Vector: Game+Art Convergence – Working PS1 Controller Bras/Bros!
Friday, February 22, 2013 – Time TBA
Interaccess Electronic Media Arts Centre,
9 Ossington Avenue, Toronto
Daniele Hopkins and Kyle Duffield will be performing at Playing Personae: Engendered + Embodied Performances on Friday, February 22, 2013 at 9 Ossington Avenue, Toronto.
In their performance, Itagaki Interface, Daniele Hopkins and Kyle Duffield use their own bodies to challenge exaggerated representations of the human body in the fighting game Dead or Alive (PS1), by Tomonobu Itakagi. The game features hyper feminized and hyper masculinized bodies in one on one combat, and more notably, a separate physics engine dedicated towards the characters breasts.
In the performance, the artists wear modified game controllers on their chests, essentially acting as human game controllers. The audience is confronted with the challenge of having to play one another in the game, by manipulating the controllers worn by the artists. This piece is a hybridization of 70s body-centric performance art and new media interactive performance, challenging us all to consider the ways in which our bodies are represented in interactive media.
That’s right folks. We’ve made fully functioning PS1 game bras/bros! See you there!
A not-for-profit initiative dedicated to showcasing contemporary game based artworks, Vector: Game + Art Convergence will be running at four venues over five days from Feb 20th-24th, in Queen West and Kensington in Toronto. Over these five days, Vector will feature exhibitions, screenings, workshops, performances and round table discussions, all with the intent of creating a critical dialogue about the medium of games and its expressive potential as a contemporary art practice.With an influence that is spreading across various cultures and sub-cultures through out the world, video games are a pervasive media that are influencing a wide range of social and cultural practices.
Programmed by Team Vector, the festival will address contemporary creative practices that peel back to curtain of gaming and its cultures, positing games as tools and inspiration for contemporary art making. It will feature works by international, national and regional, emerging and established artists.
Works in sculpture, film and video, new media, installation, print, fine craft and performance will all be part of the spectrum exhibited at Vector. These works will incorporate, criticize and address the culture, politics, technology and aesthetics of games, through exhibitions, artist talks, workshops and performances.
Daniele Hopkins and Kyle Duffield 