THEMES
Given that the environment flows into an unreal virtual space, in the generality of the environments, a futuristic aesthetic is developed that resumes, from science fictions, the feeling of disenchantment with the lost utopia.
In these cases, the spaces materialized virtually unveil an apocalyptic dystopia, and they appear somber, almost monochromatic, and disquieting. However, other creators decide to recuperate the color that was being previously moderated in the post-conceptual stage, and to create objects with sensual shapes and brilliant chromaticism.
In general, this artistic expression experienced with narrative content, whether traditional or new, which tend to be more immediate, accessible, and emotive than real video art, but that are approached in a linear, unusual, and fragmented way, allows the sensation of unreality to stand out.
Machinima is born in this environment in two ways, impressions and unique situations. It is not limited to the objective of recreating an in-world story, that is, within the metaverse world, to then later show it, but the versatility of the media and the ease of creation allow us to apply it to other objectives, like pre-production of real movies, to test complex scenes without having to turn to real actors, in the publicity, musical, and scientific fields, or TV programming or documentaries.
Even within its own virtual world, there are machinima TV channels with recorded or live programs, put on expressly to be contemplated by a faithful audience of hundreds of thousands of avatars from around the world.
Immersive artists and machinima directors are the heirs of a previous creative tradition, but they have introduced innovative ideals, modifying the creation tool and its standards, and changing paradigms.
S T Y L E
Despite this experimental stage, some creators have developed a style of recognizable realization. Surrealist scenes, occasionally based on literature, or, less frequently, on comics, and on others, leave the imagination free, but always maintain their own identifying style that is worrisome and somber, and in some cases upsetting, communicating with a virtualized Magritte.
Examples of monkeys, chains, eyes that turn, and above all, time, represented in sand watches or mechanics, that the characters try to cover in an inverse sense, accompanied by images of vanitas or any personification of the tempus fugit.
Some virtual artworks develop a story in the shape of a puzzle that is solved by reuniting information scattered by various sims or cyber-space islands. On these virtual islands, artists leave clues and traps for stories made with bites, prims, sequences, and memory. On occasion, the stories talk about a melancholy loneliness and affective relationships with robots and fantastical beings.
The mechanical style is summarily painstaking, and, in some cases, is situated within the steampunk aesthetic. The virtual universe is populated with numerous characters and mechanical animals, like insects with open bodies, showing their metallic innards. On occasion, it is covered with unending labyrinths, where only silence lives with trace of lights. Unreality in space and time. The reality mirror.
Greenaway has proclaimed, so many time ago, the death of the Cinema and its replacement by immersive multimedia artistics expressions like Machinima.
The filmmaker describes the virtual metaverse universe as “a very sophisticated tool that combines painting traditions with cinema-movies and the graphic arts in present terms of tension and current creation that allow for the visual expression of the language like has never before been achieved.”
"CINEMA IS DEAD, LONG LIVE CINEMA"
Machinima Video Art is the highest degree of virtual immersion and that which utilizes the most recent audiovisual filming techniques. Machinima comes from machine + animation + cinema.
There are not drawings or three-dimensional drawings done cell by cell. Just like traditional movies, Machinima is filming in real-time that is edited afterward and that maintains the cinematographic structure.
The difference from traditional movies is that it is recorded in a different reality, that of the virtual generated worlds in 3D, the the environment called the “metaverse.”
The difference of machinima regarding animation or virtual CGI creation is based on the fact that the metaverse world exists previously; you don't have to draw the characters, the objects, or the environments. The directors of machinimas do the recordin in real time. The scenes are made with actors-avatars, virtual characters that are an iconic representation of the person.
Peter Greenaway has proclaimed the death of the traditional movie and its substitution with immersive multimedia artistic expressions like machinima. He proposes researching the limitations of current movies to reinvent them. Something that is perceived as so difficult and complex, as well as necessary. An artistic media without constant reinvention is condemned to fade away.
Conceptual virtual artists utilize the possibilities of the metaverse world to develop and give shape to new theoretical and artistic meanings. The theme behind machinima is pluralistic, and it is displayed like a kaleidoscope, a reflection of current society. They incorporate arguments that collect the worries and interests of our time, expressed in different trends, styles, and genres that have their own conceptual and aesthetic development.
Machinima is a new popular filming art, that was spontaneously born on the edges of the traditional artistic and cinematographic circuits. It conforms to the current artistic expression that relates the movie industry with video media, it adds the acoustics of the musical video-clip, and the spectacle of the video game scenarios with the communicative and participative immediacy of social networks and means of communication.
It is called Machinima because of the live filming of the scenes and characters, the Avatars, that populate the metaverse. It is a new type of film and of art, of free, open, and popular creation.
It does not act as a substitute for any previous art, like photography was not a substitute for pictorial representations, nor did the movies—formed by successive photo cells—replace photography; on the other hand, it is added to the other current audiovisual media with its own multimedia characteristics that reflect the signs that define our time.
Machinima themes are pluralistic and are shown like a kaleidoscope, as a reflection of current society. Just like what happens with other artistic and cinematographic manifestations, each director prints his own shapes, so there are different schools, styles, genres, and interpretations.
In general, they incorporate arguments that gather the concerns of our time expressed in different currents that have their own conceptual and aesthetic development. They experiment with narrative content, being traditional or new, that, in this first stage, tend to be more immediate, accessible, and emotive than real video art, but that are approached in a linear way, that is also unusual and fragmented, allowing the sensation of unreality to stand out.
The background themes are those that tend to be used in current art. New technology facilitates the image of some symbols and allegories that make reference to the icon of the great Orwellian public observer reflected in various or in one enormous eye that observes everything. In some cases, robot friends, structures, insects, clock gears, and old-fashioned machines, of clear cyberpunk and steampunk reference, are recurring elements that refer to the passing of time and to this post-industrial phase, manifesting a feeling of closeness and affinity toward the machines that the majority of virtual artists share.
INTRODUCTION
MACHINIMA
"Cinema is dead. Cinema's death date was 31 September 1983, when the remote-control zapper was introduced to the living room. Now we have to go on the digital revolution wave, to change the way to tell stories with images. The spectator as passive character or the unidirectional screen is from the past: the future of the cinema has to be interactive, and multi-media art" (Peter Greenaway)
Lainy Voom "Push.presented and exhibited in the World Expo Shanghai 2010 by OPEN THIS END. curator: Cristina García-Lasuén
Bryn Oh "No light. Utopia Islands.presented and exhibited in the World Expo Shanghai 2010 by OPEN THIS END. curator: Cristina García-Lasuén
Nina Camplin aka Fuschia Nightfire "Ce n'est pas une peinture by Gracie Kendal
Tom Jantol "Brief encounter" machinima.presented and exhibited in the World Expo Shanghai 2010 by OPEN THIS END. curator: Cristina García-Lasuén
Lainy Voom "Ctrl-Alt-Del" this film is dedicated to the wonderful Aino Baar :D
Tom Jantol "The Remake".presented and exhibited in the World Expo Shanghai 2010 by OPEN THIS END. curator: Cristina García-Lasuén
Tutsy Navarathna "A Journey into the Metaverse" (in French, English subtitles)
Lainy Voom "Push" filmscreen