Play or Get Played episode explores video game utopias and playable political satires with:

Marloes de Valk (Software Artist & Writer, NL)
Chloê Langford (Artist & Programmer, AAA Software Collective, AU/DE)
Gabriel Helfenstein (Transmedia Artist & Writer, AAA Software Collective, FR/DE)
Moderated by Jonas Frankki (Disruption Network Lab, SE/DE)

Games referred to:

• What Remains & Villains & Heroes by Marloes de Valk

• Utopias – Navigating without Coordinates by AAA Software Collective

Marloes de Valk (NL) is a software artist and writer in the post-despair stage of coping with the threat of global warming and being spied on by the devices surrounding her. Surprised by the obsessive dedication with which we, even post-Snowden, share intimate details about ourselves to an often not too clearly defined group of others, astounded by the deafening noise we generate while socializing with the technology around us, she is looking to better understand why. She studied Sound and Image at the Royal Conservatory in the The Hague, specialising in abstract compositional computer games, HCI and crashing computers. She has participated in exhibitions internationally, teaches workshops, gives lectures (among others at Transmediale and Chaos Communication Congress) and has published articles on Free/Libre/Open Source Software, free culture, art and technology. She is a thesis supervisor in the Master’s Program in Experimental Publishing at Piet Zwart Institute and a fellow at V2_Lab for the Unstable Media.

Her latest projects include Naked on Pluto (VIDA award), with Aymeric Mansoux and Dave Griffiths, a playful yet disturbing online game world, developed with Free/Libre Open Source Software, which parodies the insidiously invasive traits of much “social software”. The SKOR Codex (Japan Media Arts Festival award), with La Société Anonyme, a limited edition of eight hand bound books inspired by NASA’s Golden Record, aiming at preserving the memory of Dutch art institution SKOR for the distant future after it was closed down in 2012 due to massive funding cuts in the arts. What Remains, with Iodyne Dynamics, a darkly humorous, authentic Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) 8-bit game based on how public opinion was, and still is, shaped to prevent the creation of government regulations needed to protect us from man-made environmental disasters. (2019)

AAA is a software art collective based in Berlin, with members from countries including Australia, Argentina, Russia, Germany, USA and France. We make video games, give lectures and performances, maintain a blog and run a public community event called aaartgames. Our collective cooperation has formed in response to the frustration we feel with the fine art and video game production industries. We use game engines to make art in the wilderness between these spaces and we hope that allows us to make work that does not have the same constraints. Rather than adopt traditional game studio models or work individually, we are attempting to produce games in a non-hierarchical environment where no one person’s creative or technical vision is more important than another’s. Working collectively and trying to create a space for divergent but co-existing ideas and ways of working is important to us – this tension is a huge source of creative energy that drives our work.

Jonas Frankki (Disruption Network Lab, SE/DE)
Since 2014 Jonas Frankki designs and animates the visual identity of the Disruption Network Lab and each conference, and additionally researches speakers, networks and topics for future events. Jonas was born in Sweden, studied Marketing, International Relations, Political Science and Cultural Management in Gothenburg. Since 2012 he is also an Art Director at sinnwerkstatt, a Berlin media agency for sustainability. He is a member of the Disruption Network Lab e. V..

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