PERSONAL CINEMA PROJECT
THE MAKING OF THE BALKAN WARS:
THE GAME
curated by Personal Cinema
coordinated by Ilias Marmaras and Nina Vagic
On the Balkan Mall performing
The Balkan Mall video-like game is intended to be a nucleus of The Making of Balkan Wars: the Game, multi-media, multi-cultural and multi-political hybrid project. It is based on the modified codes of Unreal Tournament, one of the most violent video games best sellers; it is surprising, embarrassing, provoking and in the constant process of developing,. It is putting all of us (artists, critics, curators and spectators) in an uncertain position, spreading confusion and shaking already weak limits of the conventional art space and art behavior. It is transforming and mutating the traditional exposition space, it is the alteration of exhibiting, performing and playing. Balkan Mall is a virtual, imaginary, museum-like space. It contains the samplers of the works of participants in the project and offers a "save shelter" in a "quiet" art environment which is in a clear opposition with the dangerous "out-side" Balkan space and which, by the touch of the mouse, becomes a battle field, a real shooting and destruction between artists, curators and spectators avatars, performing live in front of a large audience. It turns out to be a real play off, including a curator's commentary in the role of both a match reporter and a museum guide, followed by the cheering of the audience supporting either "the team" or "the player". This battle, based on hide and attack, shoot and destroy anyone you meet, has only one role: try to survive - basics of the video game phenomenon and essence of the life in the Balkans. The game goes on in a rigid virtual space, socio-politically defined and balkanized ('find synonym - demonized'), and finally leads through the "narrative" cemetery to a non gravity, floating Balkan icon space, a real 3d world's "purgatorium". There the avatars float with the real images from the Balkan provenance, until you find them the way out, back to the museum or forward to the next level. Balkan Mall confirms the idea of the game as an evolution of the traditional media, and the more radical hybrid form of narrative. It is not just a simple consumption object. It is a complex cultural artifact, the item of reflection and discourse in every sense. It is a social practice which has to be comprehended through the experience and which manifests itself in heterogenic modes. It is a form of contra - culture that can be regarded as an artistic avant-garde.
Nina Vagic