couldn’t resist the Simpsons joke.

 

Curatorial statement:
At the Interactive City summit in 2006, design guru Matt Jones conducted an informal poll that guests could respond to immediately using their mobile phones. The poll was a fragment of a question: Games or stories? This short but provocative query caused a low rumble of chatter within the group, and within minutes results began appearing, showing more or less a tie. What made the question stimulating was that the two are so intertwined, it can often be unclear where the story stops and the games begin. Can games live without even the roughest hint of a narrative, and can stories develop without an element of a game?

This exhibition presents two game environments that address both the intertwining of games and stories and the aesthetics of artist-created games. CuteXdoom II by Anita Fontaine and Mike Pelletier is a game modification that transforms Unreal Tournament 3 into a digi-Rococo experience. Players are tasked with the mission of piloting their poisoned character, Sally Sanrio, through a world that is simultaneously cute and sinister in search of the antidote. CuteXdoom II expands the narrative developed in the first instance of the project, wherein Sally Sanrio is drawn to the CuteXdoom cult, which centres around the notion that ‘the possession and worship of cute material objects will ultimately lead to happiness’.

The CuteXdoom series utilizes the aesthetics of kawaii (Japanese style of “cuteness”) and otaku (obsessive fan-based culture of anime and computer games), but these influences are ultimately just parts of the overall style that emerges under Fontaine’s direction. The incredible level of detail, striking color palettes, and repeated patterns and imagery are distinctly Fontaine’s and contribute to a delightful and dazzling game experience that is the aesthetic opposite of the formulaic graphics usually delivered via the Unreal Tournament platform. The CuteXdoom game aesthetic also responds to the story, using darker imagery to emphasize the main character’s altered state due to the consumption of the poison.

Joe McKay’s Avoid also breaks from the dominant aesthetic of commercial games, and utilizes a look that is beautiful in its minimalism. The premise of the game is to avoid the black dots, and to “eat” the colored dots, with the pace of the game dictating a high level of concentration from the player. The game was developed with Processing, which is described by its creators as “an electronic sketchbook for developing ideas.” Avoid, too, can be seen as a nearly-blank sketchbook upon which players can superimpose their own traces of narratives: clinging to life (when you only get one), consuming good, avoiding bad, acting in self-preservation. Though Avoid is, at its heart, a puzzle game much like widely-known games Tetris and Minesweeper, McKay’s statement about the game includes discussion of longevity, having only one life and making the most of that one life, which immediately lends a rule-based puzzle more of a human, narrative direction.

CuteXdoom II and Avoid present two distinct approaches, which are unified by their contributions to an evolving aesthetic of gaming. These two works mark a stage in the use of game platforms and structures by artists, which will see further evolution as technology advances, more game platforms develop or open up, and a notion of what games could be and could look like expands.

Version of this statement translated into Italian available here, thanks to digicult.it.

 

I was honoured to be a contributor to a new online publication, On Curating, an independent international web-journal focusing on questions around curatorial practice and theory, published by Dorothee Richter. For the inaugural issue, the editors asked thirty-one curators a series of questions around what topics in curating they would most like to see discussed, about key resources online, and about exhibitions and peers that have influenced them.

I’m also very pleased to be included in Decentre, the latest book to be released by YYZ Books. “decentre is a book about artist-run culture that hopes to describe the breadth and quality of artist-initiated programs, projects and events, the issues we face in this milieu and how effectively we deal with them, that aims to both celebrate artist-run culture and demonstrate the vital role artist-initiated activity plays in the larger cultural scene.” I wrote about the future of artist-run culture as it relates to digital media and audience development.

I know these “what MK has been doing elsewhere” posts are not the most interesting… but at the very least, they keep everyone up to date! Hopefully I’ll post another opinion piece soon.