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Both geopolitical war games and epic strategy video games are interrelated in this multi-media project. While virtual battle scenes are celebrated as the "most realistic ever," contemporary warfare has begun to resemble science fiction. The reality (or virtual reality) presented by official narratives and industrial entertainment does not adequately describe the experiences of the people who are caught in the real war games. In the real-time of CNN, and in video games, the simplification of cultures and history is itself a form of violence.
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The Making of Balkan Wars: The Game is intended to counteract the spectacularization of war in media by deconstructing stereotypes, focusing on the distortion of identities, and revising the dominant explanatory logic.
Recognizing that the video game has become a significant form of representation, the predominance of American perspectives in the conceptualization of these games becomes problematic. Since the Balkan region, its history, culture and people are misrepresented and neglected in mass-market PC video games, Personal Cinema proposes that artists respond creatively, by designing an epic strategy game that includes the complexity of real geopolitical, ethnic, and economic relations -- the game that Californian fantasy industry neither comprehends nor attempts.
CONTINUE The project addresses itself to the specific knowledge, abilities, resources, and creative practices of the participating artists, in order to re-imagine a future in which the people of the Balkans are something more than victims of history. It offers space for dialogue based on history and on personal experiences. It is an opportunity to articulate new narratives that resonate with the memories and experiences of the artists, many of whom have faced first-hand the contradictions of the dominant media representations.
CONTINUE The Making of Balkan Wars: The Game will be an exhibition, a catalog, a CD-ROM sampler, a website, and a collection of thematic materials and discourse. The exhibition will take place in the fall of 2003 in Thessalonica and will travel to other cities (see latest info). The project is organized by Personal Cinema, a non-profit organization based in Athens and Brussels. Curation of the exhibition and the selection of the works will be made by the people who constitute Personal Cinema in Athens. This document is intended to clarify which types of submissions are relevant.
CONTINUE This project uses the formal characteristics of the epic adventure video game to critique the real historical game that transpires on the plane of geopolitics and everyday life. Participating artists are called on to provide alternative representations of Balkan history and identity, to depict the reality of the Balkan Wars from a Eurasian perspective.
CONTINUE Artists are encouraged to use humor, parody, détournement, and irreverence to bring to light themes related to The Making of Balkan Wars: The Game. Submissions could be photos and photo-montage, illustrations, character sketches, scenarios, sound-track music, story-boards, dioramas, sound effects, videos, and essays.
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| Suggested contributions for The Game | |
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| Preferred Media and File Formats | |
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When possible, submission on CD-ROM and DVD-ROM is best,
but submissions up to 2Mb will be accepted via electronic mail
(balkanwars@softknot.gr, mb@hol.gr).
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| Deadline for submissions April 1, 2003 | |
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Attention: Maya Bontzou P.O. Box 30537 Athens 10033 Greece | |
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Questions can be addressed to Personal Cinema at: game@personalcinema.org or Nina Vagic (curator, art critic): nina@tuttoarte.comTel: (30) 210 21 35 167 | |
Personal Cinema calls for the emergence of both representation and distribution systems that are responsive to the local, the individual, and even the unprofitable. Personal Cinema is concerned with the presentation of multimedia works such as films, videos, documentaries, video games, CD-ROMs, software, etc., within the framework of independent production and practices that are different from those that are applied by the film industry and the commercial media in general.
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Personal Cinema organizes projects and events that engage the critical mind of the public, suggesting alternatives to the new global homogeneity. It focuses attention on problems that concern the local territories and tries to explore the different cultural characteristics that constitute the social identity of the individual. Moreover, it works to develop public contexts for minority groups to express and represent themselves.
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Personal Cinema expands in both physical and virtual space using new methods for distribution of personal media works and strategies of public address, because technological innovations have established new rules for engagement with a public that has become accustomed to increasingly frenetic and effortless media. Personal Cinema anticipates cooperation with other social and artistic groups which share the same concerns, and which are likewise dedicated to opening a visible space for debate on social, cultural and political issues.
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The cast of PERSONAL CINEMA includes Ilias Marmaras, Andy Deck .*], Dimitris Dokatzis .*], Maya Bontzou .*], Panos Vittorakis, Alexandros Spyropoulos, Stewart Ziff, Nicolas Kozakis, Photini Kariotaki, Nina Vagic, Panos Papadopoulos, Vassilis Kokkas, Alexandros Stamatiou and more. With contribution from Violeta Simjanovska (director) and Biljana Tanurovska (program/project manager) PAC Multimedia in Scopia.
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