The Games People Play - North

The Games People Play
a group exhibition
curated by Yannis Generalis & Gordon Froud
INTERIOR WORKS
*alphabetical according to artists’ names
**exterior works to follow
Alexander von Klitzing
“A game is a system, in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by
rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome.”
Games today have become a means of escaping from reality; this artwork is
a showcase of this conflict.
Escaping from one game into another is a concept of realty versus fiction.
Reality to me seems like a sphere or womb that one needs to peer through or
break away from when creating art, meaning, what is and what is not reality
cannot be defined by society as it is a perception of an individual rather than
the collective. It’s a game one plays with oneself, unhinging the mined to allow
for a flow of unconscious and conscious moves, in order to transform and
shape the truth into a new state of existence. These pieces represent different
aspects of conscious awareness referring to an escape of acceptability. Signified in this case as a spherical ball in a state of liquid, the figures are in different
stages of contact with reality. Escaping, drifting and treading consciously as
well as unconsciously, therefore, breaking the realistic state of “I have engaged
in this conflict of creation, defined by rules set out by the masses. And this
creation of mind, body and clay is the quantifiable outcome of the game I have
immerged myself in.”
WORKS
Tagesträumer
Das Treiben
Belinda Leontsinis
Leontsinis explores occurrences in society and questions their sincerity. From
a play on dietary fads and seaside fashions, to obsessions with environmental
issues… Are these things fads, or real concerns to us all?
WORKS
Banting and Bunting
Losing My Religion
Tea in the Nursery
Headhunting & other trophies
Spode must fall
Colin Cole
Collin Cole is an artist living and working in Johannesburg. He is both a painter
and printmaker, currently focusing on the Intaglio processes.
Collin’s art is largely autobiographical. “It is both a response to and a reflection of my personal life. In my work I strive to create idiosyncratic mythological
narratives which I source from my personal experiences, contextualized within
both national and world events that influence me”.
He is presently collaborating with fellow artist Dina Kroon. Dina’s inspiration
emerges through focusing on the intersection between printmaking, photography, graphic design, and sculpture.
WORKS
Luck of the Draw (Collab with Dina Kroon)
The Manhattan Project
Yes/No Pill
Derek Zietsman
WORK
Games People Play
Dirk Bahmann
My creative process is deeply entrenched in games. These games form both
myself and the work during the process of bringing it into being.
At the commencement of the project, a series of rules and guides are established in an attempt to steer the work into a direction of conceptual clarity.
However, as the project begins to develop, the work becomes wilful and
seeks to assert its own identity. The waters are muddied and any sense of
clarity is lost and distorted. Rules are broken, unholy alliances are formed, deceits emerge and are believed. At the end of this game what emerges is never
what was intended but rather something that is the result of series of tactical
manoeuvres and strategic regroupings that always result in a new set of unintended rules and guides that dictate the direction of the work.
These transactional rules become a means to navigate the confusing and
conflicted process of making. This fluid armature allows one to clumsily traverse and transact in the space between thought, between waking and dreaming and a means of reflecting a space that remains hidden, mostly inaccessible
and mysterious.
For this particular project I wish to map and attempt to chart my inner dialogue and experience through the process of creating a sculpture on my current trajectory. Through this, I wish to expose the manner in which the game
is played: the cheating, the changing of the rules and the stalking of the prize.
WORK
Connection to Place (Home)
Eric Duplan
….the last blow to end pain, to create a new cross road, a rebirth.
WORK
Coup de Grace
Gawie Joubert
In this work Joubert explores the construction of identity, focusing on the portrayal of self and the games people play as individuals within their identities. It’s
usually a wistful, wishful desire of being able to construct the self from organic
components as opposed to social conventions and constructs, which dominate our movements and choices.
The skeleton is freed from the layers of social imposition and expectation
and we clad it back with very specific ideologies. Thus it becomes a game in
changing our identity to be something specific we want people to portray us
as; the power of our own choice. These abstract portraits show organic material in resistance with the forced forms of the person. They portray the idea
that no matter how organic we think the game of identity is, it will always be
constructed through norms.
The symbolic use of feathers, mushrooms and the fork are details (memories/
experiences) from Joubert’s personal life that are being dragged along into his
adult identity that came from his younger self. These details will seldom be revealed to others but will always drag along and never be forgotten, and so the
game continues on a daily basis.
WORKS
Arachnonailophobia
Imposed Identity III
George Holloway
My works are a response to the biggest game: life. Life, from the beginning of
time, the span of my living years.
