Ghosts in the Machine: Experimental Variations on Play

Playing a game is an act of experimentation. Players learn by fumbling and failing with rules, trying things out and seeing what works. Through this process, players gradually come to understand a game’s limits, but they also learn something about the social and technical systems that structure their ludic encounter.

Thus it is no surprise that games have long been an inspiration for experimental filmmakers, who so often play with the limits of cinema. This program showcases a range of films that use games as a source of raw material, productively playing with the boundaries of both media forms. Starting with the live execution of videogame code, each successive film gradually alters in technological scope, including more of ‘the real world’ and less of the digital one. We end standing outside a real-life stadium.

Cory Arcangel’s Super Mario Movie (2005) hacks the original Super Mario Bros. (1985), turning it into a 15-minute short film that plays itself. Phil Solomon’s Rehearsals for Retirement (2007) morphs Grand Theft Auto into an abstract, lyrical encounter between the film camera and the in-game camera, while Peggy Ahwesh’s She Puppet (2001) takes up Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft as a site of feminine embodiment, frustration, and elliptical poetics. Natalie Maximova’s The Edge of the World (2021) tackles false fantasies of big-budget limitlessness in Cyberpunk 2077 (2020–present), and Kent Lambert’s Reckoning 3 (2014) provocatively highlights the shrinking aesthetic distance between Hollywood and video game blockbusters. Expanding to sports, Sondra Perry’s It’s In the Game ’17 (2017) considers the stakes of representation in art and NBA videogames. We end by apprehending (Tension Building, Ericka Beckman, 2014) and then leaving (Rams 23 Blue Bears 21, Kevin Jerome Everson, 2017) the football stadium – the game console par excellence. —Bret Hart

Super Mario Movie (Cory Arcangel, USA, 2005, 15 minutes, digital)

Rehearsals for Retirement (Phil Solomon, USA, 2007, 12 minutes, digital)

She Puppet (Peggy Ahwesh, USA, 2001, 15 minutes, digital)

The Edge of the World (Natalie Maximova, UK, 2021, 9 minutes, digital)

Reckoning 3 (Kent Lambert, USA, 2013, 11 minutes, digital)

It's in the Game '17 (Sondra Perry, USA, 2017, 16 minutes, digital)

Tension Building (Ericka Beckman, USA, 2016, 9 minutes, 16mm)

Rams 23 Blue Bears 21 (Kevin Jerome Everson, USA, 2017, 8 minutes, digital) 

Total running time ~95 minutes

Program curated by Kent Lambert and Bret Hart.