Everything, David OReilly

Digilogue is hosting world-renowned animated filmmaker and game programmer David OReilly in its second exhibition, “Everything.” The exhibition, which focuses on OReilly's latest video game Everything, also features a selection of the artist's award-winning films.

Everything, which offers a game-like exhibition experience, is on Digilogue Space at the Zorlu PSM until July 3rd.

Location

Zorlu PSM

Date

10 May 2018

Tags

David OReilly creates an interactive world where players can explore many possible existences, a game where you can be anything you want! And your only purpose is “to be”. Whether you choose to become a microbe inside a plant, an island, a camel in the desert or a mighty galaxy, Everything aims to transform game-playing into a practice of digital psychodrama.

“You can get a certain vision of life, where everything is seen, to be a complex pattern of rhythm.  Dances. The human dance, the flower dance, the bee dance, the giraffe dance. And that’s what this all is its Jazz, you see.  This is a big jazz this world and what it’s trying to do is to see how jazzed up it can get. How far out, this play of rhythm can go.”  Alan Watts

Renowned for interpreting Eastern philosophy for Western audiences; the late great British philosopher Alan Watts’s recordings narrate the game. Alan Watts’s familiar voice combined with 4-hour soundscape composed by Ben Lukas Boysen & Sebastian Plano from the inspirational Erased Tapes Record Label, enhances the atmosphere of the game adding more weight to the new hype of ambient gaming and its connection to ambient soundscapes. Role-playing becomes a powerful tool for gaining insight on the interconnectedness of nature; tackling unprecedented existential questions where gaming shifts into a guided meditation. Utilizing video games as an art medium O’Reilly continually probes gray areas in between ‘what it means to play’ while agitating the core of popular video gaming functions based on competition, success and reward.

The exhibition will include a PlayStation set-up for visitors to engage. Alongside the game, a selection of David OReilly’s movies will be on display.

Artist and Film-maker OReilly states that the very fabric of the game’s thought system is interwoven via multicultural philosophers such as Schopenhauer, Roman stoics like Marcus Aurelius & Seneca and American poet Emerson.  These thought bubbles and texts that pop up in random parts of the simulation propose questions such as ‘what is the meaning of all of this’ urging the player to yet another practice of self-observation and mindfulness.  O’Reilly not only depicts life as a game but seeks for awareness while playing it!

David OReilly Retrospective include films; RGB XYZ, Octocat Adventures, PLEASE SAY SOMETHING, Black Lake, THE EXTERNAL WORLD, +62814256, HER Video Game Sequences, Adult Swim: CHILDHOOD + BOMB, HEAVEN’S COUNTRYLAND, The Horse Raised by Spheres, NDA, Mountain Trailer, Everything – Game Play Film.

The exhibition will be on view from 11 May to 3 July at Digi.logue Space – Zorlu PSM.

Digilogue