Video Vortex: Angelo Vermeulen programme

Angelo Vermeulen (BE) is a visual artist working with photography, video, new media and installations. He obtained a PhD in biology in 1998 at the University of Leuven (Belgium), together with a degree in photography at the Academy of Fine Arts of Leuven. After his studies, he moved to London to collaborate with Nick Waplington. Back in Belgium he became an artist in residence at HISK in Antwerp. His bio installations, experimental setups incorporating living cells, organisms and sci-fi references are his most well-known works. On eof his recent projects is “Drumlander”, a creative platform on game culture set up in collaboration with Canadian gamer and artist Louis Blackburn. He is preparing his first book on the relation between art, technology and spirituality in partnership with art philosopher Antoon Van den Braembussche.

ROADSIDE PICNIC GONE HAYWIRE
“This selection consists of a series of machinima clips showing bugs, glitches and breakouts in the computer game “S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl”. The game is situated in the radioactive zone around the nuclear reactor of Chernobyl and is loosely based on the novel “Roadside Picnic” by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky in 1977. The production of the game took over five years to complete, and was plagued by a seemingly endless delay of its release date. In March of 2007 the game was finally released, however it still contained many bugs and glitches. Subsequent patches have partially resolved them, but the game still contains a relatively large number of design flaws. Gamers have been recording these flaws for various reasons. Some show off by heavily editing the footage and adding music, and others use the footage to ask for help with a particular technical problem. In some clips the bugs are very obvious, in others it’s almost impossible to figure out what exactly is going wrong, and sometimes the player mistakenly posts a bug that is actually a functioning part of the game. Breakouts are a third kind of clip apart from bugs and glitches. They are unscripted routes that players discover where they can leave the predefined boundaries of the game for a virtual area that is not supposed to be accessible to the gamer. Gamers post breakouts to boast about their knowledge of the game and to share the information so others can go and explore these realms as well. All of these clips are examples of the game’s hypermedial approach and illustrate the tongue in cheek attitude of gaming subculture.”

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – break out of the level boundaries

S.t.a.l.k.e.r. Bug #1 – Radioactive death

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Bugged AI – Freedom massacre

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in “W.T.F. ?”

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is D.U.M.B.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. nOObs

S.t.a.l.k.e.r.: Flying Stalker

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: How to open the secret door without decoder!

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl – funny bug

STALKER – Some bug just make me angry.

Strange S.T.A.L.K.E.R. car glitch

The infamous Stalker Alpha Build 1154 flying car bug