008 Meeting the Machine Half-Way

We are very pleased to introduce our final podcast of 2016,  from the study day Meeting the Machine Half-way, which has been developed by artists-in-residence Larry Achiampong, David Blandy and Gary Zhexi Zhang. Over the day, the artists were joined by curator Morgan Quaintance, gamer and artist Danielle Nelson (Zakuta/Izanami), journalist Evan Narcisse and researchers Carleigh Morgan and Nathaniel Zetter. This was also the last event of the Wysing Poly programme, for which we took the poly, or polytechnic, as a starting point to look at forms of alternative learning over all of our programmes in 2016.

008A Morgan Quaintance

Morgan Quaintance began the day with a presentation about arcade cultures in south London where he grew up and used arcades as a way of understanding his social milieu. Unfortunately, due to some technical problems, we've lost the first minute or so of Morgan's presentation. As the 2016 Cubbitt curatorial fellow, Morgan is leading a project with Larry and David to research the history of arcades in London. This concluded with an exhibition, Here Comes a New Challenger, at Cubbitt between 8 and 18 December 2016. 

Right-click to download here.

008B Gary Zhexi Zhang, Nathaniel Zetter and Carleigh Morgan

Gary spent a lot of his time at Wysing researching sensory interfaces, for a film called The Kernel Process so his interest in gaming was perhaps more outward looking. He invited Nathaniel Zetter a PHD candidate at Cambridge who is researching the perspectives used in video games and Carleigh Morgan, a PHD candidate at Kings, who is researching the cybnernetic sutures between bodies and machines.  

Right-click to download here.

008C David Blandy, Larry Achiampong and Danielle Nelson

One of the things that made working on this event so exciting is the deep love that Larry and David have for gaming. They are embedded in the scene, which makes them perfectly placed to guide the rest of us, particularly those who may not have played games in 15 years. In this third part, they talked to Danielle Nelson, a successful fighting gamer who Larry has known for years. Danielle goes by a string of pseudonyms in the fighting game world: Zakuta, Izanami and Bacon and is best known for playing the Tekken franchise. Larry and David asked her about her background in gaming and asked her to break down a few fighting games for us. 

Right-click to download here.

008D Evan Narcisse, David Blandy and Larry Achiampong

This final panel picked up from the conversation between Larry, David and Danielle and opened it up to a skype contribution from games journalist, Evan Narcisse. Evan is perhaps best known for writing an essay called "Video Games' Blackness Problem" and the conversation at Wysing went back to this essay, centring on race in videogames. 

Right-click to download here.