Hello everyone,

I recently, as of a couple hours ago, gave a small talk and had a conversation with two curators; Marco De Mutis and Jon Uriarte as part of an event they put together called Screen Walks. They said some very nice things about me, and about The Zium, and it was really lovely to get an opportunity to go back through the various Zium releases, however briefly, and in particular, to talk to other curators about art and curation.

I somewhat over-prepared for the talk, writing pages and pages about what the talk was to be about; 'The Language of Software' and 'The Impossibility Space" being the two buzz-phrases I framed the talk around. I had a hope that I wouldn't need the notes, and that as is preferable, we just speak from the heart, honestly and passionately, rather than read a dissertation. Which is what we did, spoke from the heart I mean. Really, it was in meeting with Marco and Jon before the talk that they mentioned they had 'a lot of questions' for me, so, in the interest of much preferring a conversation, I tended to zoom through anything I had planned and get to chatting with fellow curators.

However, even though I didn't go too deeply into what I had prepared, I did have a bunch of crystalline writing about a few concepts that I do feel quite deeply about, and thought they'd make a nice article for those interested in some insight into my process, and my thinking around The Zium. So, I've editing some of those notes and musing from my prep for the talk and wanted to share them.

Of course, if you'd like to hear the talk for yourself, you can find an archived version here. In the talk, I talk about these concepts of "The Language of Software" and "The Impossibility Space", as well as talk about the process of making The Zium, the inspiring strengths of the 'video game engine' as a tool for artists.

In any case, let me share with you some writing that inspired the talk, and some writing about, perhaps, what inspires me, and if I may be so bold, what should inspire you, too.

The Language of Software and The Impossibility Space

David Lynch once said that “cinema can say things that are difficult to put into words” and that cinema "is a language that can say abstract things”. This is how I feel about software, as well as cinema to be fair. I am a big believer in the power of a game engine as a tool for making art, and making experiences that can convey the ineffable. If all modes of creative expression exist in a tower of babel-like structure, software is right there with cinema and literature and theatre and music and painting, and all the others. Not as a tool to assist those other mediums, which it can also be, but as a medium in its own right. Similar to how still-frame photography is its own medium, and film contains photography, they can be unique languages to express unique ideas. There is much to romanticise about software, as there is about cinema, or music, or painting.

I use the phrase “The Impossibility Space” mostly when approaching artists for The Zium, to try and pull focus on not just creating work for a ‘digital gallery’ but to embrace what it means to be able to do so. To embrace building something in a game engine, and what you can do there that you can’t do elsewhere. Not just in real life, which is the obvious one, but what might not be achievable in other mediums at all. In many cases, even traditional mediums can be elevated when they are embraced by software. 

We might say this “impossibility space” when working in the digital mediums is the orator of the ‘artistic language’ of software, and by extension, of video games. In the same way as cinema, software and video games by extension, have their own language that they draw from. A language that likewise gives the artist the ability to express ideas that would otherwise be unable to be expressed, or explored, or realised in any other medium. We are perhaps used to hearing the phrase “the language of cinema” to refer to techniques and styles that allow a filmmaker to use the medium of cinema to express their vision. If you load up for favourite SDK and look at your favourite level, with all of it's assets and code ready to go, what you're looking at is the inside of a film projector and also, the god's eye view of a movie set. A film projector that is yet to be turned on and a movie set right before the director calls “action”. That's sort of what a dormant but primed game engine is.

Game engines are to software what the film camera is to photography. It is a language that elevates those who speak it. The Impossibility Space as I see it is simply an invitation as well as a challenge. To accept that the impossible becomes possible in the digital world and to explore that impossible space, in so doing, making the impossible possible. Re-contextualising rules of reality as the artist desires has never been more enabled than with the invention of the game engine.

The Zium is quite an overt example of a romanticisation, and love, of the art gallery as an artefact of humanity, and the celebration of art as proof of a living consciousness. It was made to facilitate thinking about art, about technology, about what goes into making software, and what goes into making games. About celebrating those elements and processes as being as artful as anything made for art's sake. It’s these sensibilities that manifest in the sort of compulsion to create a place that celebrates such things, and how it is easy to remain reverent. Any artist invited to work with The Zium is given much more freedom than the curator gives themselves, that the developer gives themselves and their team. In this restriction, that we are constantly testing from release to release, we maintain the necessary reverence to the somewhat transcendental state that a modern art gallery or museum has been able to organise ideas for open consideration. Open in terms of receptiveness, in terms of giving a person an ideal 'third place' to have meetings with the art.

