author: Matteo Bittanti (concept, execution)
title: Car Crash Gamics
year: 2010
format: large format digital prints
exhibited at: “HERE IN MY CAR - Beyond Autopia and Autogeddon", ArtCite Incorporated (Windsor, Canada, January 15 - February 06, 2010)
related news: press release
website: click here
description: gamics mash-up: game screenshots from various racing games + lines from J.G. Ballard's Crash (1973).
history: this project is a follow-up to my 2006 gamics series.
All Pictures courtesy of ArtCite [link]
January 15 - February 6, 2010
Closing reception at Artcite for
"Here in My Car - Beyond Autopia
and Autogeddon" exhibit: Friday,
February 5, 7:30 pm.
Artcite's "Here in My Car --
Beyond Autopia & Autogeddon"
brings together an eclectic mix of works
that explore
issues surrounding the role of the car,
and car related effects which have
profoundly altered the patterns of human
discourse / life.
Eight (8) artists' works tackle themes
that play out in the context of private
vs public space,
urban and exurban infrastructure,
cultural assumption, choice, altered
social relations
and construction of the self and the
other.
Featuring works by:
Matteo Bittanti (Palo Alto, California)
"Car Crash Gamics"
Doug Bedard (Windsor, Ontario)
"Pyramid"
Peter Gibson / ROADSWORTH (Montreal
Quebec) "Traffic line
interventions"
Ed Janzen (Kingsville Ontario)
"mixed media signage"
Tim Laskey (Windsor Ontario)
"Mixed media bicycle
sculpture"
Stephen Schudlich (Detroit Michigan)
"chop-shop graphics series"
Eric Smith (Royal Oak, Michigan)
"End of the Road photo series"
Sandi Wheaton (Windsor Ontario)
"Route 66 time lapse video"
artworks (low resolution):
Game: Blur (Bizarre Creations/Activision, 2010)
Game: Burnout Revenge (Criterion Games/Electronic Arts, 2005)
Game: Forza Motorsport 3 (Turn 10 Studios/Microsoft, 2009)
Game: Split Second (Black Rock Studios/Disney Interactive, 2010)
Game: Need for Speed: Undercover (EA Black Box/Electronic Arts, 2008)
Artist Statement
"I believe in my own obsessions, in the beauty of the car crash,
in the peace of the submerged forest,
in the excitements of the deserted holiday beach,
in the elegance of automobile graveyards,
in the mystery of multi-storey car parks,
in the poetry of abandoned hotels"....
(from 'What I believe', J.G. Ballard, 1984)
"Vehement god of a race of steel,
space-intoxicated Automobile,
stamping with anguish, champing at the bit!
O formidable Japanese monster with eyes like a forge,
fed on fire and mineral oils,
hungry for horizons and sidereal spoils,
I unleash your heart of diabolic puff-puffs,
and your giant pneumatics, for the dance
that you lead on the white roads of the world."
(from "To My Pegasus", Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, 1908)
ideologies of driving.
entertaining the possibilities of violent dying.
on the road to nowhere.
faster!…faster still!…
traveling without moving.
I'm coming oh yes I'm coming.
sex drive. death drive. just drive.
faster!…faster still!…
give me more
more more more!!!
it's just a game.
don't stop. pit stop. checkpoint. checkmate.
faster!…faster still!…
this pulsating thing in my hand.
shift up. shift down.
you vibrate.
with ecstasy, into liberating Infinity!…
you scream
on the screen.
...yes yes yes
faster!…faster still!…
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!!!!!!!!!!
