Page Not Found and the Master Experimental Publishing (XPUB) at the Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy, join forces again with artist Lídia Pereira to publish a Special Issue on how games pervade contemporary culture. To sustain this publishing project, we are happy to invite you to a series of online lectures investigating play, productivity and leisure.

As the third speaker in the series, artist Cory Arcangel will present “Our Terms Have Changed”, a talk on the subject of leisure, gaming, software hacking, digital and open source culture. Over the last two decades, Arcangel has sought the potential and failures of old and new technologies highlighting their obsolescence, humour and, at times, eerie influence in our lives.

Throughout the artist lecture, Arcangel will share his insights on the making and displaying of seminal work such as “Super Mario Clouds” (2002), “Pizza Party” (2004), “Various Self Playing Bowling Games” (2011) and “/roʊˈdeɪoʊ/ Let’s Play: HOLLYWOOD” (2021); as well as delving into the gaming influence in music through his work as a composer.

Cory Arcangel (b. 1978, Buffalo, NY) is an artist, composer, and curator based in Stavanger, Norway. Arcangel explores, encodes, and hacks the structural language of video games, software, and machine-learning. In 2014, he established the merchandise and publishing imprint Arcangel Surfware, which opened its flagship store in Stavanger, Norway, in 2018. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions internationally such as Migros Museum, Zurich; Whitney Museum, New York; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Barbican Art Gallery, London; Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami; CC Foundation, Shanghai; and at the Kunstverein Hamburg in October 2022.

Under the guidance of Lídia and the XPUB staff, this semester the master students will explore how video games are making us more, not less, productive. Getting Likes and Super Likes, choosing your avatar, unlocking badges and achievements, are but a few examples of the language of games as it is repurposed in data-extractivist software. Life and work are ‘gamified’ through social media, dating apps, and fitness apps designed to increase motivation and productivity. Gamification blurs the lines between play, leisure and labour, to release our collective dopamine for profit. Video games in themselves often perform a reproductive role, presenting capitalism as a system of natural laws, exemplified by in-game predatory monetisation schemes. On the other hand, games provide necessary down time and relaxation, helping people function in a largely dysfunctional economy and society. Yet leisure remains a contested space which is still unequally distributed, between genders, ethnicities and abilities.

Starts at 15:00.

Reserve your free ticket here.

A link to the online talk will be sent to you by e-mail after registration.

Image caption: “/roʊˈdeɪoʊ/ Let’s Play: HOLLYWOOD 2021-06-09T20:22:00+02:00 10870”, 2021. Single-channel video of “/roʊˈdeɪoʊ/ Let’s Play: HOLLYWOOD” recorded on June 9, 2021. System sounds by Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never). Copyright Cory Arcangel. Installation view of “Century 21”, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York, USA, March, 2021 – April, 2021) Photo: Zeshan Ahmed.

On the occasion of Hoogtij #68, Page Not Found presents a film night with a selection of music videos by filmmaker Brett Milspaw, for the first time shown in Europe. The screening is accompanied by a selection of publications by Milspaw’s long time collaborator – the contemporary artist Kai Althoff.

The video program includes short videos for the collaborative music projects ‘FANAL’ (Althoff) and ‘Arizona’ (Althoff + Milspaw). All of the video works are directed by Milspaw and reveal his fluid stylistic approach and masterful ability to capture the morose complexities and intricacies of life with intimacy and insight.

The special screening at Page Not Found weaves together a series of story lines, exhaled characters, distorted realities, and perplexing mysteries. These pervasive elements in the visual language of both artists, find their continuation in the printed matter around Kai Althoff’s oeuvre assembled and presented during this event.

Brett Milspaw is a New York-based writer and filmmaker with a background in fine art. After discovering video as his chosen medium, he began making music videos and short vignettes, and in 2017 began producing commercial work and short films under the umbrella of the production company Difficult Pictures. He is in the process of developing his first feature-length film to be shot in 2023.

Hoogtij #68 takes place from 19:00 to 23:00. Entry is free.

Image caption: film still from ‘Earth Fantasy’ directed by Brett Milspaw.
 

Page Not Found and the Master Experimental Publishing (XPUB) at the Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy, join forces again with artist Lídia Pereira to publish a Special Issue on how games pervade contemporary culture. To sustain this publishing project, we are happy to invite you to a series of online lectures investigating play, productivity and leisure.

As the second speaker in the series, scholar Shira Chess presents her talk “PWNing Leisure: Feminist Play in the Shadow of the Pandemic”.

Pandemic-based inequities have been far reaching, particularly having affected some of the most marginalized populations, globally. In this presentation, Chess argues that leisure disparities have been exacerbated over the course of the pandemic. In order to reimagine our current landscape, Chess discusses ways that we can think about video games and other modes of play as a way to “PWN” our leisure, broadly. Pulling from leisure studies, video game studies, and feminist theory this presentation is meant to be a provocation that disrupts and reimagines play in our everyday lives, and the lives of those around us. 

Shira Chess is an Associate Professor of Entertainment and Media Studies at the University of Georgia. Her books include ‘Play Like a Feminist’ (MIT Press, 2020) and ‘Ready Player Two: Women Gamers and Designed Identity’ (University of Minnesota Press, 2017).  

Under the guidance of Lídia and the XPUB staff, this semester the master students will explore how video games are making us more, not less, productive. Getting Likes and Super Likes, choosing your avatar, unlocking badges and achievements, are but a few examples of the language of games as it is repurposed in data-extractivist software. Life and work are ‘gamified’ through social media, dating apps, and fitness apps designed to increase motivation and productivity. Gamification blurs the lines between play, leisure and labour, to release our collective dopamine for profit. Video games in themselves often perform a reproductive role, presenting capitalism as a system of natural laws, exemplified by in-game predatory monetisation schemes. On the other hand, games provide necessary down time and relaxation, helping people function in a largely dysfunctional economy and society. Yet leisure remains a contested space which is still unequally distributed, between genders, ethnicities and abilities.

