David Blandy

Gathering Storm: Origins, 2023

Gathering Storm: Origins considers the international power dynamics that reach out from Geneva through microcosm, as players will devise a single extra-terrestrial community that models different modes of power and control. Create a community together through collaborative map-making and story-telling, as random prompts take us through a story that evolves towards a radical shift in control. The game facilitates a tale of resistance and making change, told through a culture based around one strange alien fruit. 

Several of the events described in the game are inspired by incidents in which Geneva-based corporations are involved. The writing and worlding takes on the language of Mary Shelley's Geneva-based Frankenstein. 

Developed for The Seashore of Endless Worlds. Art & jeux de société, Le Commun, Geneva, Switzerland. Curated by FTW: Christian Bili & Samuel Wagen-Magnon

Gathering Storm was originally developed on a residency at Delfina Foundation, London for The Politics of Food: Season Five, 2022; Supported by Gaia Art Foundation, an innovative non-profit that facilitates exchange across the fields of art, ecology, science and technology.

Gathering Storm events have been held recently at Untethered Magic, Nairobi, Kenya; Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK; Theatrum Mundi, London, UK and Sussex Digital Humanities Lab (University of Sussex), UK & Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK.

Forthcoming events:
Constellations: Racial myths, land, and labour
Esker Foundation, Canada, Curated by Su-Ying Lee
September 21-December 15, 2024
Opening Saturday 20 September, 6-9pm

Artists include: Carl Beam, David Blandy, Andrea Chung, Minerva Cuevas, Aria Dean, Inyang Essien, Andil Gosine, Deborah Jack, Dinh Q. Le, Candice Lin, Daniela Ortiz, Chanell Stone, Hank Willis Thomas, Jeff Thomas, Bo Wang & Pan Lu, Carrie Mae Weems, Connie Zheng

The research for Gathering Storm is also informing a new body of work, that will encompass a new film, game and a publication. The first events held were Alien Pastoral: The Strain - David Blandy, & Seeds, Part of the Serpentine Gallery Infinite Ecologies Marathon, London, UK, September 2024.

 THE SEASHORE OF ENDLESS WORLDS / ART & JEU DE SOCIÉTÉ

Venue: Le Commun, Genva, Switzerland,  Curated by FTW: Christian Bili & Samuel Wagen-Magnon

Considering gaming as a contemporary and global phenomenon, the exhibition The Seashore of Endless Worlds calls for social issues to be brought into play.

Artists and researchers work here using different definitions and uses of games to make sensitive and materialize the conditions and situations of the present: diversity, economy, environment, geopolitics, digitalization... Their games make it possible to expose and rethink in a dynamic and dynamic way, collective rules and common goals that shape society. Artistic proposals, activated during participatory workshops, invite us to grasp the sometimes ambivalent virtualities of the game as a critical tool and generative fiction to approach and engage the complexity of the world and its realities.

Artists: 0x Salon, Ahmed Isam Aldin, David Blandy, Joshua Citarella, Crude Futures, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Simon Denny, Andreas Dobler, Giulia Essyad, Axelle Grégoire, Half Earth Socialism, Olivia Hernaïz, Rok Kranjc, Paul Loubet, Finn Massie, Constanza Mendoza, Cullen Miller, Moving Castles, Nicolas Nova, Omsk Social Club, Sara Rutz, Kirill Savchenkov, Sammy Stein, Trickster-p, Ilaria Vinci, Elsa Werth, Paulo Wirz

Le Commun, Building J, 1st & 2nd floor, Rue des Vieux-Grenadiers 10, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland