Critical Writing Index

New media resistance: Machinima and the avant-garde

by Elijah Horwatt

cineACTION, 2008, no. 73/74, pp. 8-14

Horwatt discusses how the advances in digital video technology and editing software, reduced costs and democratized the production of single-channel video art accessible beginning in the 1970s, with latest developments in new media technology (such as virtual reality, augmented reality), which are now raising the costs and reducing accessibility to new media tools. Horwatt posits that machinima offers similar democratizing properties within the realm of current new media technology, by drawing parallels to younger generation of outsider filmmakers who engage with video game culture in the the same way video artists engaged with a critique of television.

ITEM 2008.162 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

Male Restroom Etiquette (2006)Zarathustra Studios

She Puppet (2001)Peggy Ahwesh

Untitled (for David Gatten) (2005)Phil Solomon & Mark LaPore

Rehearsals for Retirement (2007)Phil Solomon

Tekken Torture Tournament (2001)Eddo Stern

Deathstar (2004)Eddo Stern

Vietnam RomanceEddo Stern

Eddo Stern

Landlord Vigilante (2006)Strange Films

Friedrich Kirschner

Lozymandias (2001)Friedrich Kirschner

The JourneyFriedrich Kirschner

HallaFriedrich Kirschner

Person 2184Alex Chan

IXThuyen Nguyen

The French Democracy (2005)Mike Munson

Unfair War (2006)Jim Munroe

The Tyrant (2006)

My Trip to Liberty City (2004)