Contemporary art & net.art

Interview to Katherine Isbister and Rainey Straus (The Sim Gallery Project)

(q is for question - a is for answer)

Raingirl is for Rainey Straus
Drk is fo Katherine Isbister

q

Pretty obvious first question: what about the Sims Gallery, how the whole thing started?

a

Raingirl: The SimGallery project was a seed of an idea that Katherine and I hatched after attending a lecture and film presentation on Machinama [Machinima].

Machinama is a genre of filmmaking in which filmmakers are using real-time 3d game engines to render their works. We thought it would be cool to be able to spoof Matthew Barney and Vanessa Beecroft type spectacles and the Sims seemed to be a good starting point to play with those ideas.

Drk: The Sims Online (TSO) came to mind, because I'd explored it a bit as part of a class I teach, and knew that it offered a metaphor and tools that might work for what we had in mind.

q

Have you ever had previous curatorial experiences, in the real world?

How important is for an artist the chance to be virtually anybody, to start all over again from zero?

a

Raingirl: I haven't functioned as a curator in the real world, but I do have a life as a sculptor and installation artist.

Drk: I've ‘curated’ academic workshops and an edited volume, which have some parallels, but haven't ever put together an art show. Have, though, done prior digital art work.

q

Do you think the future of exhibitions is the one you are promoting with The Sims Gallery? Museums and art galleries are losing their physical appeal and will go virtual in a more/less near future?

a

Raingirl: I think virtual exhibitions will increase and a certain segment of viewers will be drawn to them. However, I also believe that the audience will always crave a tactile and sensual component of the art viewing experience and until that can be more integrated into virtual art making (which I hope it can) I don't think museums and galleries will disappear.

I think the exciting edge of this territory is the exploration that attempts to combine qualities of both the virtual and real space.

Drk: I completely agree that there will be both. I do think it's interesting that we spend an increasing amount of our sensorial day in mediated contexts, and I suspect this sort of 'virtual' sensory realm (impoverished as it is) will come to have an authenticity all its own, with an accompanying set of artistic issues to explore and reveal.

Certainly the folks in TSO have a shared, very visceral reality and the artwork they create is a commentary upon this shared sensorial experience. Seems fitting to experience these sorts of works within their home context, for full impact. And as Raingirl points out, the sculptural elements within the physical gallery will allow us to bleed these two realities together in interesting ways.

q

What is the response, in terms of understanding as well as appeal, the common art user will have on experiences like the Sims Gallery? Don't you think you're playing for an elite?

a

Raingirl: I think the common art viewer will initially react with confusion, and possibly some anger and irritation.

People are used to framing artworks as objects and “simArt” or simulated art is a new paradigm. Perhaps “Virtual Art” will follow the same trajectory of acceptance that Photography mapped.

As for playing to the elite, that's a mixed bag I think a certain portion of the art world elite will hook in because “simArt” is the next new thing but the interestingly the game itself is quite populous so viewer from the TSO audience are not what would be considered the art world elite.

Drk: I see what we're doing as juxtaposing two worlds: the rather rarified urban museum setting and a game with players from a wide socio–economic spectrum, most of whom are probably not regular museum goers. And if they are, visit mainstream spaces and think about art in those ways.

In curating the show, we're seeing submissions that span the quotidian to the rarified. I love the inherent tension there (feels like part of the meat of our piece), and I suspect this will speak to both ‘elite’ and ‘mainstream’ viewers, probably in very different ways.

q

Videogames and Art. Are videogames art? Are they like cinema, split between commercial products and alternative/artistic works?

a

Raingirl: I wouldn't consider video games art in a formal sense they are commercial products not “artistic” products set to investigate specific aesthetic , philosophical or political concerns. They are however artful, it takes an amazing amount of creative talent to produce a successful video game.

I do think video games can be art if that is the initial intention of the producers.

Drk: It's so hard to define ‘art’, really. Are some games works of aesthetic genius? Yes. Are some games complex and layered commentary on culture, worthy of display and archiving? Absolutely.

Working within Raingirl's definition, there are definitely folks building independent games that tackle aesthetic/philosophical/political concerns (e.g. Gonzalo Frasca's September 12).

I think games and game-based art have definitely staked a place in this territory.

q

Your personal experiences with videogames. Are the two of you videogames players? What's your favourite videogame?

a

Raingirl: I confess I'm not real a gamer, I have however, worked as an artist and art director in game production.

Drk: I do play games, but am not a died–in–the–wool fanatic. I've been teaching a class on designing characters for games at Stanford the past couple years, and in the service of that effort have agnostically sampled pretty much all the genres towards a better understanding of what's out there.

My favorite games are generally platformers (Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper) and largely non-violent flights of fancy (Super Monkey Ball 2 and Parappa the Rappa are two examples of the sheer whimsy I especially love).

q

What about the ‘traditional’ art world, do you think the establishment is feeling comfortable with net.art/digital art?

a

Raingirl: I think its still confusing for most of the established art world. I do think its growing in acceptance, it seems to be developing a parallel “artworld” with its own forums and audiences. It will be fascinating to see how acceptance of the medium changes as kids who have grown up on the computer become makers and consumers of art.

Drk: I second that comment about the next generation. My students are like fish in water when it comes to games and the net-it's all part of their cultural flotsam and jetsam.

q

What do you think will be the future of electronic entertainment? Will the videogames rule our lifes?

a

Raingirl: Video games are not going anywhere... I think they will continue to grow more complex with more sophisticated narrative structures and the integration new technologies but I'm leaving the planet if they start to rule our lives.

Drk: Can they rule our lives any more thoroughly and invasively than television does/did? Who really knows what the future media ecology will look like, but one interesting thing about games is they train one for a life as an adult information worker-pointing and clicking, scanning screens for relevant input, making minute adjustments in strategy for dealing with complex information flows, mastering the limited hand-eye coordination required at a desk...

Makes you wonder: is this the new apprenticeship for adult life? Maybe all the shooting and the sexy girls are a perverse sugar-coating for the pill...

q

Is there any future, out there, for traditional art? Paintings and sculptures will survive the info age?

a

Raingirl: Books haven't disappeared yet, I still don't want to curl up with my laptop in bed to read a good story. And in the same way I believe there will always be a place for compelling “traditional” work, there's room for lots of variety of expression out there in the world.

Drk: Yes, as Raingirl pointed out earlier, we humans love physical, tactile experiences. Unless we seriously genetically modify ourselves, I can't see that impulse fading.

q

Pretty obvious last question: Drk and RAINGIRL, could you explain these nicknames?

a

Raingirl: RAINGIRL comes from Rainey. "Rainey" is my RL name and of course is a longer story.

Drk: (hoping you won't be sorry you asked...)

1. I feel a strange affinity to Dr. Frankenstein.
2. I happen to have a doctorate.
3. My rl name is Katherine.
4. There's a cool character in Jet Set Radio Future named ‘dj professor k’.

As it turns out, my name is super weird for a Sim. They don't use lower case with no spaces. Maybe they think I'm a weird artist type:-)