{"id":35226,"date":"2022-11-30T17:00:24","date_gmt":"2022-11-30T16:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.akademie-solitude.de\/?p=35226"},"modified":"2022-12-01T17:04:48","modified_gmt":"2022-12-01T16:04:48","slug":"overstimulation-propaganda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.akademie-solitude.de\/en\/overstimulation-propaganda\/","title":{"rendered":"Overstimulation Propaganda"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"project":[353,846],"project_type":[725,732],"class_list":["post-35226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","project-online-publications","project-time-after-time","project_type-formats","project_type-interview"],"acf":{"bgcolor":"","bgcolor_custom":"","custom_color_css_variable":"","content_type":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content_img","bgcolor":"","bgcolor_custom":"","layout_col_size":10,"img_gallery":false,"img":[35242],"img_gallery_format":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content_txt","bgcolor":"","bgcolor_custom":"","layout_col_size":8,"txt_cols":"is-1-txtcol","txt":"Denise:<\/span> What is moving through time and space in your game environments? The player, the games\u2019 characters and 3D objects, the narration, or storytelling itself? <\/em>\r\n\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> I do feel like all of them have this way of moving that\u2019s like \u2026 umm \u2026 where the game is played in a kind of circular way.\r\nJira:<\/span> I would say that everything we do is like an assault, like the game moves through you, like you\u2019re the \u2026\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> \u2026 the vessel for an assault.\r\nJira:<\/span> \u2026 and so the games are moving through you \u2026\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> \u2026 so you are a top \u2026\r\nJira:<\/span> an artistic top.\r\n\r\nDuring your game\/performance Orchid Collector, the collector says: \u00bbWe should be aware it is dangerous to have too much time.\u00ab Why? Isn\u2019t it the gamer\u2019s ultimate dream to binge on gaming forever? <\/em>\r\n\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> The things we make are \u2026 short and chaotic. I feel like in a way our games are kind of bingeing, just short bingeing. Binge very intensely for a short amount of time.\r\nJira:<\/span> Yeh, it\u2019s an entire season in ten minutes.\r\n\r\n<\/span>I think we\u2019re a similar age, and your game The Life of Saint \ud835\udd09iona Bianco Xena reminded me of two things: I, like many others, grew up in the nineties watching Leo and Claire in Romeo and Juliet, this film was kind of my personal nineties climax that was full of charged Baroque decay. And the three of us likely all played Zelda\u2019s Ocarina of Time \u2013 you know, Saint \ud835\udd09iona kind of looks like one of the six great fairies from the fountains. You mentioned you are interested in \u00bbexcessive Baroqueness \u2013 both aesthetically and in the design of systems, overstimulation, megamalist aesthetics.\u00ab Tell us more.<\/em>\r\n\r\nJira:<\/span> In talking about references or inspiration from the past, something I like about older games is that their technical limitations meant that life or reality had to be represented by triggers and icons. It\u2019s a very strange kind of gambling simulation experience. You have a limited pool of things and you\u2019re trying to evoke something larger with that and it creates a very particular atmosphere, which is something that I find inspiring about the games of a certain era ... in the way they had to abstract.\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> I think it\u2019s a big compliment to Saint \ud835\udd09iona that she looks like one of the six giant fairies, she could definitely inspire some giant lady fetish. What about overstimulation or Baroqueness? I feel like I am constantly overstimulated, but I sort of like that or I feel like I need to be overstimulated to function.\r\nJira:<\/span> Yeah I dunno. For me, I\u2019ve always been drawn to this extremely lurid \u2026\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> \u2026 even just the word lurid, it\u2019s such a hot word \u2026\r\nJira:<\/span> \u2026 and to answer why, I just feel like it\u2019s my experience of the world, the world around me is a lurid, Baroque, and a fucked-up thing.\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> I feel like that\u2019s both how things are but also how I need things to be, and when there\u2019s not enough noise, I become destructive rather than creative or something \u2026 I don\u2019t think that we are making an intentional critique of noise or overstimulation. I think it\u2019s just an honest expression of how we feel. It\u2019s not a value judgement.\r\nJira:<\/span> Yeah, it\u2019s more like overstimulation propaganda. I can\u2019t explain it, it just feels like it\u2019s my truth.