“Watching” in the center of the maze is about life, the spectator sport. Kids
watching each other on the playground, boys watching girls, watching boys
and all of our ‘Gods’ spectators on their creation.
“Couch Potato” is about the couch-bound life specialist/spectator. One who
is removed from the ‘game’ by choice, but has an opinion on every move by
any player in the game.
“Time Line” is merely an overwhelmed response to the sense of my miniscule
role in the vast expanse of time.
WORK
Couch Potato
Gordon Froud
WORKS
No matter how you paint it, it fits together
Black is the new black
Izanne Wiid
Newton’s cradle – ‘Newton’s balls’/’Executive Ball Clicker’, a pendulum named
after Sir Isaac Newton, a device that demonstrates conservation of momentum
and energy via a series of swinging spheres. Action demonstrates that the final
ball receives most of the energy and momentum that was in the first ball, with
the impact producing a compression wave, temporarily storing kinetic energy
as potential energy in the compression of the material.
Pendulums are used to study collisions of suspended bodies, demonstrating
the principle of the law of impacts between bodies.
Office toys are playthings that could provide pleasure, relieve stress and inspire creativity; executive toys have been treated as an important role in employer management in many companies.
In popular culture the body is being used to constrict social codes, being recognized as the principal arena for the politics of identity, as well as a facilitator
and marker of belonging, becoming the perfect executive toy
…If no one meets the chairman’s plane, heads will roll.
The wooden skulls were used in the 2014 Nirox ‘Play’ exhibition, then thrown
away, without consent, to make ‘space’ for new sculptures by Nirox Sculpture Park Management, but were finally restored from the ash heap they were
dumped on.
‘Play’ Sculpture:
‘Mancala’
Mancala is an ancient family of board games played around the world, also
called ‘sowing’ or ‘count-and-capture’ games. The word mancala comes from
the Arabic word naqala, meaning literally ‘to move’.
Rules: With a two-rank board, players usually are considered to control their
respective sides of the board, compromising of six holes, also referred to as
‘depressions’, ‘pits’, or ‘houses’. Playing pieces are seeds, shells and stones.
The objective of the game is ‘CAPTURING and SOWING’…and the turn ends
when the last seed in a sowing is dropped in an empty pit…and the game
ends when the player has lost all his/her seeds and/or he/she cannot move
anymore.’
WORKS
Newton’s Cradle
Sondebok
Jaco Sieberhagen
Morabaraba
Morabaraba is accessible and easy to learn, and games can be played quickly, but the strategic and tactical aspects of the game run deep. While Morabaraba may be played on specially-produced boards (or computer software), it
is simple enough that a board can easily be scratched on a stone or into sand,
with coins or pebbles used as the pieces. The description below is compatible
with Mind Sports South Africa’s “Generally Accepted Rules”.
There are three main phases to the game:
Placing the cows
Moving the cows
Flying the cows
Placing the cows
The board is empty when the game begins. Each player has 12 pieces, known
as “cows”; one player has white cows and the other has black cows.
The player with the white cows moves first.
Each turn consists of placing a cow on an empty intersection on the board.
The aim is to create a “mill”: a row of three cows on any line drawn on the
board.
If a player forms a mill, he or she may remove or “shoot” one of the opponent’s cows. The shot cow is removed from the board and not placed again. A
cow in a mill may not be shot unless all of the opponent’s cows are in mills, in
which case any cow may be shot.
Even if a move creates more than one mill, only one cow can be shot in a
single move.
Moving the cows.
After all the cows have been placed, each turn consists of moving a cow to
an empty adjacent intersection.
As before, completing a mill allows a player to shoot one of the opponent’s
cows. Again, this must be a cow which is not in a mill, unless all of the opponent’s cows are in mills.
Players are allowed to “break” their own mills.
A mill may be broken and remade repeatedly by shuffling cows back and
forth. Each time the mill is remade, one of the opponent’s cows is shot. Of
course, by breaking the mill the player exposes the cows which were in a mill
to the risk of being shot by the opponent on his or her next turn.
In the “Generally Accepted Rules” published by Mind Sports South Africa, a
mill which is broken to form a new mill can’t be formed again on the next move.
Flying the cows
When a player has only three cows remaining, desperate measures are called
for. This player’s cows are allowed to “fly” to any empty intersection, not just
adjacent ones.
If one player has three cows and the other player has more than three cows,
only the player with three cows is allowed to fly.
Finishing the game
You win if your opponent cannot move.
You win if your opponent has just two cows.
If either player has only three cows and neither player shoots a cow within ten
moves, the game is drawn.
If one person cheats then the other one wins by default.
