The Joy of Destruction

Backlit, Nottingham

https://backlit.org.uk/

In essence an exhibition exploring the relationship between computer gaming and art, mental health and different tribes.  It seems to have a strong link to Language of Pain research I'm contributing to and will share that thought, 

The Rebecca Allen video The Observer -Variation 2 (1999-2023) is the main influence, and which I experience as meditative.

Version 1 can be seen here (not viewed it yet)

https://vimeo.com/431943809

At this point I can only compare it's impact on me  to Sensations exhibition at the Royal academy that I went o see in 1997, albeit at a micro scale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensation_(art_exhibition)

e1 - Another snapshot of the Rebecca Allen video
e  -  other exhibits that were interactive with the visitor / user via Play Station style console or mouse click  

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Brochure extracts..

THE JOY OF DESTRUCTION Exhibition
 
The Joy of Destruction presents a series of environments that focus on the radical destruction of the many power structures found in mainstream gaming, world-building, and simulation.

 The exhibition celebrates Queer and Avant-Garde practices that engage in protest and resistance. The artists present various approaches in which they navigate through oppressive systems whilst simultaneously building new transformative spaces.
 
Through play and immersion, the artists allow us as an audience to experience and inhabit difference, alternative ways of being, and otherness.
 
Rebecca Allen The Observer (variation 2) 1999-2023.
 
Rebecca Allen is an internationally recognised artist inspired by the aesthetics of motion, the study of perception and behaviour and the potential of advanced technology. From the late 1970's, Allen was a rare female artist working in the early stages of computer design and digital technology. Her pioneering artwork, which spans four decades and takes the form of experimental video, large-scale performances, live simulations and virtual and augmented reality art installations, addresses issues of gender, identity and what it means to be human as technology redefines our sense of reality. Allen moves fluidly between artist studio and research lab, using her research to inform her art. Though widely recognised as a contemporary visual art medium, Allen was one of the first artists to utilise the computer as an artistic tool to make art involving human motion simulation, Al/artificial life algorithms and other generative techniques.
 
'The Observer' provides a contemplative environment that feels both natural and synthetic, familiar, and strange. It draws the audience into a world of moving abstract forms with their own rules of behaviour. And we as observers can see new ways of being.