Playing The Ground Itself by Everest Pipkin
with Cameron Kunzelman, Paolo Pedercini, and Angela Washko.
Friday September 30th, 7:30PM
Nicholas O'Brien will play The Ground Itself, one of the Tabletop Role Playing Games (TTRPG) made by Everest Pipkin on view at Voluntary Attempts.., live on Twitch with games writer and critic Cameron Kunzelman, game designer Paolo Pedercini, and artist Angela Washko (whose work is also on view in the exhibition). The Ground Itself is a world building and storytelling TTRPG where players use household items to create a specific place built up over time, tracing the ways in which a site can evolve and change. As Pipkin has stated about the game: "Fundamentally, The Ground Itself is about the echoes and traces we leave for others after we are gone."
Participants Bios:
Cameron Kunzelman is an academic and critic whose work revolves around science fiction, games, and the broader philosophical impacts that they have on our lives. His writing has appeared in Waypoint, Paste, Polygon, and Bullet Points. He is part of Ranged Touch, a critical analysis podcasting group that does longform shows on topics like Stephen King’s oeuvre, the Fallout games, and the Baldur’s Gate CRPG lineage. Kunzelman also co-hosts a show called Game Studies Study Buddies where he reads academic books of game studies and helps lay them out for a general readership.
Everest Pipkin is a writer, game developer and software artist from Central Texas whose work follows themes of ecology, information theory, and system collapse. As an artist and as a theorist, they fundamentally believe in the liberatory capacity of care; care not as an abstract emotion but rather as a powerful force that motivates collective work towards a better world. They hold a BFA from University of Texas at Austin, an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University, and live and work in southern New Mexico. They have shown and spoken at The Design Museum of London, The Texas Biennial, The XXI Triennale of Milan, The Photographers Gallery of London, Center for Land Use Interpretation, and other spaces. When not at the computer in the heat of the day, you can find them in the hills spending time with their neighbors— both human and non-human.
Paolo Pedercini is a game developer, artist and educator. Pedercini’s artistic practice deals with the relationship between electronic entertainment and ideology. Working under the project name “molleindustria” he produces videogames addressing various social issues such as environmental justice, religion, and labor and alienation. Molleindustria obtained extensive media coverage and critical acclaim while hopping between digital art, academia, game industry, media activism and Internet folk art. He has lectured in a wide range of venues, from the oldest squat in Rome to the venues like the Game Developer Conference, the Digital Games Research Association, Ars Electronica, The Centre Pompidou, and Cabaret Voltaire. Additionally his work has been exhibited internationally at festivals, galleries and museums including the Sundance Festival, the EMP Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Hammer Museum, Games for Change, Gwangju Design Biennale, Indiecade, FILE Brazil, LABoral, and ZKM.
As a feminist media artist working in a variety of forms, Angela Washko is committed to telling complex and unconventional stories about the media we consume from unusual perspectives. Her practice includes video games, interventions in mainstream media, performance art, video art, media installation, and documentary film. Angela Washko is an Associate Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University and has put a lot of hours into video games in her lifetime. Most played games: Medievia (text-based MUD), World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy 6, and Rocket League.