WORK
Volgende Skuif
Jan van der Merwe
My works incorporate found objects, images, and junk materials that have
been discarded. At present I work with artifacts of our time and try to transform
them into archaeological relics, revealing human pathos and weakness. The
rusted surfaces suggest scarring and vulnerability. In our attempt to confirm
our identity in this volatile climate, we rearrange and reconsider the meanings
of banal events and objects. I try to create a poetic moment, an opportunity for
contemplation, reconsideration, humility and respect.
Time Out suggests the concept of being driven into a corner; the bottled up
frustration of an ordinary person who is stunted in his or her efforts of expression, perhaps through misuse of power. These power play games are often
already evident in the classroom, but become more menacing when they are
played by grown-ups. The work becomes an opportunity to reflect and review.
WORK
Time Out
Kevin du Plessis
I met Madame Heinz on Mariatorget 1A in Stockholm, Sweden. She was getting out of a black Mercedes and strutted right past security down the stairs
into a basement club called King Kong. “Release the Gayrilla in you”, it read.
She had it all: Glam, sky high heels, glitter tits, hips, ass... Then her ball popped
out and I met Carl Stefan Alexander Boström. He was nice too.
WORK
Madame Heinz - “We’re born naked, the rest is drag”
Louise Kritzinger
The photographs are a documentation of an outdoor installation taken over a period of three
months. People were encouraged to engage with the outdoor installation by playing and constructing with the materials provided. This photographic installation deals with the outcome of the
‘playful’ interaction of the viewers. In a sense, the game they were playing.
The outdoor installation was a large heap/dump of sand resembling the familiar landscape of the
gold mining industry. The greater part of the West Rand has been ripped apart by the gold mining
industry. What was pristine Highveld grassland a mere 130 years ago is now a wasteland. The
earth is ridden with mining tunnels filled with Acid Mine Drainage. Travelling to Potchefstroom,
travellers will pass through this deformed landscape relating to the game of moneymaking, which
happens at the cost of the environment.
Significantly, the game of moneymaking or self-enrichment does not stop with the ravages of the
earth, as this very earth is sold for urban development or industrial purposes. The very heart of Johannesburg is built on former mines. The installation formed a ‘micro-landscape’ of this massive
industrial landscape. An uncompleted city was constructed by the artist on top of the mine dump
with block moulds. These same materials (shovels, a wheel barrow, water and moulding blocks)
were provided for the viewers to change and alter the sand dump as they wished.
Interestingly, the outcome was always the same – viewers would destroy the ‘mini city’ by trampling on the dump and seldom create new structures. During the three-month period, the artist
would regularly re-construct the dump and city for new viewers. The viewers continued to break
down the dump. Notably, people mimicked the outcome of the real landscape in this micro-landscape, by destroying what was pristine and leaving behind a ravaged site.
Man has in his quest for wealth transformed a landscape rich in ecological diversity into a poor
and toxic environment. Yet, in this very same environment we have to survive in future. The game
of self-enrichment is one of short-term gains and synonymous with the game of destruction.
WORK
The Game of Destruction
Lőthar Bottcher
WORK
“Momenent”
Lucas Thobejane
Soccer is one of the sports that start at the centre of the field with two players
from either side. For me, I have chosen the human body to be the centre of the
ground where the players have to start to play.
Rugby sports is where we heard a lot about who must play and the way
in which players must be chosen to play for a national team. Some brought
politics into sports, but for me two people holding on to one body symbolises
togetherness and I’m wishing the Springboks good luck, let them bring home
the cup.
The guitar player is about the player who entertains people in all corners of
South Africa. He plays guitar like ringing a bell. He always wears overalls and
dances in a monkey-like fashion. The music is used to gather people together
in the name joy.
WORKS
Soccer
Rugby World Cup
Guitar Player
Michael Meyersfeldt
WORKS
Two Girls in a Car
Party Time
Rendezvous
Neil Nieuwoudt
The root idea behind Mirror World I & II is the idea of the twin universe, the one
forever mirroring the other and the gossamer connection between the two, one
representing the conscious or waking world, the other the subconscious or
dream world. Both these worlds are being perpetually created by our actions.
A result of the “games” we play. Consequences. These paintings or objects
become the symbols or artifacts that stand between the two worlds.
We find truth in the sphere that exists between these realms of fantasy and
reality.
Both are as real as the other one, depending on your perspective. We are
inclined to believe the strongest or more vivid one, or the one that leaves the
stronger impression. It is the same as with someone’s opinion on religion, politics, sex, and so forth.
Yet there exists an oneness between the two, a connection, regardless of which
side we choose to believe.
