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Jamin Warren founded Killscreen as well as Gameplayarts, an organization dedicated to the education and practice of game-based arts and culture. He has produced events such as the Versions conference for VR arts and creativity, in partnership with NEW INC. Warren also programmed the first Tribeca Games Festival, the groundbreaking Arcade at the Museum of Modern Art, and the Kill Screen Festival, which Mashable called "the TED of videogames." Additionally, he has served as an advisor for the Museum of Modern Art's design department, acted as cluster chair for the Gaming category for the Webbys, and hosted Game/Show for PBS Digital Studios.
Hi there.
I'm Jamon Warren and welcome to Kill Screen where we examine the future of interdisciplinary play.
So today we're talking with artist Sam Ganus on about his latest work, your golf course Made My GPU, which just opened at the I've Yang Gallery.
Here's, uh, something that you might not know.
The same Ultrapure Silica mine in North Carolina ends up in both microchips surrounding us and the sand traps at Augusta National Golf Club.
This is a geological coincidence, and that became Sam's entry point into questions about extraction, desire, and what our digital lives actually cost the Earth.
Sam was born Oman and now lives in Zurich and came to game engines through an unusual path.
As someone who was making games specifically, but someone trying to understand how everything today ends towards this game-like gamified process, he describes himself as actually being afraid of hardware.
You'll hear that at the beginning.
And his new work forces us to confront the physical reality behind all of our screens.
The work is really cool.
It's got this three channel video installation, silicone wafer sculptures featuring Italian Renaissance paintings.
And he's built what he calls, uh, a confession and an indictment asking what role any individual plays in these vast movements of material from mineral to binary.
Alright, let's get into it.
Okay, cool, cool, cool.
Um, so I, I think before we jump into, you know, your golf course, can you tell me a little bit about like your relationship to, um, I guess your, your relationship to, um, like games and game based technology?
'cause I know there's, there's a bit of that in this work, even though it's not explicitly a game, like some of the other things that you've, you've worked on in the past.
But yeah.
Can you tell me, um, about how conceptually this work fits in with like some other.
Uh, interactions that you've had with like games as a, as a medium, as an artist.
Yeah, I mean, I, I think maybe to be disappointing upfront, it's uh, don't have much of a relationship to games.
Because I got to games through software,
Uh, okay.
making my first games was making them an unreal engine, or not an unreal, sorry.
Wow.
In Unity, it was a way to make apps and the like ability to gamify them was something as a way to reflect on what it means to use software today and its tendencies towards gamification.
And so I'd rather see all of this within this big sludge of media more generally, the media that like.
Is, uh, we are, we are native to, that surrounds us, temps us that is accessible on one hand, but maybe black buffs on the other hand.
And so I, I'm interested more broadly in media, in the ways that that gets tangled up with that we tend to say are maybe a little more physical or more present or more spatial.
And, and so there's always that interplay.
And so as far as the.
The new project goes, it's still about that kind of culture of media, even if I'm not using the media directly.
And so tell various stories about how that media computation more generally and our spaces, our environments get rolled up into it.
And so, for instance, one moment of real gamification one of the stories I tell in this.
Um, this video your golf course made my GPU.
three stories.
One of them is about a sand dredger that the giant, giant Chinese company that makes this giant sand dredger says that it edits the map, right?
And so it's like using of games, of apps, of editability, of user, Uh, authorship more, more broadly and applies it to the scale of the earth in a scary way.
And so that, that is the, one of the ways, or one of the ways that both, um, that culture of media is present for all of us, and one of the ways that it's tangled up with the earth is a kind of giant environment.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, you're also asking, I think this has been, um, for people who play games, um, there is a, a real emphasis on like, newer, better, faster, um, you know, games are interesting because they're um, a medium that are very.
At least for video games, it's very, they're very bound to technology.
And so the things that are possible from, I mean, I guess the one nice thing about games is that oftentimes the things that are possible with games are, um, not just technology for technology's sake.
So, you know, advances in, um, you know, multiplayer games, like that's a function of you.
Increased internet speeds or like, they do all like enhancements in what happens with technology does open like new doorways to like doing new things with games in terms of creating persistent worlds.
Although I do think we're sort of at a little bit of a like end of history moment where it's like, I feel like we have enough.
Yeah.
don't, I don't think it's like, do games need to be like more realistic?
Do you need like, I, like, I, I don't think so.
I think we're like, I think we're good.
I think we're good for like another, another decade a Anyway, all this to say, I, I do think for people who, who play games, they're not asking these questions about like, where the technology ultimately comes from.
And it's very abstract.
It's extremely abstract in a way that, um, in a way that, uh, um, in a way, at least your, your, your work, you know, for this particular piece kind of forces someone to be like presently like engaged with what that means to, you know, have the newest PlayStation five or whatever that might be.
Um, yeah.
And I think more than, I mean, I think there's a big part of that work that has to do with like, it's.
Particular materiality.
So another example is a story of like, uh, very rare silica, this one specific mine in North Carolina that's a result of like geological effects from hundreds of millions of years ago, is used to make all these microchips that surround us all the time that enable all this capacity.
And at the same time becomes this, um, golf course or it becomes the, sorry, the, um, bunker or the sand trap in the premier golf course in the us.
And so there's a kind of story or a set of stories about how that stuff is super earthly and mineral and material and, and, and dirty in a way that we tend to overlook.
But the other side of that, that I think you're getting at as well is like, what is the extent, or, or what.
Yeah, how far will we go for things?
To what extent do we want to exhaust the earth for like, uh, Yeah.
like better graphics, like better GPUs that like, did this sound enables GPUs to get better compute on ai, et cetera.
And so, uh, it tries to bring that and make it a little more present because it oftentimes quite.
In the distant and, and then also covered up by marketing And uh, and these stories about like better and faster, or sorry, faster is always better or more is always better.
And is that really a narrative that holds up?
Sorry, I'm just gonna mute me.
No worries.
these notifications and everything.
I can't hear them if that makes you feeling better, No, but they're distracting me.
um, I, I mean, do you feel like, um, I, I guess I feel like, uh, it's a bit of, um, uh, what is the, what is the, what is the phrase, uh, what.
No, it's more that like, uh, like the technology pushes forward and then it's kind of like rec conned into.
It's rec con, it's utility is like rec conned into existence.
So it's like, we should make all this stuff, we should dig up the earth.
We should make, we need more, more, more, more.
And then like something good happens or you know, quote unquote good, that might be ai.
I, I guess I feel, you know, I don't know.
I mean, I guess I, I'm, I'm torn.
I'm.
I guess I, I feel like maybe, maybe it's different for engineers where they're, they're very clearly can see, like, there are certain things I would like to be able to do and we are bound by.
Um, I, I see the VR is like, a good, is like a good example.
Like there are just enhancements, um, enhancements with like lens technology that we do not have to do things with, you know, immersive reality that we would like to, or battery storage.
You can see like, oh, if we, you know, if we had this or that.
But I, I, I guess I, I, at the same time I'm like, I also feel like, um.
Those are, those are kind of explained like after the fact, like the sand's already out of the earth at that point.
It's not like we do like this research phase.
We're like, okay, here's how much we need and we should do this amount of extraction and that amount of extraction.
It's kinda like, no, do the extraction first and that, you know, that engine's already running and then we'll figure out what we're gonna use it for, use it for afterwards.
Um, but yeah.
I think you're bringing up another kind of sentiment I was trying to sneak in with this work, which is like this Yeah.
This sense of like guilty pleasure or uncertainty that comes with like, I mean, like, yeah.
I'm not saying I'm some standing on some moral high ground.
I, I'm struggling with the like temptations both for new things and for.
Fascinating things, but also like trying to like not look at my phone, you Yeah.
Yeah.
bit more.
And I think that's something we all struggle with.
Like what, what we'll give and what, yeah.
Trying to find a kind of artistic language for maybe dealing with that.
call it a kind of double bind.
Like you, you know, sometimes that something is happening behind the scenes, but you do it anyway.
the other thing you're mentioning is also, yeah, I mean, I think there's.
Something to be said about the capabilities we're able to achieve technologically, but then the money that like has put down on the table to make it happen or to Yeah.
keep, keep that whole machine turning in a way.
Do you feel like your, um, your background in architecture makes you, um, I don't know, cognizant of constraints?
You know, I, I was talking to someone another.
Architect and he was telling me that like, you know, for that, that line 2040 project, like the amount of steel that would be required if that came into existence is like more steel than like currently, currently exists on the planet.
And so you just like put this idea on paper and you pay your consultants and you pay your architecture firm and you do all these renders, but like is totally unmoored from like the actual like lived constraints of being on being on the planet.
So yeah.
I'm just wondering is like, did is, is that idea of constraints, is that something that, um.
I don't know, was informed by your, your background or your interest in in architecture.
No, I.
It's okay.
I might be imputing this.
no, no.
I mean, I think it's a, it's a fair assumption, but I think maybe that was, I mean, maybe there's something about constraints that not fit in so much in, in, in that kind of, uh, and maybe stand outside of that training.
