Alexander Galloway
Auriea Harvey
Michael Samyn
Brody Condon
Eddo Stern
Geoffrey Thomas
Game Jam
Maia Engeli
Nina Czegledy
Nick Montfort
Wardrip-Fruin
Olaf Val Mignon
Pappy Boyington
Rebecca Cannon
Alt+Ctrl is a newly initiated biennial festival celebrating experimentally minded game artists and showcasing some of the most innovative new concepts in game genres, designs, methodologies, and game play. Over 20 works will be shown, including modded games, hot-rodded game machines, net-based games, and installations.
In October 2000, the Beall Center for Art and Technology's inaugural
exhibition, SHIFT-CTRL: Computers, Games and Art, recognized computer games
as a richly expressive medium. As an indie carry-forward, ALT+CTRL is a
newly initiated biennial festival celebrating experimentally minded game
artists and showcasing some of the most innovative new concepts in game
genres, designs, methodologies, and game play. Over 20 works will be shown,
including modded games, hot-rodded game machines, net-based games, and
installations. A special screening of machinima films will also be included;
these films, made "on location" in various games, highlight the sheer
inventiveness with which game artists are expanding their field.
Festival Content: Game Mods
The availability of commercial game engines that allow users to create their
own game 'mods,' or modifications, has allowed independent designers,
artists and small teams to produce innovative new games, genres and
aesthetics using traditional game production tools.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:
Alexander Galloway, Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn , Brody Condon, C-Level,
collapsicon, delire and pix, Eddo Stern, gameLab, Geoffrey Thomas, Indie
Game Jam, Maia Engeli and Nina Czegledy, Molleindustria, Nick Montfort, Noah
Wardrip-Fruin, Olaf Val Mignon, Pappy Boyington, Rebecca Cannon, THE JAB,
Yumi-Co
CREDITS:
The festival co-organizers are Robert Nideffer, Antoinette LaFarge, and
Celia Pearce. Nideffer and LaFarge are both UC Irvine Associate Professors
of Digital Media and were the co-curators of the extremely successful 2000
exhibition SHIFT+CTRL that brought together a selection of contemporary game
art for the first time in a U.S. exhibition. Pearce was responsible for
Entertainment in the Interactive Age, a 2001 conference on game design and
culture at USC.
ALT + CTRL was juried by Nideffer, LaFarge, Pearce, and an outside panel of
jurors from the independent game scene, including Rebecca Cannon, Drew
Davidson, Erkki Huhtamo, Paul Marino (who led the jurying for the machinima
works), Jeannie Novak, Warren Spector, and Eric Zimmerman.
ALT + CTRL is a joint project of the Game Culture & Technology Lab, The
Beall Center for Art and Technology, and Cal-(IT)2, the California
Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, University of
California, Irvine.
In addition to our corporate sponsors, ALT+CTRL has also received generous
support in the form of public relations assistance from the Entertainment
Software Association (formerly the IDSA), producers of E3, the National
Endowment for the Arts, and the Department of Studio Art, UC Irvine.
October 5 - November 24, 2004
Reception October 7, 6:00-9:00 p.m.
Beall Center for Art and Technology
University of California, Irvine
712 Arts Plaza, Claire Trevor School of the Arts, Irvine, CA 91697-2775