\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> When I made the clock (UR KAOS UHR<\/em>), part of what I was trying to make the work about is this idea of thriving on chaos \u2026 like when you abandon control and let chaos come into or through you, then you can kinda ride the wave of this chaos and it\u2019s kind of generative.\r\n\r\n "},{"acf_fc_layout":"content_img","bgcolor":"","bgcolor_custom":"","layout_col_size":10,"img_gallery":true,"img":[35246,35244],"img_gallery_format":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content_img","bgcolor":"","bgcolor_custom":"","layout_col_size":10,"img_gallery":true,"img":[35250,35248],"img_gallery_format":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content_txt","bgcolor":"","bgcolor_custom":"","layout_col_size":8,"txt_cols":"is-1-txtcol","txt":"Thinking of megamalist aesthetics and reading the description of your last event at transmediale studio \u2013 where you invited Jeremy Couillard to play Escape from Lavender Corporate Island \u2013 made me think of the grotesque Cronenberg\/Pattinson movie Cosmopolis, in which a multimillionaire drives through the streets of Manhattan, haunted by \u00bbthe glow of cyber capital\u00ab and the \u00bbSpecter of Capitalism.\u00ab Do you feel the need to create games as a critique on the \u00bbtemporal data-driven\u00ab organization of late-capitalist human life, and its surveillance machine, or are your games simply part of our already dystopian present? <\/em>\r\n\r\nJira:<\/span> I feel like for me it\u2019s about processing that experience, it\u2019s not necessarily a value judgement and it\u2019s not necessarily dystopian, it\u2019s more like interpreting the present.\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> Yeah, in a rational sense I might have critiques to make of that culture, but in the work it\u2019s more like an emotional processing or a way to make sense of this constant flood of meaningless symbols.\r\nJira:<\/span> There\u2019s like the big picture political or structural reasons, but there\u2019s also how you experience it as a person \u2026 advertising is kind of a beautiful hypnotizing thing, when you think about it in a purely experiential way. Which is also how we live. There is the emotional experience of things.\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> Yeah; the final scene in your game Mirror Mall<\/em>, which is about your experience of walking around Times Square \u2026\r\nJira:<\/span> \u2026 high on mushrooms \u2026\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> \u2026 high on mushrooms. What I remember you writing to me about going to Times Square was that it was the most beautiful but hollow thing \u2026\r\nJira:<\/span> \u2026 it was the saddest and most beautiful thing I\u2019ve ever seen. I mean, if you live in a casino hellscape, of course you make things that look like that or are about that\u2026\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> When I think about Orchid Collector,<\/em> how it\u2019s a game where the rules don\u2019t make sense, and I think this is also kind of like life. There are all these structures and systems,\u00a0and they don\u2019t make sense, and the reason they don\u2019t make sense is they\u2019re made of symbols, but the symbols don\u2019t mean anything anymore. Value has been destroyed and you live in a world where there is a flood of meaningless symbols.\r\nJira:<\/span> It also makes me think of my experience of social media, how these websites have gone from being a linear experience to being algorithmically mediated with emotionally manipulative notifications. It\u2019s a system that you have to respond to rather than control. Like a hamster on a wheel. It\u2019s this thing that you have to balance and your agency is gone, you just have to navigate it and it\u2019s relentless.\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> Yeah, and that kinda sounds like what you said before, about the work being an assault. Jira: We\u2019re addicted to things that make us feel like shit.\r\n\r\nIn the The Life of Saint \ud835\udd09iona Bianco Xena, one can observe a fascination for slugs. Can you discuss this in relation to certain characteristics of a slug, such as fluid\/liquid rhythms and slowness?<\/em>\r\n\r\nJira:<\/span> I just don\u2019t think about things like this. I can\u2019t give you a logical reason why we chose slugs.\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a logical reason. I do think there\u2019s something about the way slugs are gooey and amorphous and lumps of nothing and also they\u2019re supposed to be disgusting but they\u2019re actually beautiful, and this relates to the character of Saint \ud835\udd09iona.\r\nJira:<\/span> With making Saint \ud835\udd09iona, there were these threads that we were all developing and like any myth-making or storytelling, the next person is exaggerating or evolving the parts of the story that resonate with them. And somehow a reference to slugs became central.