Artists’ Talk - artists on art
Five occasions during 21st, January - 1st, April 2002
Lectures will be in English with no entry fee.


Muu gallery, Nervanderinkatu 10, 00100 Helsinki
8sth March 2002, 6pm.

Mathias Fuchs - Sylvia Eckermann (Austria)
MULTIUSER GAMES AS ARTISTS' TOOLS


We consider multi-user game engines such as Epic Megagames' UNREAL engine to be extremely useful tools for the design of audio-visual environments and as suitable experimental playgrounds for artists.

Our approach to computer games is guided by artistic maxims rather then by demands for maximum entertainment. We consider games like UnrealTournament to be toys for art-making. What we have in mind is a subversive strategy for the abuse of game-engines and of creative deconstruction of game-stereotypes. We use to develop a system of connotations amongst images, texts and sound objects, which then are translated into a spatial structure of rooms, corridors and places of different sizes, shapes, remotenesses or proximities. The viewer/listener of our games explores a semantic structure by navigating virtual spaces with sounds and sights being contained within them.

The process of designing a computer game explores three stages which mark different approaches towards common cognitive experience and artistic creativity. These stages will be analysed with regard to the design of computer games and in contrast to the design of static objects.

Sylvia Eckermann
Digital artist, interactive installations and media related artworks in various countries.
Currently teaching at Sibelius Academy Helsinki, Finland.

Mathias Fuchs
His studies in computer science and electronic music shaped his interest for electronic art, especially computer mediated sound generation and manipulation. After a 2 year research project at Electronic Music Studios in Stockholm he returned to Vienna to work as a lecturer at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, the University of Music and the Design College in Linz.
Visiting professor for music and media at Sibelius Academy Helsinki, Finland.

fuchs-eckermann have been working together in the field of electronic art since '89.
www.t0.or.at/~fuchs-eckermann


Fuchs-Eckermann lecture is a part of Artists’ Talk, and also the start of the DIGITAL seminar which will happen in Muu gallery 8.-10.3.2002.


Artists' Talk is realized in cooperation with
NIFCA, Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art.

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