Ubisoft presents
Photomode : Out there in games
From November 17 to 20, 2022
Ideal Glass Studio in New York
Free entry / 10 am - 7 pm
Opening party on November 16 from 7:30 p.m. Free admission upon registration at photomode@ubisoft.com
Photomode : Out there in games is an exhibition of photographs taken inside the video gaming worlds created by the Ubisoft studio. It showcases the original work of four young artists – Mélanie Courtinat (FR), Pascal Greco (CH), Will Saunders (US) and Ken Sheely (US) – created as part of a ‘carte blanche’ along with that of 20 player-photographers, selected by a jury of professionals following a contest open to all.
A round table in the presence of the four guest artists took place on Thursday, November 17.
What in-game photography brings to art creation.
An in-depth discussion on in-game photography seen through different artists’ eyes: their work, constraints, and the opportunities they seek in this new artistic medium.
The exhibition
The photomode, available in a number of Ubisoft works, is primarily a tool intended for all players. It’s a way for them to capture the various worlds, to visit them differently, to observe the smallest details and to reveal the nuances. In mounting this exhibition, we wanted to celebrate the creativity of all these players throughout the world and offer them the opportunity to share their vision, their perceptions and to accompany our insights on the challenges related to in-game photography. But as a growing number of professional artists are taking up this tool, we felt it was necessary to bring together propositions from these player-photographers with those of more seasoned artists.
This exhibition showcases the original work of four young artists – Mélanie Courtinat (FR), Pascal Greco (CH), Will Saunders (US) and Ken Sheely (US) – created as part of a ‘carte blanche’ along with that of 20 player-photographers, selected by a jury of professionals following a contest open to all.
What are these virtual worlds, so realistic yet so far beyond our reality? What is our relationship to them and what emotions do they stir in us? These are some of the questions that this exhibition attempts to answer by offering you an intense and prolific plunge into these other worlds.
Curation: Mohamed Megdoul
Partners: Villa Albertine, Msi
Prints, framing and construction: C2 Imaging
Scenography: Victoire Guillaumet et Louis Bonichon
Production: Agence Mnstr
Artists
Will
Saunders"…Like There is No Tomorrow"+Will Saunders (born in 1994) lives in California and works in the four corners of the world. Accustomed to shooting extreme sports, this was his induction into in-game photography, immersing himself in the universe of Far Cry 6. A game which tells the story of a guerilla-style resistance attempting to bring down the dictator of the fictional island of Yara.
From his voyage he brings back dozens of images that alternate between the daily lives of non-player characters, suspended in a routine of eternal conflict and terrible and strange scenes of war from the heart of the gameplay. Fluctuating between raw grittiness, absurdity and even humor, these images bear all the bizarre and uncanny realism of the video game.
Kent
Sheely"Phantom Arrays: The Eye Is Not a Camera"+Ken Sheely (born in 1984) is a veteran of in-game photography and a digital artist who places the video game at the center of his work. Technical experimentation, hacking, physical installations, since 2007 the artist has produced numerous works that explore the video game.
Using a technological approach, Kent Sheely has grasped the traditional codes of photography such as long exposure and superimposition to present us with a quasi-impressionist work which reveals the fleetingness and the endlessness, the pause and the movement of these intangible worlds. An initial proposition that focuses on movement and plays with the basic unit of any video oeuvre - the frame / second. And another, that examines the relationship between the video game and the various interfaces, which here become the only comprehensible patterns in the elusive “flow of images”.
Mélanie
Courtinat"A side-quest is not enough"+Mélanie Courtinat (born in 1993) lives and works in Paris. An immersive artist, she is particularly interested in the mechanisms of gameplay and the emotions they arouse, through the creation of 3D worlds and installations of virtual or augmented reality.
Traveling through the virtual London of Watch Dogs Legion, the artist was drawn to the virtual inhabitants that populate this world. And by placing one of them at the heart of the narrative, she questions the mechanisms of empathy and how these stem primarily from the stories we tell ourselves.
Pascal
Greco"Dilated Maps"+Pascal Greco (born in 1978) lives and works in Geneva, Switzerland. Director and photographer, he recently began doing in-game photography for his Place(s) project, centered around the scenery of Death Stranding from the Kojima Productions studio. Here, he extends his work in the game Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Ghost Recon Wildlands and Far Cry 6.
Soothing, contemplative, mineral, Pascal’s work focuses on revealing the importance of the scenic backgrounds. These gaming lands, the environments where the characters’ actions take place, here become powerful protagonists. Whether in magnificent wide shots, or close-ups of almost organic matter, these photographs allow us to contemplate simulations of the effects of matter, light and textures that often surpass what reality has to offer us.
ARTISTS SELECTED BY THE JURY
In addition, 20 photographers chosen from among more than thousands of applicants accompanied the 4 guest artists.