And maybe this is why I'm an artist.
It's like I feel less found.
I, and I recognize maybe I'm, I'm talking about that sort of creative register and I think you're talking about it at a kind of like conceptual register of how we see our world a way.
Yeah.
I feel like I, I, I'm just, maybe, maybe the constraints part is not the most thing I relate to immediately.
No.
Yeah, no worries.
I, I find Um.
helpful, but they're not the things that I, I, I relate to immediately.
Yeah.
Um, for this particular piece, like process wise, um, can you tell me about like the do do, do, do, do your ideas like, um, are you coming across things that you see or read in the world?
You mentioned like, you know, coming across this Chinese sand drr.
Or, you know, sort of seeing, um, you know, sand traps in golf.
I'm just curious, like from a, uh, from a conception, because it's also, you know, it's a, a linear piece.
And so, you know, and there's different elements to it in terms of the, you know, the disembodied voices, this dialogue between these two different characters set against like, you know, this like multi-stage imagery.
But yeah, process-wise, like where did this project, kind of like, what was the, the initial seed or, uh, you know, seed of inception for, for this particular work?
I, I think it's a material and, and actually there was like a project before it, which was like discovering these silicon wafers, which is how I produce most of these prints or all of these prints, and wondering like, really, what is this material?
Because I don't think of myself as a kind of.
Guy that has any relationship to hardware.
Actually, Yeah.
scares me.
Like I'm, I'm, I'm really in the screen my laptop, like making something.
And so I, I was printing on this material, but like really struggling to understand everything about it.
One for one, like, you know, I get this thing called silicon wafer.
Is this whole thing a chip?
No.
Like, it has hundreds of chips, but how does it.
How is that produced?
So really just like digging into that and putting myself in an uncomfortable position and then recognizing this kind of this, this question I keep coming back to, but finding it in this context, which is like, oh, it's like it's this material, it's this material that become, that like enables the digital, but also enables this golf course is a really strange kind of coincidence.
And so I was.
Sam then became this kind of central element that I, I keep stumbling across because I, I think one of the things I try to get across in the video is how many different states it can take one.
As a kind of industrial pro Well, yeah.
As an industrial product.
Sure.
It can be like granule, it can be this quartz crystal if, again, naturally is formed in a different way.
Uh, I talk about that.
You know, you put it with cement and water, it becomes concrete.
Uh, you can make silicone out of it.
You can make.
I think it's found like in toothpaste and like, and all these strange things.
So it's these changes in states of matter made this like sand, this just giant thing that had these many stories that I was coming across and as I was discovering these stories, I was just collecting lots of things.
So that's part of the process as well, like whether it's collecting model 3D models and other contexts.
So in this case just videos and, and, and photos of just.
The labs that they make wafers in.
For instance, the woman in the dunes, if you know this film, this Japanese film, I love this one.
Um, and then in this process of collecting, it's always trying to find a kind of, um, what, what are the edges between these elements with conception, but also just very like materially and visually like, and so this is where this.
Building up or eroding of, of images, moving images on top of one another came about, um, printing on the wafers kind of continued through as something that was there from before, from the beginning.
This Right.
project.
Right, right.
Yeah.
I mean that printing on the wafers, that effect is definitely present in the, in the video work as well.
Like kind of the paying attention to like foreground and the background, like simul simultaneously.
I mean, I was also interested like the, the, the, um, like presenting sand as a, um, as a site of leisure.
Um, like, you know, golf is a leisure sport and.
It's always biking down, cycling down a sand dune or skiing down a sand dune or, um, and, uh, or seeing those, um, those beaches, where's the, uh, that palm frond, um, that palm frond?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean there's, uh, you know, again, it's meant to be like a place where you spend time and this transformation of this, like, you know, this site of leisure and this like a site of like productivity or a site of technological advancement.
This like transmutation of, of sand from one object to another.
I mean, you're totally right.
I, I just don't.
Like, as someone who sits on the computer all day, like I definitely do not spend a lot of time thinking about like the hardware, the hardware, the hardware itself.
Um, so you're certainly encouraging me to, to think more.
Please, please run.
So I don't have to think about the hardware existing.
I'm, I'm think one of the works I'm trying to think about now is like, maybe I should just make a chip that runs at the scale of deep time.
Like could hello world, take hundreds of millions of years to print Yeah.
would a chip look like?
Like to, like, maybe it would have to be like really thick and just have like.
A really long path to take to just print this one thing, like, I don't Oh right.
something like a delivery at the speed of geological time.