\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> Slugs are also formless, so they can take on any form or move in any form and that\u2019s kind of how the story in Saint \ud835\udd09iona Bianco Xena<\/em> works; it\u2019s this story that keeps changing shape.\r\n\r\nYour games ooze with eroticism, pleasure, and sensations. How do you succeed or fail to translate the temporality of arousal\/climax in your games? Do you aim for a catharsis or a transcendental bliss within your games?<\/em>\r\n\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> I don\u2019t think catharsis, but maybe transcendental bliss. The kind of bliss where your mind has been obliterated \u2026\r\nJira:<\/span> \u2026 from a good fucking \u2026\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> \u2026 like an aggressive kind of transcendental \u2026 your brains have been fucked out.\r\nJira:<\/span> An extreme presence that you can only get from being fucked really good.\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> This is why we\u2019re artistic tops.\r\n\r\nYour games evoke a sense of spiraling. The rules are broken and absurd. The player gets lost in time. Do you feel that video games lend themselves well to forms of non-linearity?<\/em>\r\n\r\nJira:<\/span> Absolutely, that\u2019s one of the things that interest me most about video games, their non-linear structure. Ultimately, I feel like making games is about making a series of systems to create an interesting interplay between different elements. That\u2019s what interests me most about games \u2026 thinking about creating systems in an artistic way or in an expressive way to evoke some kind of emotion or idea.\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> What do you think about spiraling? I definitely like the idea of spiraling.\r\nJira:<\/span> Yeh me too \u2026 because it\u2019s like \u2026\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> \u2026 because it\u2019s kind of like obsession, which I think is something that we\u2019re both \u2026 have an interest in \u2026 have a tendency towards \u2026\r\nJira:<\/span> \u2026 dabble in \u2026\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> \u2026 yeah, dabble in obsession."},{"acf_fc_layout":"content_img","bgcolor":"","bgcolor_custom":"","layout_col_size":10,"img_gallery":true,"img":[35504],"img_gallery_format":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content_txt","bgcolor":"","bgcolor_custom":"","layout_col_size":8,"txt_cols":"is-1-txtcol","txt":"Jira:<\/span> Yeah, it\u2019s interesting because people often talk about a gameplay loop, there\u2019s this idea that you start a new game, you collect some things, you go back to the hub and then you start again and that\u2019s the loop. But a spiral is interesting because it\u2019s \u2026\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> \u2026 it\u2019s getting smaller or bigger \u2026\r\nJira:<\/span> \u2026 it has a third dimension, the loop never goes back to the same place but it\u2019s repeating itself.\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> Which is sort of how life feels. Also a spiral can feel both freeing but also \u2026\r\nJira:<\/span> \u2026 maddening \u2026\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> \u2026 or manic or you can be spiraling inwards \u2026\r\nJira:<\/span> \u2026 or outwards. When I think of spiraling I think of inward and I think of actual panic and it makes me feel anxious.\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> For my performance at transmediale studio in September, part of is just a cave, running really fast through a cave, and there is no game play, you\u2019re just running for a really long time. But yeh the idea is about obsession \u2026\r\nJira:<\/span> Sounds like a fever dream \u2026\r\nChlo\u00ea: Yeah, like a psychotic spiral.\r\n\r\nWould you like to name a few game developers, coders, hackers, or games that particularly inspire(d) you?<\/em>\r\n\r\nJira:<\/span> For me there\u2019s two chapters of my life, the first would be the obscure strange alien uncanny older games, particularly LSD Dream Emulator<\/em> from Osamu Sato. And then in the present it\u2019s people like our peers or our friends \u2026\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> That\u2019s what I was going to say, I don\u2019t care so much about games, but what I do care about or what I am inspired by is what the people we know are making.\r\nJira:<\/span> To name a few specifically, Jeremy Couillard, Halberball.\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> M, who is going to perform with me in September and alpha_rats, who designed the posters for our event series this year.