Wednesday, April 24, 2013

"Let's Play" at the Nightingale Cinema, April 25 2013 in Chicago.



Jake Elliott and co. are running a "Let's Play" themed event at 8:00 PM on Thursday at Chicago's "beloved microcinema", the Nightingale. What is the LP and what's interesting about the form? What's the difference between LP and machinima, and what happens when that line blurs? (Extra credit: play the Stephen Lavelle classic Rara Racer for further commentary of the LP genre.)

Daphny and Liz Ryerson (and me!), among other artists, have made new original videos just for the show. I think some are even doing live Let's Plays as performance (!!!) Personally, I had never recorded an LP before and it felt really weird to me... are the results compelling at all? Find out in Chicago, tomorrow! Full description and info pasted after the jump:

In 2004, Canadian author, filmmaker, and game designer Jim Munroe
published “My Visit to Liberty City,” a fictive travelogue set in
Rockstar Games’ “Grand Theft Auto III,” strolling through the seedy
intersection of JODI’s experimental machinima, Chris Marker’s
imaginary tourism, and Mary Flanagan’s critical play. Since then,
we’ve seen an explosion of the “Let’s Play” form on YouTube: videos
from the fanboy-to-media-historian spectrum recording themselves
playing through classic and contemporary games, always adding their
own commentary.

We’re thrilled to have Jim Munroe in person at this Nightingale event,
where he and several other artists will walk us through the videogames
they love/hate/love-to-hate, applying their own critical &/or
expressive frames, revealing ghosts in the original games that may
have been curiously buried, or eliciting ghosts not even present to
begin with.

Screenings and performances by:

Alfredo Salazar-Caro
Blanche Vivian Villarouge
Bruno de Figueiredo
Daphny Drucilla Delight David
Jim Munroe
jonCates
Jon Satrom
Kevin Carey
Liz Ryerson
Robert Yang