Art does not exist in a vacuum. Another way to put it; Art also does not exist without two very important elements; the artist and audience. One cannot exist without the other. Art exists in the metaphysical space at the exact center of these two elements, at the perfect point in the flow of an idea, into being, and back into the ephemeral, ready to inspire once again. All our biological systems come together to receive ideas, to hold an idea in our mind, and to bring them into being. I like to think of software in this way, bringing together all the systems of the machine in order to manifest an idea, an idea that can be seen by the observing consciousness at all relevant levels, at deeper levels, into new aspects of reality, and of ourselves. The digital art gallery brings 'the third place' into the comfort of your home, and does so via the eternal 'third place' - the internet.

Software, with respect to it being a medium to work within, allows the artist greater access to deeper aspects of creation than most other mediums. While no medium is superior to another as a tool for expression, after all the idea wants to become what it must become, software emerges as a compelling language of expression. An easy sell, hopefully, that video games represent the greatest nexus of creative mediums working together. Look at any video game and consider all the disciplines that are responsible for its existence. Though this is a broad example pool to draw from, any game that reaches a certain level of quality and dedication has within it the mastering of a thousand languages. Even in the administrative elements of making a game, there is artfulness, and there must be. There is a language, and a unique form of expression and potential for experience that exists uniquely at such a nexus. We might say this 'impossibility space', and how artists use it, is part of the ‘artistic language’ of software, and by extension, of video games. Though, there is no dissertation to find here on what this language is, as there are no scientific rules that are relevant here. The language of birdsong to a bird, and how that language sounds to us. The language of cinema speaks in ideas, it speaks in the expression of the images, with sound, together in time. The language of software, 0's and 1's are the only alphabet, the language that art speaks is a living one.

The Impossibility Space could be said to exist in any medium. While the 'possibility space' encompass all possible eventualities, the 'impossibility' space of any medium is the perspective that from the perspective of any other medium, what is occurring there is 'impossible'. It is the space within that medium, any medium, that the artist can traverse uniquely while working within it. Some ideas can only be expressed, be felt, through cinema. Likewise, as we have seen in the historic fumbling to adapt video games into movies, there is more to the video game medium than just story, or design, or art direction, and I do not simply mean interactivity. It is more complex than this, but in terms of conveyance, it is simple; The best work in any medium is done by the artist who best understand the medium in which they have chosen to create their art. The best a work can be, in any medium, is done by the artist who best understands the medium, the creative language, in which they are working. An art gallery's installation space itself can be it's own unique medium with it's own unique language, the available space being a canvas for ideas that could otherwise not be conveyed. Well, in a digital art gallery, the same language exists there, but the bridge to be able to now speak the language of the reality around that space is instantly available to the digital artist, the aspects of reality that in our everyday lives only the gods have access. 

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For a slightly more naturalistic expression of these ideas, please feel free to visit my Screen Walk with Marco and Jon, and while you're there, why not enjoy some of their other fantastic Screen Walks. They have not ask me to plug their event, and it is for that reason almost exclusively that I want to. Plus, aside from being very nice fellows, they are curators, and as I mentioned to them, and in the talk itself, it turns out I have an overwhelming soft-spot for any request that comes from a curator. Particularly especially when they are saying such nice things about The Zium, and about me. I feel often like a game developer in a very rudimentary curator mask, well... broadly, I feel like a mote of consciousness wearing the mask of an artist, but hyper specifically here I feel like a game developer wearing a curator's mask. It's not impostor syndrome, it's an acknowledgement that there are better curators than me, and that in the traditional sense, I'm not sure I deserve the title. I make a video game wearing the mask of an art gallery, but what makes the most sense when I stand in front of it, is as it's curator. But when I meet a real curator, I immediately feel like the principal has found me sitting behind their desk smoking a cigar. So, that is to say, it was really nice to talk to other curators and be speaking from the same page of passion and curiosity for art, likewise to be so welcomed by them. I do not often give talks, and when I do, they are commonly not recorded or shared online, so I hope that what we conjured up was a worthwhile window into the process of curation, of making digital worlds and in making and enjoying art. My internet connection was clearly not prepared to handle the unfathomable task of streaming video and sound from my computer, but I hear that it is certainly listenable and watchable. Someone also told me that the low frame rate creating somewhat of a 'slideshow' effect was "inspiring."

And also, just so there's no jump-scare about future Zium news, I do also answer the question of "Are you thinking or planning another Zium?" with a mighty "absolutely not!", and while the utterance was extremely satisfying to utter, in the same way that biting into the best slice of pizza you've ever had is satisfying, it is actually a better sign than there may be another one someday than if I had said "Yeah, maybe."

Oh, and since I forgot to share any information about myself during the talk, in terms of 'where to find me online', and so, if you'd like to keep up with other things I'm doing, have done, and/or otherwise, please visit www.pawsmenu.info and embrace "Website-ism" whereby we as a society abandon social media and return to website culture. You can also find information about The Zium here on itch.io as well as at www.thezium.art. Visit, or re-visit, the various Zium releases and in the best case scenario I hope you find something incredible to be inspired about.

All the best,
Michael Berto.
Curator