Medialab Prado

Coordinator: Daniel González Xavier 

AVLAB Meetings are celebrating their second anniversary at Medialab-Prado with sessions devoted to videogame culture, in collaboration with Arsgames.

The AVLAB Meetings series held at Medialab-Prado commenced two years ago and is now holding the 18th Meeting. The 18th AVLAB Meeting offers a programme with three proposals related to videogame culture as an expanded concept in dialogue with social communication, media activism, and sound and visual artistic production.

The 18th AVLAB Meeting has joined forces with the Arsgames project, from the Fine Arts School at the Universidad Complutense, to design (with special support from project organizer Flavio Escribano) a programme comprising artistic performances and conceptual presentations that demonstrate the potential of videogame culture in various audiovisual and musical fields as well as Web culture.

Arsgames was founded in 2006 and has organized events with lectures by theoreticians, industry professionals, GameArt artists, pedagogues, and media professionals. In addition, Arsgames has held contests and awarded prizes to works combining art and video games using traditional media (painting, sculpture) and new media (video, Software Art and GameArt).

At present Arsgames is also a forum for opinions and reflections on the role of video games in social, cultural and especially artistic contexts.

Medialab-Prado is offering three presentations on various fields related to videogame culture: a hypermedia intervention (with Flavio Escribano and Carlos Glez Tardón), The creation and integration of audio in videogames (with Rafael Latiegui and Juan Miguel Martín Muñoz), and New fields in 8-bit musical production (with Sam Pull).

http://arsgames.net

Programme

· Flavio Escribano y Carlos Glez Tardón: Zenfighter: Activists in Hypermedia Reality: Join the Cause

· Rafael Latiegui y Juan Miguel Martín Muñoz (Pendulo Studios): The creation and Integration of Audio in Video Games

· Sam Pull (Essay Collective /Portugal): 8 bits and break byte: Synthesis and Production in New Fields

Flavio Escribano and Carlos Glez Tardón

Zenfighter: Activists in Hypermedia Reality: Join the Cause

Zenfighter are Interventionists of the HiperMediaEsfera (hypermediasphere), a hybrid of techno-spirituality (Zen) and our avatars’ (Fighters) polygonal flesh. Zenfighter project activists declare: "Let’s attempt an Electronic Nirvana, blend the code of our cyborg entities with that of the environment, and become one with the Ohm - electromagnetic resonance".

Two of its main agents, Flavio Escribano and Carlos Glez Tardón, will focus their presentation on activist forms of intervention on the Web, using video games as a tool for expression and cognitive action. In addition, they are going to present a theoretical introduction to the interventions they have carried out and the audiovisual documentation generated from those actions.

Carlos González Tardón holds a degree in Psychology. He took part in the research group on Adaptive Behaviour and Interaction (GCAI, at the Universitat de Barcelona), in work on Artificial Life directed by Vicenç Quera. At present he is a doctoral candidate working on "Immersion in Video Games. Definition and Measurement", and also carries out academic activities such as the "VideoPoesía” (VideoPoetry) workshop given outside Spain, with Dionisio Cañas, at the Instituto Cervantes in Casablanca and the Fundación Orient-Occident in Rabat. Currently he is carrying out research on creativity through video games and artificial intelligence as a generator of new narratives.

Flavio Escribano is the organizer of ARSGAMES and holds a degree in Fine Arts. He is a doctoral candidate working on "Video Games as an Artistic Tool". He teaches the creation of video games in various Masters programmes and is a member/founder of these work groups: viralgames.org, zenfighters.org and unaciudadmejor.net.

http://zenfighters.org
http://viralgames.org
http://arsgames.net
http://carlosgonzaleztardon.com

Rafael Latiegui and Juan Miguel Martín Muñoz

The creation and Integration of Audio in Video Games

At the AVLAB Meeting, based on the Runaway saga, Rafael Latiegui and Juan Miguel Martín will demonstrate the development of audio in the context of video games from creative and technical perspectives, from initial concept to the final version. In their presentation, the leaders of Pendulo Studios will also share information about how video game culture combines working for the industry with artistic creation.

Created in 1992, Pendulo Studios in one of Spain’s oldest studios specializing in video games. They have created internationally renowned games including Igor, Hollywood Monsters, and Runway, the saga, successfully released in over 20 countries.

Rafael Latiegui, from Madrid, became a computer addict the first time he used one, and loves all kinds of creative processes. Rafael, a founding partner of Péndulo Estudios, is the art director of all the studio’s projects.

Juan Miguel Martín Muñoz has been involved with the world of music and computer science since he was a boy. He has collaborated with various classical performers, music groups, and even theatre companies, for the purpose of bringing art and new technologies together. Currently, he composes music and develops audio systems to achieve the utmost in the expression of videogames.

www.pendulostudios.com

Sam Pull

8 bits and break byte: Synthesis and Production in New Fields

At the AVLAB Meeting, Sam Pull will demonstrate his composition methods using tools adapted to underground electronic genres, sonorities from 8-bit music and music from old video games. The result is low-tech experimental music that can be added through sophisticated techniques to multi-track compositions and fractured sound structures.

His sound production uses eclectic electronic elements such as downtempo, breakbeats, jungle and idm. Over these styles, Sam Pull applies techniques and 8-bit music syntheses, creating a style he calls break-byte (a combination of breakbeats and computer bytes).

Sam Pull is the alias for Portuguese composer and audio-designer André Neto. He is a professor at Etic in Lisbon, a school for video, film, sound, music, animation and design. His work focuses on independent cinema, video art, and new media. He is in charge of the Yellow Bop Records online project and net label, and is a member of the Essay Collective group and platform of international artists, founded in 2000.

http://yellowboprecords.com
http://myspace.com/yellowboprecords
http://essaycollective.org
http://www.etic.pt