The students’ works, gathered in a Special Issue, will be launched at Page Not Found on the 25th of March.

Starts at 16:00.

Reserve your free ticket here.

Page Not Found is excited to welcome you to the second of our Typographic Nights, curated by Trang Ha and Paulina Trzeciak.

! Due to storm Eunice this event has been postponed to Saturday 19 February at 18:00 !

“Typographic Nights” are a space for graphic designers and the public to gather around understandings and misunderstandings of the graphic design process. Audience members are asked to bring texts which they would like to see transformed into visual works. These could be either small pieces of their own writing, borrowed fragments, or hand-picked inspirational quotes. The invited designers and typographers will materialise these texts into beautiful printed matter on the spot, demonstrating their skills and knowledge. Works will be printed the same night, ready to take home. Together we will reveal the curiosity, fun, improvisation and care that are part of graphic design, from choosing a typeface to applying analog materials, and much more!

This Typographic Night features live design performances by Anya Danilova, Kexin Hao, and Taya Reshetnik.

Trang Ha is a multidisciplinary designer/artist based in The Hague (NL). She uses the language of design to observe and address cultural complexities presented in modern society. Her frequent subjects are food, community, alternative knowledge, storytelling and ecology. In her practice, Trang underlines the importance of collaboration, an environment in which different thoughts can mingle and “contaminate” each other to achieve a more layered and inclusive outcome. Besides her personal works, Trang is also taking commissions in the field of creative coding and catering. She finished her BA Graphic Design at the Royal Academy of Art The Hague (KABK) in 2020.

Paulina Trzeciak is a visual artist and designer with a wide range of artistic practices. Paulina is currently based in The Hague (NL), where she is finishing her BA Graphic Design at the Royal Academy of Art The Hague (KABK). Paulina’s practice is highly influenced by her academic background, as seen in her frequent incorporation of social theories and political perspectives. In the field of design, her main interests are conceptual design, digital culture and curation. Besides these interests, she is equally fascinated by the use of fictional elements in design. She believes in its power to explore possible futures by creating speculative and alternative scenarios, shaping the complexity of the social-political landscape.

Anya Danilova is a type designer originally from Moscow, Russia. After studying in MA Type and Media in The Hague, she stayed in the Netherlands and continues her practice, working with various type foundries like Grilli Type, Typotheque, Arrow Type, type.today. In her practice, she is equally interested in drawing shapes by hand, working with outlines on a computer, scripting to automise specific processes and writing about type and typography. 

Kexin Hao is a visual artist and designer born in Beijing and based in The Netherlands. Her practice is a marriage between graphic design and performance art, and between art and non-art spaces. Using a daring visual language, Kexin’s work is a constant swing between intimate close-up on personal stories and zoom-out to collective narratives; between a past of political heaviness and a flashy modernity rendered in humour and sarcasm. In her recent works, Kexin investigates in the themes of body, rituals, health, archive, and collective memory.

Taya Reshetnik is a NL-based graphic designer, researcher and visual storyteller. In her work she uses stories as creative tools to talk about the meaning of public space, place-making and human experience in urban environment. The visual part of her projects often materializes in a form of a digital collage of found and self-produced imagery. Collaging techniques are used to put multilayered narratives together. For conduction of her research, Taya borrows methods from journalism and microhistory, the analytic approach, where archival research is focused on an individual, small group or an object. 

Starts at 18:00. Entrance is free and on a walk-in basis, no reservation is required.

If you have written materials (quick notes, midnight ideas, observations, poems, lyrics, etc!) which you’d like to see designed and printed, please upload them to the submission form.

Please note: We kindly ask you to show a valid proof of vaccination, recovery or negative test result at the entrance.

Page Not Found and the Master Experimental Publishing (XPUB) at the Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy, join forces again with artist Lídia Pereira to publish a Special Issue on how games pervade contemporary culture. To sustain this publishing project, we are happy to invite you to a series of online lectures investigating play, productivity and leisure.

The lecture series will be kicked off with a talk by game developer, artist and educator Paolo Pedercini. Pedercini’s artistic practice examines the relationship between electronic entertainment and ideology. Working under the project name Molleindustria, he produces videogames addressing social issues such as environmentalism, food politics, labor and gender.

Pedercini teaches digital media production and experimental game design at the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. His work is enjoyed by many over the net and has been exhibited in over seventeen countries around the world. He lectured in several universities in Europe and the US and in venues ranging from the oldest squat in Italy to the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Pedercini is the director of LIKELIKE, a neo-arcade devoted to independent games and playful art in Pittsburgh, PA.

Under the guidance of Lídia and the XPUB staff, this semester the master students will explore how video games are making us more, not less, productive. Getting Likes and Super Likes, choosing your avatar, unlocking badges and achievements, are but a few examples of the language of games as it is repurposed in data-extractivist software. Life and work are ‘gamified’ through social media, dating apps, and fitness apps designed to increase motivation and productivity. Gamification blurs the lines between play, leisure and labour, to release our collective dopamine for profit. Video games in themselves often perform a reproductive role, presenting capitalism as a system of natural laws, exemplified by in-game predatory monetisation schemes. On the other hand, games provide necessary down time and relaxation, helping people function in a largely dysfunctional economy and society. Yet leisure remains a contested space which is still unequally distributed, between genders, ethnicities and abilities.

The students’ works, gathered in a Special Issue, will be launched at Page Not Found at the end of March.

Starts at 16:00.

Join the online talk here