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Audience & Avatar
Runs through Dec. 13. University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum (USFCAM). 4202 E. Fowler Ave., CAM101, Tampa. 813-974-4133, ira.usf.edu.
Attendees at last week's Sarasota International Design Summit were treated to an impressive survey of the game industry's influence and economic clout courtesy of Phil Holt, general manager of Orlando-based EA Tiburon. Holt, whose company produces the multimillion dollar-grossing Madden NFL football and Tiger Woods golf games, described an ever-expanding audience for video and online games -- from children lured to the Internet by stuffed animal Webkinz to grannies who spar in Wii bowling tournaments at retirement homes.
What's more, Holt suggested, gaming culture has pervaded other forms of media to the point that even non-players have felt the effects of gaming perspectives. A classic example: development of the wire-cam to replicate the quarterback-centered viewpoint native to Madden NFL during live football game broadcasts.
By chance, an exhibit on view now through December at the University of South Florida's Contemporary Art Museum (USFCAM) showcases cutting-edge artworks inspired by and often produced with the same tools -- i.e., software -- used to create commercial video games and virtual environments. But visitors who don't already have an avatar -- or even know what one is yet -- needn't fear; barriers to entry and enjoyment of Audience & Avatar, much like the growing gaming industry, are few and far between.
The artworks in Audience & Avatar toy with boundaries (physical, psychological, intellectual) between game world and real world. A series of sculptures by Damiano Colacito, one of several European artists featured in the show, brings to life objects from the virtual environment of the popular video game Return to Castle Wolfenstein. A life-sized tank, a restorative "health bag," a virtual snack of bread and meat -- all constructed of polygonal wood shapes and wrapped in Scotchprint 3M printed with the pixilated texture of an in-game object -- still trigger a visitor's urge to grab, despite their relative uselessness in non-game space. At the exhibit's entrance, the hypnotic pulsing of an electronic music soundtrack emerges from a Wolfensteinian stack of crates crafted by Colacito, upon which sits an automatic rifle, its imperative clear: It's time to accept your mission.
Real and virtual worlds also collide in Jon Haddock's 3D renderings of famous crime scenes, from Rodney King's beating to the reclamation of Elian Gonzalez from his Miami relatives and the Columbine High School cafeteria. For the visitor, a vague sense of déjà vu unfolds into a combination of amusement and horror as Haddock's perversely playful, bird's-eye-view imaginings of iconic scenes click with memories, which are themselves the product of media images.
An installation by John Paul Bichard brings game world violence -- or a theatrical simulation of it -- into real space. Inside a CAM gallery, a recliner pierced with shotgun holes and puddles of blood mark the spot where a gamer presumably met her grisly end; an adjacent television set loops a video document of a performance Bichard conducted in an art gallery last year. In the video, a female "player," dressed in an all-black SWAT team-style outfit, carefully navigates the white-walled gallery (thronged with live spectators) as a man dressed in a white garment akin to a hazmat suit awaits his cue. Each time the player mimes shooting or being shot by a bullet, he paints a splotch of fake red blood behind her or her invisible opponent.
Other highlights in CAM curator Don Fuller's showcase include Eva and Franco Mattes' machinema homage to famous performance art pieces, including Chris Burden's "Shoot," re-created in "Second Life," and Eddo Stern's animated performances of gamer bulletin-board conversations. (Don't miss the one titled "Best...flame war...Ever.")
Avid gamers may be disappointed by the fact that none of the artworks on view in Audience & Avatar invite visitors to interact in the sense of picking up a controller and playing. But game aficionados are sure to feel themselves engaged and reflected -- literally, in a series of portraits by Phillip Toledano that illuminate the hilariously intense facial expressions of gamers as they play -- in the exhibit's concerns. These days, more and more of us can relate.
