Desktop movies and other uncanny stories

For the Ars Electronica Festival 2022 Campus exhibition, ArTeC Graduate School of Research selected four films by artists and researchers from Paris 8 University for an ongoing post-cinema screening. These movies propose to analyze the evolution of communication systems and new ways of making cinema on, with and through our screens, no longer as a novelty but as a sticky part of our daily landscapes. In doing so, they question society’s indexical regimes by multiplying the places of capture: in video games, on the internet “videoconference applications” as in life “afk” (away from keyboard). In their process of making, the five artists and researchers also add to their explorations a way of inspecting the world in which the body does not leave the office space. In these essays that straddle documentary and fiction, the mediation of the screen and network gives new directions to ongoing investigations that emerge both in and out of the frame in a mixed reality. These latter aspects are the breeding ground for performative reflections, observing natural phenomena or chasing the ghosts of our computers interacting directly with our bodies and attention systems in a presence/distance regime blurred.

Dear Hacker

Alice Lenay (FR)

One day, my webcam’s LED flashes on for no apparent reason. Could a hacker, a friend or even a ghost be lodged inside it? I begin a series of video calls to find out what this entity wants from me.

The Look for Sit Down

Nicolas Bailleul (FR)

In just a few years, the “gaming chair” has naturally made its way into the bedrooms of gamers and content creators. Intrigued by this strange object halfway between the office chair and the racing car seat, I am conducting an investigation into it, to better understand its uses, its functions and the reasons that led me to buy one.

Sinkhole

Ieva Kotryna Ski (LT)

Sinkhole departs from geological formations and the research of the artist’s grandfather, the geologist Vytautas Narbutas, inviting the viewers to follow the paths opened up by sinkholes.

Virusland

Pierre Cassou-Noguès (FR), Gwenola Wagon (FR)

Virusland is an imaginary chronicle documenting the development of a form of life subjected to virality and lockdown.

Biography

Supported by the ComUE Université Paris Lumières, ArTeC Graduate School of Research aims to promote and articulate research projects as well as academic degrees on the arts, new technologies, the digital world, human mediations and creation.

Credits

Université Paris Lumières — UPL; Université Paris 8 Vincennes — Saint-Denis;