Video: Exploring the infinite relationship between the self and the other. The
ambiguity and difficulty within relationships that exist between the Self and the
Other. How we interpret and misinterpret relationships based on biased and on
how intimate relationships become.
The coming together and parting, the “oneness” and sameness, familiarity
and strangeness of such [especially] intimate relationships. Forever, “infinitely”,
changing and in the process of becoming or unbecoming.
This can also become a metaphor for the complexities of becoming and unbecoming, the growth and estrangement, of the Self with the self.
WORKS
Mirror World I
Mirror World II
Infinity (video installation)
Richardt Strydom
This work addresses the notion of cultural masochism. Hegemonic cultural
practices are often perceived to be inescapable and may lead to an internal
masochistic conflict between belonging and dissent. A young adolescent is
incapable to perform the physical challenges expected of him. His personal
motivational laments becoming a mantra of his fated desperation and failure.
The original audio and visuals are taken from television documentaries.
WORK
Dwang
St.John Fuller
A children’s game re-worked. Top Trumps is a game of cards. Each card contains a list of numerical data, and the aim of the game is to compare these
values to try to trump and win an opponent’s card. Traditionally stats of cars
or planes were given. For this set I have given scores for how white people are
perceived amongst black people. These are on the whole negative impressions, negative impressions that I have not made up. These are impressions
that I have asked people about and then noted what they have said. On the
whole, my intention was to find out what exactly is thought about white people. If we really want to find out then we have to go and ask what is being said
about us on the cards.
WORK
Die ouBaas
Vusi Beauchamp
WORK
Control
Yannis John Generalis
In a progressively smaller world where it seems that the preoccupation, condition and purpose of human existence is the imposition of meaning for modern
lives which might appear dull and routine, games have come to bear more
meaning than otherwise expected.
What defines a game is the fact that a series of moves culminates with a
snare, or “gimmick” as analysed by Eric Berne in his book, “Games People
Play” in 1966. Intriguingly so, Berne claimed that it was because of the lack of
intimacy in our modern lives, that people play games - both actual games and
psychological games. Hence, games become both necessary and desirable,
making the dramatic feature of any game the actual “payoff”.
In my work I consider the psychology of our ‘online lives’ and the easy accessibility of not only information but deferred emotion. As our own relationship
with the web has evolved, it appears some games are played to exploit or even
fight off sexual impulses. The game is, in effect, a mere perversion of the sexual
instinct in which the satisfaction is displaced from the sexual act to the crucial
“transactions” of playing.
‘Game play’ itself has become the pay-off of the game. The uncertainty of
the game coupled with the safe distance of the online arena, allows the players
as well as any spectator to play with meanings, from the comfort of their own
chair, worlds apart. The spectacle of images from a computer screen reduces
experiences into benign games that stream into a unity from which real life
cannot recover. Fragmented views get regrouped into ever separate, yet inexhaustible, pseudo worlds, that are undeniably seductive to look at and easy to
get addicted to.
Beyond the game itself, in this body of work, I explore the addiction to playing games.
Vice versa I consider the impact of these addictions to the “transactions”
within the very game.
In this sense I’ve taken “screen grabs” or photo stills from a video feed as
my reference for drawings that are presented as “fetishy” renditions in rubber
frames or shiny collages of cigarette silver paper and sticky-paper stars. Images which I sketch as a quick narrative, a minimalist story board of the “game”
being played on screen.
I use charcoal, ballpoint, Chinese ink and pencil. The colouring is done by
using nail-varnish enamel. The inclusion of the 3-dimensional catapults for this
show is a metaphor for the urgency of the online sex game.
The regulated manner, in which the game provides release in a pseudo world,
is driven by powerful instincts that are otherwise repressed in civilised society.
Berne predicted, rather chauvinistically with reference only to the heterosexual
male fetishist: “Analysis of his games may help the player establish a “quiet
manage” which will leave him (otherwise) free to enjoy the benefits that bourgeois society offers.
Despite the fact that a few of Berne’s notions have been challenged since the
publication of his book and many of the social norms of the day appear offensive and outdated 50 years on, many of his ideas about transactional theory
are still applicable today. Observing online behaviours of the games people are
playing, proves that Berne fails only in his lack of understanding that human
behaviour is the same despite sexual preference.
In a constantly upgraded, automated, mechanised world we increasingly run
the danger of perceiving these games, especially if they are related somehow
to the darker subconscious forces within, as ideal forms for the production of
meaning.
