Past event — This event ended 7 days ago.
Ayoung Kim - Total Refusal - 2girls1comp – Ultra Club: Game Day
About the event
A full day dedicated to the encounter between videogames and performing arts, where digital languages and contemporary artistic practices intertwine within a multidisciplinary programme. Ultra Club: Game Day is an opportunity to explore video games not only as entertainment, but as a critical, political, and creative space. Through interactive simulations, live performances, workshops, talks, and showcases, the audience is invited to immerse themselves in universes that reflect on transformations of labour, social dynamics, and the aesthetics of the present. The event brings together artists, collectives, researchers, and independent platforms, creating an ecosystem in which experimentation and participation become central.
h. 14:00–19:00 @Galleria delle Vasche
Parcours and Showcase
An exhibition and performative space dedicated to independent video games. The parcours hosts showcases, live sessions, and project presentations, offering the audience the opportunity to explore new productions and emerging languages. Among the participants are also the students of the Accademia Italiana Videogiochi (AIV), who will present their works in a professional and open-to-dialogue context.
h. 14:00–17:00 @Vasche Talk Space
Modding Workshop – 2girls1comp
A hands-on workshop dedicated to modding, understood as a form of artistic and critical intervention on video games. The duo will explore how to intervene in game code and logic to create new narratives and performative happenings, highlighting the social and economic implications of the video game industry.
Participants are required to bring a recent Windows laptop.
h. 15:00–17:00 @T1
DELIVERY DANCER SIMULATION – Ayoung Kim
Game simulation – approx. 12 min
An interactive experience that transports the audience into a futuristic, labyrinthine version of Seoul, where they take on the role of a rider in the gig economy. Through an immersive simulation, the work reflects on the precarious conditions of contemporary labour, the gamification of capitalism, and the difficulty of empathising with the invisible dynamics that govern these systems.
h. 17:00–18:00 @T2
Talk with Matteo Lupetti, Federica Di Pietrantonio and Daniela Cotimbo
A moment of discussion and in-depth reflection with artists, curators and professionals in the field. The talk offers a critical perspective on contemporary practices at the intersection of art, video games and society.
h. 18:00 – @Vasche Talk Space
DELIVERY DANCER’S SPHERE – Ayoung Kim
Screening – approx. 25 min
A film that expands the narrative universe of the simulation, constructing a dystopian Seoul governed by algorithms and optimisation logics. Across parallel realities, time loops and multiple identities, the work explores algorithmic labour, hyper-surveillance and possible relationships in alternative worlds.
h. 18:30 – T2
RED REDEMPTION (live performance) – Total Refusal
A tour inside Red Dead Redemption 2 that analyses class relations and the economic mechanisms of capitalism through NPCs and digital environments. The performance turns the video game into a tool of social critique, revealing the invisible structures that govern the world.
h. 18:30 – T2
WORLD AT STAKE – Total Refusal
A film shot entirely within sports video games, subverting the logics of competition and performance. Through absurd situations and suspended scenarios, the work reflects on contemporary political impotence and the collapse between action and observation.