Right, because like so much of chip design is like trying to like, like put things in the right.
I, I'm, I, I'm I, this obviously a simple, a gross simplification, but there are like efficiencies to uh, definitely efficiencies to like how the board is constructed and how, how much speed you can get out of it.
So if you worked against that, yeah.
This like long, like deliberately, like deliberately expansive, uh, process for like turning on the computer and just getting that first command, like, uh, first command, like out the door.
Um, um, can you tell me a bit about the, um, uh, like how the, uh, the installation piece, how people have, like, responded to the video work with, to the installation?
And I, you know, obviously there's this backstory you have about having the piece like caught up in, in customs, um, which, you know.
Definitely feels like one of these, like not making this up, like could not think of a, you know, more on the nose, on the, no, on the nose, uh, like practical operational coordination problem.
Um, but yeah, in terms of like how you were thinking about the installation and, um, what you wanted people to kind of experience as they were, um, in interfacing with the multiple works around this same idea.
I'm not sure I have an interesting answer for this.
Hmm.
Um.
Yeah, I mean, I guess I, I kind, I return to this idea of like, states of matter.
How do you encounter these different states of matter?
And I like to think of the, the wafer works as portals and that's why I also, these frames become these important characters in them.
They're all made as, um, rings of sand in my studio that I scan and then print out.
And so there's this kind of clearing away of this dusty matter to reveal this.
Not quite otherworldly.
Scenario, but it's other worldly presentation of our, our earth.
These images are like constructions of, um, not re not constructions, but uh, reappropriation of images by bot and key characters have been erased and replaced by, for instance, the Dubai, uh, France, the Dubai Palm Island, Franz, um, Dm. Trademark is trademark, so There you go.
yeah.
the like, uh, lithography machine that costs hundreds of millions of dollars to and that, uh, uh, print those actual laers.
And so I was seeing them as a kind of series of portals this time around and, and it's quite weird, and this is quite different from how I usually present and construct work, which tends to be a much more environmental, like one that.
One is in the situation and uses the software, sits at a kind of furnishing that I made.
So that's what I'm more, uh, familiar with.
But this time I'm treating them really as Wall Works.
And instead the central piece is the video, which is a three channel, uh, video.
And, and because of that three channel and them being strung together and curving just a bit, they produce this kind of like horizontality that I was thinking of as horizon of the earth again, as this thing that.
Is beneath us and, and turning and, and kind of undergirds the whole, um, project.
And so it's, difficult for me to talk about it 'cause it's far, I don't wanna say Perfect.
than usual, but a little more Yeah.
environmental than Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, you'd mentioned that, um, in another interview that you empathize with sand, I think.
Um, and, uh, I was curious if you like being based in Zurich.
Do you miss, do you miss sand at all?
I, I mean, I, it is that, so, you know, it's not, it's not part of your, it's not part of the environment.
In which you currently are.
I live in Los Angeles, so like I do have the optionality, both desert and beach if I wanna get my hands on, on sand.
But yeah, as a, as a material like, you know, you are quite, quite far from it.
So yeah.
I was just curious if you have a personal, uh, I was just at the beach for 10 days, okay.
this is why we were, uh, this is our vacation.
No, I don't, I don't miss it.
I think for me, maybe the thing that's a little more poignant is like, um, don't notice how much it travels.
growing up I, I moved around a lot and I Yeah.
Yeah, pull out of sand yeah.
Yeah.
as well.
And culturally, there is some, I, I don't say it that I relate to it, but it's a kind of background that is not surprising to me.
And so.
Maybe that's a little more present for me somehow.
But then, you know, maybe, but maybe what this project has done is like helped me to recognize the way that.
A dust kind of accumulates around us and, and b, how present sand is otherwise.
So that's been really interesting and, and just how different sand is in different places, which is pretty dorky to say, but like when I was at the beach just last week, I was like, oh wow, like, it's so fine here.
Like it's Yeah.
I don't know.
It, it's, it's really dumb, but it helped me to see that material in a new way.
Um, yeah.
But then thinking about the places I lived, you know.
On the one hand, there's this kind of trope of it being kind of tabular Raza, right?
Like sand is nothing there.
But you go camp in the desert, and I remember the last day camping when I was in middle school, we went in on a class trip and I, you know, just had the sand, or not sandbags, the sleeping bags out in the desert up, like picked up my water bottle and a scorpion was underneath it.
So it's never, nothing.
Is there Yeah.
Yeah.
something, is there something, was there a long time ago?
And that should be applied to anywhere we go.