SCREENING & in Conversation with Angela Washko
Aux Performance Space presents a series of work from the artist Angela Washko that investigates feminist concepts from within video games. In this particular series the artist focuses on World of Warcraft. WoW is a multi-player online role playing game where participants can play within four different realms of engagement giving the artist ample opportunity to interact with a variety of characters, as well as, forming her own guild ‘The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft’. In 2014 WoW reported having 7.8 million users making it one of the most popular online games to date. The popularity of WoW offers a unique look at a wide-ranging viewpoint for what Washko references as a research project in understanding feminism within online gaming culture. As a result, Washko’s research not only raises issues with sexism that is prevalent within gaming culture, but with today’s cultural climate as a whole. In addition to featuring four tracks from the series there will be a talk with the artist following the screening. We aim to talk about the many unrecorded experiences Angela had playing WoW, her previous to current videogaming practice, gaming as performance art and how her pursuits as a feminist leads into other videos and performances.
Angela Washko is a performance and video artist creating new forums for discussions of feminism where they do not exist. In 2012, Washko founded *The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft* as an ongoing intervention on communal language formation inside the most popular online multiplayer role playing game of all time. Washko is currently working on a public access TV show and performance persona around data sets she’s extracted from Bravo TV’s Millionaire Matchmaker and searching for women who have slept with notorious pick up artist Roosh V. She also does a radio show with her bff Ann Hirsch called A CUPS!
A recent recipient of a Creative Time Report commission, The Franklin Furnace Performance Fund Grant, a Rhizome Internet Art Microgrant, a Danish Arts Council Curatorial Research Grant and the Terminal Award, Washko’s practice has been highlighted in Frieze Magazine, Art21, Time Magazine, The Guardian (UK), ARTnews, VICE, Hyperallergic, Rhizome, the New York Times, The Creator’s Project, Dazed and Confused Magazine, Digicult, ArtInfo, Bad At Sports and more. Her projects have been presented nationally and internationally at venues including Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (Helsinki, Finland), MOD: Monitor Digital (Guadalajara, Mexico), Moving Image Art Fair (London and NYC), K11 Concepts (Shanghai, China), Interaccess (Toronto, Canada), the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Institute for Contemporary Art Boston and Foundation Vasarely (Aix-en-Provence, France) to name a few.
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 13TH 7PM
FREE