WORKS
Meaningless Games: Solitaire II
Meaningless Games: Twister
Meaningless Games: Monopoly
Meaningless Games: 3st
Meaningless Games: Risk
Meaningless Games: Domino
Meaningless Games: Master Mind
Meaningless Games: Trivial Pursuit
Meaningless Games: Solitaire I
EXTERIOR WORKS
*alphabetical according to artists’ names
Angus Taylor
In practice the gatekeepers were made to unnerve the viewer, to create restlessness through recognisable symbolism and make them more aware. Traditionally, gatekeepers are seen in the form of dragons, lions, gargoyles, etc,
placed outside city gates or doors. These characters can be seen as naughty mythological beings containing icons and symbols which form part of the
collective consciousness of most cultures throughout history and around the
globe.
I made two hybrid gatekeepers, one personifying the more ancient dogma
and belief, and the other exploring some more contemporary ideologies.
Gatekeeper I: Keeper of the Ancient
The symbolism woven into the ancient version includes various original
iconographies, which paved the way towards iconic symbols utilized today.
One such example is the Mesopotamian incarnation of Noah called Dagon (of
which relief sculptures still exist today). The fish head worn as hat has over
time developed into the bishop’s miter we know today. If one were to turn the
pope’s hat towards the side, there is a resemblance to the head of a fish. The
crooked staff in his left hand was carried by the Roman Augurs and was used
by to point at flight patterns of birds and clouds in order to foretell the future
and wishes from the gods (according to the British Dictionary, this is also the
base from which the word “inaugurate” stems from, which in Latin means “to
take omens, practice augury, hence to install in office after taking auguries”).
This later became the lituus still carried by the pope today.
The sculpture also contains references to beliefs in the god of nature, also
called pantheistic or pagan beliefs, and these references are made through the
goat legs and horns. On his chest is the all-seeing eye of God which he blocks
with his right hand. In his left hand one will notice that the pinkie-nail is longer
than the rest. This is a reference to the Chinese practice of keeping those nails
longer in order to distinguish the aristocracy from the working class (as they do
not work with their hands). In recent years this is referred to as the “coke nail”
or “pimp nail” in hip-hop culture, referring to someone who either “does cocaine, is in actuality a pimp, or wants to portray the image of one or the other.”
The Pan-figure is standing on a celestial globe decorated from images drawn
by the Dutch map maker Jodocus Hondius from 1615. However, the globe is a
three-dimensional relief sculpture made from Hondius’ two-dimensional representation. Around the globe is the serpent Ouroboros, which Plato referred to
as the first living thing which references the cyclic nature of life – which stands
in stark contrast to the linear Western conception of History.
Gatekeeper II: Keeper of the now
The second, more contemporary gatekeeper is standing on a globe which is
mapped with the current geographical topography of the earth as we know it.
However, a second layer adorns this globe, containing fragments of mathematical equations, both imprinted and embossed onto the surface. These equations are descriptions of Ouroboros, as well as the The Higgs boson particle
(also known as the God Particle) and string theory (which is actually also quite
similar to Oroboros).
This sculpture contains many references to contemporary beliefs and current
ideological belief systems. The peaked cap is a loose reference to ZCC (Zionist
of Christ Church) from Polokwane, Limpopo. On his one shoulder is an altered
reference to scientology, while the other is adorned with a lotus flower – one of
the many symbols of Hinduism. The sculpture also references religious wars,
which is represented through the crooked missile under the figure’s arm. The
missile is crooked and bent, clutched like a soft-toy, completely disregarding
the serious nature of that which it implies.
The cape he wears is adorned with elements from different flags, such as the
stars and stripes from the US flag, circles which are associated with Asia. The
figure is holding a more contemporary lituus in his right hand, and in his left
hand a hybrid incense burner-satellite, which references modern technology,
communication and the internet.
Chris Reinders
I have spent most of my working career in the book industry and started making art in 2013. I have read and researched fairly extensively in the fields of
psychoanalysis and mythology. My artwork is mainly informed by my interests
in human relationships and interactions, social, political and environmental issues, and the human psyche in general.
WORKS
Poetic Justice I
Poetic Justice II
Poetic Justice III
Poetic Justice IV
George Holloway
“Watching” in the centre of the maze is about life, the spectator sport. Kids
watching each other on the playground, boys watching girls, watching boys
and all of our ‘Gods’ spectators on their creation.
WORKS
Watching
Jungle
Gordon Froud
WORK
House of Cards
Sybrand Wiechers
It is your first, truest and most boundless toy and it should be your last. Play with yourself!
WORK
My Favourite Toy
Yannis John Generalis
WORK
Meaningless Games: Ketty