\r\n\r\nThe essay about Chlo\u00ea\u2019s latest work UR KAOS UHR by your friend Merle Leufgen begins with a (fake?) ancient proverb: \u00bbMake and unmake the rhythm of your life. When to sleep and when to eat, when to fall in love and when to grieve, when to bleed. What is time but desire moving through space?\u00ab Can you talk more about desire and how it manifests itself in your games?<\/em>\r\n\r\nJira:<\/span> I make games that are how I desire to be fucked.\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> I feel like desire is also how I experience the world. I don\u2019t necessarily only mean sexual desire towards specific people, but something about the way you feel when everything feels full of possibility and you desire to interact with that possibility and that kind of leads you through time and space, it\u2019s a like a path that you follow or that pulls you along it \u2026\r\n\r\nWhile playing UR KAOS UR I became somewhat hooked on activating the \u00bbsecret\u00ab modes: \u00bberotic time\u00ab with its critter-like sounds and \u00bbbreathing\u00ab that comes with a clear high and relaxing tone, pausing the chaotic noise for a moment. How do these modes relate to the rest of the game\u2019s temporal and auditive modes?<\/em>\r\n\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> In Orchid Collector, there is the really chaotic maze play, where we are running through the maze, but then there are these dream sequences or interludes and everything is paused and you just focus on one thing and that thing is crisp or direct. This is similar to what the question is describing, this really chaotic noise and then this really sharp, single tone. There\u2019s something about that as an experience that draws me. The contrast between moments where you are being flooded with sensory input and then moments where everything goes quiet and you only hear one thing. Do you experience something like this sometimes\r\nJira:<\/span> I feel like sometimes I can be a bit \u2026 manic and then morose? Experiencing this oscillation between extreme feelings or emotions. Going from feeling like I\u2019m a fucking genius to like I\u2019m a worthless human in two seconds. The intensity of our games is also like both sides of a spectrum and switching between them.\r\nChlo\u00ea:<\/span> I just nearly finished reading Orlando<\/em> by Virginia Woolf. I think this is something that happens in this book, where there will be this flood of words and sensations and then suddenly everything will stop and switch to something else, and there\u2019s something about that that fascinates me."},{"acf_fc_layout":"content_img","bgcolor":"","bgcolor_custom":"","layout_col_size":8,"img_gallery":true,"img":[35239],"img_gallery_format":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content_txt","bgcolor":"","bgcolor_custom":"","layout_col_size":8,"txt_cols":"is-1-txtcol","txt":"

Fantasia Malware<\/strong> is a collective and label that makes fantastical, magical, corrupt, and chaotic software.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

https:\/\/fantasia-malware.net<\/span><\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chlo\u00ea Langford<\/strong> is an artist living in Berlin, Germany. She makes art, performances, and video games using web technology and game engines.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Jira Duguid<\/strong> is a professional Nontent Creator and self-taught new media artist working with game engines in order to commodify dreams\/nightmares\/memories for mass distribution online.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Denise Helene Sumi<\/strong> is a curator and editor based in Vienna and Stuttgart, and co-editor of this issue.<\/span><\/i><\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content_txt","bgcolor":"has-bg-yellow","bgcolor_custom":"","layout_col_size":8,"txt_cols":"is-1-txtcol","txt":"

Watch Orchid Collector<\/em><\/a><\/span>\r\nPlay\u00a0The Life of Saint <\/i>\ud835\udd09<\/i><\/a>iona Bianco Xena<\/a>\r\nPlay UR KAOS UHR<\/a><\/i><\/span><\/p>"}]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.akademie-solitude.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.akademie-solitude.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.akademie-solitude.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.akademie-solitude.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.akademie-solitude.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.akademie-solitude.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.akademie-solitude.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"project","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.akademie-solitude.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project?post=35226"},{"taxonomy":"project_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.akademie-solitude.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project_type?post=35226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}