Square Eyes Festival

OPENINGSACT
Friday 20.00 hrs, saturday: continuous
Location: outside
http://www.recyclism.com/

‘It’s all in the game…’ opens with the oldest video game.
Friday Oct. 3rd, the festival and the exhibition start with a remake of the oldest commercial video game: ‘Pong’. This time not played on an old Atari, but projected on the town hall of Arnhem. In 2005 Benjamin Gaulon (IR) and Arjan Westerdiep (NL) programmed a new version of ‘Pong’. Their game uses the components of ‘Pong’ combined with real architectural elements. The edges of the building define the playing field. The ball, projected by a beamer on the building, will react to the architectural obstacles it meets, bouncing off the windowsills and doorposts.

FILM
Friday, Oct. 3rd, 22.00 hrs.
Saturday, Oct. 4th, 20.30 en 23.15 hrs.
Sunday, Oct. 5th, 15.00 hrs.

In this festival, Square Eyes focuses on the connection between games and film. With the development of the digital techniques, these two worlds come closer and closer, often even seem to merge into one another. Besides the technical aspects of digital film, attention will go to the characteristic visuals brought on by the games. In the film programme there will be animations, music videos, commercials and moving graphics.

A fine example of a movie inspired by games is ‘Braingames’ by Marieke Verbiesen (NL/NO). Her film she reverts to the old time 8-bit games. Accompanied by background music from Covox (SE) a story unfolds about people getting caught in a game on an ordinary working day.

Other films in the programme: MOTOR (UK), Michiel van der Zanden (NL), Shon Kim (US), Thorsten Fleisch (DE), and many others.

Probably the closest example of connections between games and films are Machinima: the word itself is a combination of the words ‘machine’ and ‘animation’. In these films the game environments are literally used as film set. In most cases, the Machinima get published on the internet. During the festival Machinima will be programmed at several moments.

Besides the films in the cinema, you can view continuously a large programme of internetfilms in the ‘Cube’.

LIVE CINEMA!
Friday, Oct. 3rd, 21.00 hrs.
www.karlklomp.nl

Live cinema acts will be performed in the cinema and the café, throughout the festival. Live cinema is a performance in which image and sound are created at that very moment. By manipulating soft- and hardware a unique experience is created every time.

A familiar face of Square Eyes will be present at this edition; Karl Klomp (NL). Together with Tom Verbruggen (NL), a.k.a. TOKTEK he will give a live-cinema performance. Klomp is a media artist, VJ (alias vj MNK) and theatre technician with a strong focus on videobending (the modification of electronic toys and old electrical appliances to do-it-yourself video instruments). He constantly tries to innovate the possibilities of the audiovisual techniques.
Where most electronic musicians walk along familiar ways and programme their live-sets mostly in advance, TOKTEK relies on his uncanny abilities to improvise. He can do that, because he builds and rebuilds his own instruments (circuitbending).

PERFORMANCE
Saturday, Oct. 4th, 21.30 hrs.
Location: cinema
www.gieskes.nl

‘Lots of sound made with home-made machines’ is a fair description of the work of Gijs Gieskes. He rebuilds computers, adds samplers, remodels soft- and hardware and uses computer and game-tunes in an overall experiment of image and sound. As a musician he is connected to the worldwide Micromusic movement, of which he is one of the most complex and fascinating exponent.

In the exhibition of AveCom is during the festival also an ongoing performance by Wannes Goetschalckx & Ruben Kindermans (BE)

DEMOSCENE
Havoc / Atari
Friday, Oct. 3rd, 23.15 hrs., Saturday Oct. 4th, 22.30 hrs.

Demoscene/ Adriaan Wormgoor
Sunday, Oct. 5th, 16.00 hrs.
www.demoscene.tv

The Demoscene consist of a group of people who manipulate games into real time films. This community, which exists mostly on the internet, occupies itself with computer art in the largest perspective. Their productions are not only beautiful to watch but also give proof of their abilities and skills in programming. During this festival Peter van Rijn, a.k.a. Havoc, (NL) will show some of his films made with old Atari’s, so prepare yourself for an overdose of old school images and beats!

Adriaan Wormgoor (NL), a former active member of the Demoscene, will put together a programme which takes the Demoscene into a broader perspective. In his programme he will present computer programmes that are much smaller than an empty Word document, but can produce presentations in image and sound for minutes long.

GAME
Friday, saturday & sunday, continuous
And, obviously, there must be games in this festival! We won’t make a selection of commercial games, no matter how good some of them are, but there are games we do want you to see and play.
‘Lost Levels’, made by Wouter Bijl (NL) and Jan Pol (NL) is a game that consists of a large compilation of webpages. It could happen that you get transported instantly from ‘Simcity’ tot ‘Space Invaders’. ‘Lost Levels’ is not only a game, but also a research in the archetypes of game environments.

In the game programme there will be games by: Marieke Verbiesen (NL/NO) en Golan Levin (UK).

DJ/VJ
Friday & Saturday, 23.45 hrs.
Besides VJ Lea, of the poorpussy collective (www.myspace.com/poorpussy) and DJ Dennis (game music), a variety of DJ’s and VJ’s will perform in the café during the festival. Check out the websites for the latest news!

www.squarey-eyes.org / www.myspace.com/square_eyes_festival / www.avecom.nl